15. Aladdin Sane

       


           Aladdin Sane has always been regarded as Ziggy's slightly inferior companion piece. Written in the main on tour in the States during the latter part of 1972, and released in the April of the following year, it was very much 'Ziggy goes to America' ,and English stylisation of American sounds, ideas and images.
            Aladdin Sane represented a definite step towards a harder, punchier sound. "It was almost like a treading-water album . But funnily enough, in retrospect, for me, it's the more successful album, because it's more informed about rock ' n' roll than Ziggy was", remembers Bowie.
            The Aladdin Sane character itself was a schizoid amalgamation, and the music reflected this fracturing down. Kent Scott remembers that,at the time, Bowie's own personality was undergoing series of quick- fire changes.
            Most of the Aladdin Sane album was written on the road during the autumn of 1972. Bowie himself was unsure of what direction to go in : " I kind of knew that I had said all that I could say about Ziggy, and what I'd end up doing would be "Ziggy Part 2"
            Speaking in 1993, Bowie told the BBC about the mythic quality America had at the time: " I don' know how much of a culture shock it is now....But I think for us back then, going to America was it. It used to blow us away. It was our own language, but it was this other world... Suddenly my songs didn't seem so out of place. "
            As with Ziggy Stardust , the cover shot for the album was as stylish as it contents. The album cover, a head-and-shoulder shot of Bowie with hair dyed reddish-orange and a painted thunderbolt splitting his face in two, is one of the most eye-catching and alarming ever made. The divine thunderbolt hinted at Bowie's continued fascination with the deification of pop idols. It split the face, and by implication the psyche , in two. Bowie didn't look like anything resembling a human being at all. The shot turned his physiognomy into a sort of tribal death mask, a shaman for the 1970s. When the album hit the shops in the spring of 1973, the cover was as startling  as rock  cover ever got.

Track list:


Side one

1. "Watch That Man" 4:30
2. "Aladdin Sane 5:06
3. "Drive-In Saturday" 4:33
4. "Panic in Detroit" 4:25
5. "Cracked Actor" 3:01


Side two

6. "Time" 5:15
7. "The Prettiest Star" 3:31
8. "Let's Spend the Night Together" 3:10
9. "The Jean Genie" 4:07
10. "Lady Grinning Soul"  3:54


            Aladdin Sane was recorded in New York and London,in January 1973. ' The Jean Genie' had been recorded for single release the previous November and was remixed by Ken Scott for the album. " It was done to be a big hit...Yeah,it's cute,but it's not one of my favourites. "
            The song was, of course, a homage of sorts, as Bowie reveals : "The Jean Genie was an ode to Iggy ".
            The single became Bowie's biggest seller to date, peaking at Number 2 just after Christmas. For the single release,MainMan funded Bowie's first ever promo,which was filmed over two days in San Francisco , starring actress Cyrinda Foxe,to add,as Rock says, "some local colour".  Foxe was a famous scenester and star of Warhol's film  Bad. David Bowie was now in love with Cyrinda and Angie had a new lover,Billy Doll.

            Drive-In Saturday , the second single off the album, was vastly superior, and it and Rebel rebel  are his finest glam-era singles.

            Time is one of his most successful songs from any period + five minutes of weird perfection. In the middle section Bowie heavy breathing, brought to the fore in the mix by Ken Scott, sets up a wonderfully overwrought tension to the melodrama. In the 90s, Suede would source this sort of Bowiesque moment on tracks such as The Power and The Beautiful Ones . This was always one of Ken Scott's favourite Bowie tracks.

            The beautiful ballad Lady Grinning Sould is,for Bowie, unusually sensual. Its direct, intimate appeal and lush mix, with twelve-string guitar and almost latino piano part, provide and unusually emotional and sexual ambience.

             The pivotal song on the album,though, is the title track, the clearest indicator of how Bowie was trying to free himself from the confines of rock. Mick Garson, his new pianist, was one of the main inspirations. Garson was on board and he would remain with Bowie for the next three years. Bowie was becoming jaded with pop / rock and,in Garson, he saw a talented, eccentric musician who he could learn from. It is no surprise that Bowie's experimental phase started with Aladdin Sane .

            Another track, the opener, Watch that Man ,has baffled fans for close on three decades. The question on most people's lips has been a simple one : "where the hell is David Bowie?" . Buried beneath a wall of glam-rock freak-out, the lyric is almost inaudible.

            Cracked Actor is one of my personal favourites, I love the live variants, and the way Bowie plays his role on stage.

            Panis in Detroit has an unique sound,and expresses David Bowie's fascination with the city.

            

            Aladdin Sane well and truly established Bowie as a major- league pop star, in the UK at least. On its release in April 1973, it debuted at the top of the UK charts. The album was Number One for 5 weeks.