David Bowie - Aladdin Sane (1973)

"Aladdin Sane" is the sixth album by David Bowie, released by RCA Records in 173. It was the first album Bowie wrote and released as a bona fide rock star.

"Ziggy Stardust" wrote the blueprint for David Bowie's hard-rocking glam, and "Aladdin Sane" essentially follows the pattern, for both better and worse. A lighter affair than "Ziggy Stardust", "Aladdin Sane" is actually a stranger album than its predecessor, buoyed by bizarre lounge-jazz flourishes from pianist Mick Garson and a handful of winding, vaguely experimental songs. Bowie abandons his futuristic obsessions to concentrate on the detached cool of New York and London hipsters, as on the compressed rockers "Watch That Man," "Cracked Actor," and "The Jean Genie." Bowie follows the hard stuff with the jazzy, dissonant sprawls of "Lady Grinning Soul," "Aladdin Sane," and "Time," all of which manage to be both campy and avant-garde simultaneously, while the sweepingly cinematic "Drive-In Saturday" is a soaring fusion of sci-fi doo wop and melodramatic teenage glam. He lets his paranoia slip through in the clenched rhythms of "Panic in Detroit," as well as on his oddly clueless cover of "Let's Spend the Night Together."

Tracklist

01.  "Watch That Man"  (Bowie)  - 4:30

02.  "Aladdin Sane" (1913-1938-197?)  (Bowie)  - 5:07

03.  "Drive-In Saturday"  (Bowie)  - 4:36

04.  "Panic in Detroit"  (Bowie)  - 4:27

05.  "Cracked Actor"  (Bowie)  - 3:01

06.  "Time"  (Bowie)  - 5:14

07.  "The Prettiest Star"  (Bowie)  - 3:31

08.  "Let's Spend the Night Together"  (Jagger, Richards)  - 3:10

09.  "The Jean Genie"  (Bowie)  - 4:06

10.  "Lady Grinning Soul"  (Bowie)  - 3:52

 

Personnel

David Bowie - guitar, harmonica, keyboards, saxophone, vocals

Mick Ronson - guitar, piano, vocals

Trevor Bolder - bass

Mick "Woody" Woodmansey - drums

Mike Garson - piano

Ken Fordham - saxophone

Brian "Bux" Wilshaw - saxophone, flute

Linda Lewis - backing vocals

Juanita "Honey" Franklin - backing vocals

G.A. MacCormack - backing vocals

Notes

Released:  13 April 1973

Recorded at:  Trident Studios, London; and RCA Studios, New York and Nashville

Genre:  Glam Rock

Length:  40:47

Label:  RCA

Producer:  Ken Scott, David Bowie