4.David Bowie (1967)

Bowie's first album was released on 1 June 1967,and it's undoubtely,the most bizzare album of his entire musical career.

Completely unloved by the public and seemingly a source of some mbarrassement to Bowie himself,David has never included it in any of the subsequent official reissure campaigns.Despite this,amazingly,it has,in a minor way,been an influence on the work of Britpop bands in the mid- 1990s,particularly Blur.

In this albm,Bowie showed a predilection for writing three-minute narrative vignettes,depicting the worlds of a succession of 'little men' ( and women ),set in a bygone age,suning in a style which owned little to the traditions of rock'n'roll or the blues.

Content:

Uncle Arthur

Sell me a Coat

Rubber Band

Love you Till Tuesday

There is a Happy End

We are Hungy Men

When I Live my Dream

Little Bombarider

Silly Boy Blue

Come and Buy My Toys

Join the Gang

She's Got Medals

Maid of Bond Street

Please Mr. Gravedigger

After reading the content of the album,I'm sure you noticed the childish titles,and I'm not amazed that Bowie isn't too proud of it!

When I have firstly listened to this album,I wasn't too impressed either,it sounded rather boring and,as I said before,childish.Now,after many listenings,I find it quite interesting and well..still childish.It is very musical,it has a lot of folk influences ( it may sound a bit like some Simon and Garfunkel).He used a juxtaposition of instruments traditionally associated with pop - acoustic guitar,piano,bass guitar and drums - with those from music hall and classical music,such as tuba and trumpet.

And why all these references to wartime heroes and failed love affairs set in a bygone era of penny-chews,threepenny suibs,Scotch Emulsion and ringworm in the clasroom?Other Bowie biographers have said that Bowie was haunted by the tales of derring-do the part of mentally unstable ancestors in the Jones faimly.

All in one,the album sounds very happy,and my personal favourites are: Silly Boy Blue,Sell me a Coat,She's Got Medals,We are Hungy Men,Little Bombardier..and well..I guess I like all of them.

She's Got medals is Bowie's first song about cross-dressing and sexual ambivalence .

In Join the Gang he combines a further attack on drug use;the city is viewed as a corrupting influence :it has lost its innocent charm in a sho =w of conspicuous consumption and excess. " This is what to do now that you're here/Sit down doing nothing altogether very fast"

This Bowie album is already peopled by starlets - the idea of life as theatre and of the cinematic qulity of everyday life,a theme that was later to become central to Bowie,was also beginning to manifest itself (Maid of Bond Street)

The album's looniest moment is saved for the end.Just when you think you've survived an all-out attack of the barking mad,and just when you think Bowie couldn't actually get any sillier,the last two and a half minutes or so rereoute his weirdeness on to a new plane of daftness."Please Mr Gravedigger" is Bowie's very own 'death disc' . Bowie narrates the story of a child-murderer,who watched the gravedigger at his work and who plans the latter's death so that he won't tell the police of the murders.

David Bowie's first recordings demonstrates a particular fascination with modifying his basic singing voice through the use of multi-track octave doubling ( a second voice part,an octave above the first,recorded and often harmonised with the original vocal line) and a variety of studio tricks to disort the timbre of the vocal or to alter the speed of vocal delivery ( The Laughing Gnome,for instance).

Bowie's first album and singles,although now adored by some, ( :D ) were all commercial failures.Had he been starting out today,he would almost certainly never have become a rock superstar,and would quite possibly never have had a career in music.He would probably have been dropped well before he'd had time to develop his act,find his voice,and set out his agenda.Today,the likes of David Bowie are simply not allowed to exist.