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

(11) David Bowie - Young Americans (1975)

"Young Americans" is the ninth studio album by English musician David Bowie, released in 1975 and showing off Bowie’s 1970’s “obsession” with soul music.
David Bowie had dropped hints during the "Diamond Dogs" tour that he was moving toward R&B, but the full-blown blue-eyed soul of Young Americans came as a shock. Surrounding himself with first-rate sessionmen, Bowie comes up with a set of songs that approximate the sound of Philly soul and disco
For this album, Bowie let go of the influences he had drawn from in the past, replacing them with sounds from “local dance halls”, which, at the time, were blaring with lush strings, sliding hi-hat whispers, and swanky R&B rhythms of Philadelphia Soul, Bowie is quoted describing the album as “the squashed remains of ethnic music as it survives in the age of Muzak rock, written and sung by a white limey”.
What does hurt the record is a lack of strong songwriting. "Young Americans" is a masterpiece, and "Fame" has a beat funky enough that James Brown ripped it off, but only a handful of cuts ("Win," "Fascination," "Somebody up There Likes Me") comes close to matching their quality. As a result, Young Americans is more enjoyable as a stylistic adventure than as a substantive record.

Track listing

1.  Young Americans  (Bowie)  - 5:10
2.  Win  (Bowie)  - 4:44
3.  Fascination  (Bowie, Luther Vandross)   - 5:43
4.  Right  (Bowie)  - 4:13
5.  Somebody Up There Likes Me  (Bowie)  - 6:30
6.  Across the Universe  (John Lennon, Paul McCartney)   - 4:30
7.  Can You Hear Me  (Bowie)  - 5:04
8.  Fame  (Bowie, Carlos Alomar, Lennon)   - 4:12

Released:  7 March 1975
Recorded at:  Sigma Sound Studios, Philadelphia, Electric Lady Studios, New York
Genre:  Funk, rock
Length:  40:32
Label:  RCA
Producer:  David Bowie, Harry Maslin, Tony Visconti

Personnel
David Bowie – vocals, guitar, piano
Carlos Alomar – guitar
Mike Garson – piano
David Sanborn – sax
Willie Weeks – bass
Andy Newmark – drums
Larry Washington – conga
Pablo Rosario – percussion
Ava Cherry – background vocals
Robin Clark – background vocals
Luther Vandross – background vocals
John Lennon – vocals, guitar, backing vocals
Earl Slick – guitar
Emir Kassan – bass
Dennis Davis – drums
Ralph MacDonald – percussion
Jean Fineberg – backing vocals
Jean Millington – backing vocals