cdm72's Full Review: Station To Station (Ryko) - David Bowie Movies
A Little Backstory
My fascination with Bowie started because of STATION TO STATION. Well, to be honest it started with Stephen King and his 1992 short-lived TV series GOLDEN YEARS. Bowie's "Golden Years" was played during the show and I was hooked. I thought "Man, what a great song." And that was it. Then one day I was looking through my mother's husbands CDs and I came across an interesting little thing called CHANGESBOWIE. Hmm, I'd heard of this Bowie guy, but mostly just his LET'S DANCE stuff and his song on the CAT PEOPLE soundtrack. I turned it over to see what was on it and, Hey there!, it's that song I wanted, "Golden Years". I taped off the song I was after, and through "Fame '90" on there as well and spent the next few hours listening to those two songs over and over. A couple of weeks later, my friend Mike and I were out buying music and I saw CHANGESBOWIE in the rack. I grabbed it, and started building my collection right then and there. I suppose if I ever had the good luck to meet Stephen King, I might just thank him for hooking me on the Bowser.
Or maybe I should thank my mother's (now ex-) husband for buying CHANGESBOWIE instead of STATION TO STATION cuz, to be honest, if this record had been my first real exposure, I probably would have stopped right there. This is one of those records you really have to listen to a lot before you truly appreciate it.
A Little Bit About the Record
Normally, when a record is as all over the place musically as is Bowie's 1976 STATION TO STATION, that diversity of styles can give the record a certain discordance and thus is born a failed record. Not so with Bowie. STATION TO STATION is, musically, all over the place, but Bowie has also somehow managed to give the songs a certain undersound, making them all belong on the same record, taking all of these different song types and making them truly his.
Fresh off the success of his "Young Americans" and "Fame" singles, Bowie came back in '76 with one of his most interesting records, the 6-song STATION TO STATION, still a bit in the soul of his previous record, but now taking it as far into BOWIE territory as he can. The bass and drums are still heavily mixed, keeping this further in the soul arena than rock, but that's where it stops. The single "Golden Years" is a disco tune with a heavy doo-wop influence and a rock backbone, while "Word on a Wing" avoids being termed a rock gospel track by sheer luck. "TVC15" is a straight trip, "Stay" is rock and roll (the groove on this song is deep and infectuous and the last half of the song is all guitar solo), and "Wild is the Wind" is a ballad in every sense of the word. The title track however . . . I'm not sure WHAT Bowie's got going on there. At 10:08 it's not only the longest album track in Bowie's catalogue, it's also one of the hardest to classify. I can hear soul in there, but the guitar track is rock and the tempo is disco if ever I heard one. And the lyrics, well they're classic Bowie.
"The return of the Thin White Duke
Throwing darts in lovers eyes
. . .
It's not the side effects of the cocaine
I'm thinking that it must be love
. . .
It's too late to be grateful
It's too late to be late again
It's too late to be hateful
The European Man is here"
While I'm not 100% sure of it, I'd say it looks like Bowie had done away with a band and was using session musicians for the recording. Aside from Carlos Alomar on guitar, I don't see any names I recognize, nor that I ever saw afterward. Roy Bittan on piano, Dennis Davis on drums, George Murray on bass, Warren Peace on vocal, and Earl Slick on guitar prove Bowie doesn't need the Spiders anymore to make great music. Come on, like his last 2 records didn't prove that as well.
This is really a crooner's record anyway, not so much a band record. Bowie's vocal performances on here are among some of his strongest, belting out tunes like "Word on a Wing"
"Lord I kneel and offer you my word on a wing
And I'm trying hard to fit along your scheme of things"
and the classic "Golden Years"
"Some of these days, and it won't be long
Gonna drive back down where you once belonged
In the back of a dream car, twenty foot long
Don't cry, my sweet, don't break my heart
Doing alright, you've gotta get smart
Wish upon wish upon day upon day
I believe, Oh Lord, I believe all the waaaayyyyyyyy".
I've read somewhere Bowie wrote this song for Elvis. Interesting.
He's always been one of the forerunners in the "artists reinventing themselves musically" arena. From folk rock on his first couple of records to straight rock on the next set, on to soul on YOUNG AMERICANS and now this completely different from anything else style, this soul/funk/rock hybrid, combining these different types of music on such a deep level it really does create something unlike anything else. I was only 4 at the time, so I have no idea what other records were being released in '76, but I can almost guarantee you none of them sounded like STATION TO STATION.
Bowie is not a great singer. He's not a great musician. He's not a great songwriter. The great ones are great most of the time with only a few slip-ups, but, let's be honest, Bowie is probably about a quarter mishaps, a quarter greatness, and the other half is for the middle of the road good enough to not suck material. No, Bowie's not great at any of those things all the time, but I'll tell you what he IS great at. Bowie makes a GREAT STAR. There's something about his presence and when he starts performing a song for you, it doesn't matter WHAT comes out, you know you're going to sit there and listen. If Bon Jovi tried a record like this, they'd be laughed off the stage. But Bowie manages because he's not a rock star, he's a straight STAR period, and has proven on countless occasions that he can do anything he wants and still succeed damn near every time. That's what I like to see in my influences.
A Little Bit About the Ryko Edition
As with most of the other Ryko reissues--ALADDIN SANE aside--STATION TO STATION contains a couple of bonus tracks. This time they've included a live version of "Word on a Wing" and "Stay". And what do these tracks prove? That Bowie's not a studio product like I believe a lot of musicians are, he can go on stage and give you an equal, if not even BETTER, performance of a song as vocally demanding as "Word on a Wing" and still walk away the victor.
You don't have to like Bowie, and you certainly don't have to like STATION TO STATION--Hell, for years it was one of my least-played Bowie records--but with records like this under his belt, you can't deny Bowie's star quality, nor his right to be considered among the greats.
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