laura10801's Full Review: Aladdin Sane [Remaster] by David Bowie
I just got this on CD for the holidays. I put it on and danced around singing the way I did when I was 16 years old. Hips shaking, layers of clothing disappearing as I worked up a good sweat. I’ve been a Bowie fan since high school and I’ve had this album on LP for years, but I have long stopped listening to records. Oh David! You are still the One.
This album must have sounded weird back in 1973, when it was first released, because it really does not sound dated today. That has always been the magic of Bowie, he doesn't really fit into one time period, and back in the seventies everything he did was way ahead of his time.
This was Bowie's follow up to Ziggy Stardust, and there is a loose, but visible concept to it. Decadence and decay, and questionable and blatant sexuality reign in this period of Bowie's work. This album is loaded with upbeat songs that have surprisingly sad and poignant lyrics. Check out the words to "Panic in Detroit", a funky guitar driven song with a killer drum, in which most of the world has been destroyed and someone commits suicide. Or, how about "Time," which almost sounds like a show tune because it is so dramatic. It is also intense and more than a little unsettling as Bowie emotes about the cruelty of time.
No one can sit still for "Watch That Man," one of the songs Tommy Hilfiger used in his recent ad campaign. You just have to dance, or at least tap your feet. The chorus is so catchy that if even if you have not heard it before, you will sing along with it by the end of the song. Yet, this is about a party, which is freaking the narrator out.
The title cut, "Aladdin Sane” is a lush, sensual song, filled with romantic yet decadent images. All supported by the smooth sensual music, steady, yet building in intensity until the piano is riffing unsettlingly.
This is definitely not an album for the prudish. "Cracked Actor" makes no bones about its sexuality: "Suck, baby, suck. Give me your head before you start professing that you’re knocking me dead." Bet that raised eyebrows back in 1973! How about Jean Genie, probably the most well known song on the album, the throbbing base, the vocals, harmonica and guitar building in intensity. This is about sex, not romantic sex either. However, "Lady Grinning Soul," while also very sexual, is more gentle, it seems sweet and romantic.
I won't get into describing every song, but I have to mention one more cut on this album, a cover version of The Rolling Stones' "Let's Spend The Night Together." I am sure to catch hell for this, but I think it blows the original away! Wildly fast, killer guitar riffs and pounding piano and drum: this is punk or new wave, years before anyone conceived of them. This song is more than a request to spend the night together; this is a done deal.
If you have not heard this album all the way through, get up right now go to the record store and buy it. No, don't wait, don't order it on line, it takes too long to be delivered, go buy it right now. This is one of the great ones.
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