Line #25 AwesomeMusic/DavidBowie


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3	%% Administrivia/ZeroContextExample entries are not allowed on wiki pages; all such entries have been commented out. Do not uncomment them without expanding them to explain what makes these tracks awesome. A video link is not context. An adjective or two is not context. WHY are these songs awesome?
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5	[[AC:Music/SpaceOddity]]
6	* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYMCLz5PQVw "Space Oddity"]], his first hit. If that's not enough, how about [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaOC9danxNo "Space Oddity"]] performed in space! [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYYRH4apXDo For those who have the video blocked in their country.]]
7	* "Cygnet Committee". EpicRocking at its best, in ''1969''.
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9	[[AC:Music/TheManWhoSoldTheWorld]]
10	* The TitleTrack is powerful and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSH--SJKVQQ sends chills down one's spine (in the best way).]]
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12	[[AC:Music/HunkyDory]]
13	* This album isn't called a masterpiece for nothing. Often called the album where Bowie "truly becomes Bowie", it houses a number of renowned classics:
14	** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v--IqqusnNQ "Life on Mars?"]] is nothing short of melodic perfection.
15	** Just ''try'' to get [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pl3vxEudif8 "Changes"]] out of your head. It's impossible!
16	** [[https://youtu.be/n--Ro4-hNbo "Andy Warhol"]] shows us the amazing guitar duo of Mick Ronson and David himself, and a memorable chorus. God only knows why [[Creator/AndyWarhol Andy]] hated this song...
17	-->Andy Warhol looks at Scream\
18	Hang him on my waaa-waaaaall\
19	Andy Warhol, silver screen\
20	Can't tell them apart at all\
21	Aaaall\
22	Aaaaaaall
23	%%** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBQ-S6njQQw "Oh You Pretty Things"]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDetQ18fw5Q "Rebel Rebel"]] all warrant your attention.
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25	[[AC:Music/TheRiseAndFallOfZiggyStardustAndTheSpidersFromMars]]
26	* The entire Ziggy Stardust era is magnificent, and this album is the apex.
27	** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRcPA7Fzebw "Starman"]] is a cheerful rock tune with a catchy riff and a melody reminiscent of [[Film/TheWizardOfOz "Somewhere Over the Rainbow"]].
28	** "Suffragette City" is ''loads'' of energetic fun. All together now: ''[[IntercourseWithYou "Awwwww wham bam thank you, ma'am!"]]''
29	%%** Special mention goes to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWm03wYBTbM "Five Years"]] and the more or less eponymous [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXq5VvYAI1Q "Ziggy Stardust"]], while [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jg4ekLG9Zo "Rock 'n' Roll Suicide"]] is phenomenal even by Bowie's standards.
30	%%** And because we couldn't resist, here is [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFDj3shXvco "Moonage Daydream"]] of ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy2014'' fame.
31	%%** "Hang On To Yourself" is considered proto-punk for a reason!
32	* This rendition of [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unuo-fdhbXs "Ashes to Ashes"]] is made even more awesome by a few things: the absolutely bitchin' guitar solo (one guy on rhythm AND bass simultaneously) that dominates the last half of the song. And the fact that, on a call-in/request concert, this was the song requested by a ''5-year old boy''. Yeah. Get 'em started early.
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34	[[AC:Music/AladdinSane]]
35	* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fHoMw8tCzo "Lady Grinning Soul"]]. Bowie meets [[Film/JamesBond Bond]], complete with epic piano solo intro performed by Mike Garson.
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37	[[AC:Music/YoungAmericans]]
38	* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-_30HA7rec "Fame"]]. Funk-tacular. Having Music/JohnLennon on backing vocals certainly helps.
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40	[[AC:Music/StationToStation]]
41	* ''Station to Station'' in its entirety is regarded as one of Bowie's finest albums, if not his absolute finest.
42	** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpIhsGg2SJ0 The opening title track]] is a ten-minute epic influenced heavily by ProgressiveRock bands like Music/{{Genesis\|Band}} and {{Krautrock}} bands like Music/{{Kraftwerk}}, with an [[UncommonTime unusual 10/4 time signature]] (usually sounding like a bar of 4/4, a bar of 2/4, and a bar of 4/4) for much of its running time. It goes through several stylistic changes before the {{disco}}-influenced final segment (which, incidentally, provides a convincing rebuttal to arguments that disco was necessarily musically regressive). Overall, it's one of the most invigorating tracks of his career - if it doesn't get your blood pumping, check your pulse to make sure you still have one.
43	** "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGuu7NiALvo Stay]]" could be the funkiest track any white man has ever recorded - granted, both drummer Dennis Davis and bassist George Murray were/are Black, and his rhythm guitarist Carlos Alomar is Puerto Rican. Alomar and lead guitarist Earl Slick trade off licks on top of Murray and Davis' funky rhythm section and Bowie's Mellotron to create one of the most infectious grooves of his career.
44	** ''Station to Station'' closes with [[https://youtu.be/8Bkf_X0Uv6g his cover]] of "Wild Is the Wind", originally performed by Music/JohnnyMathis for the film of the same name, but Bowie was inspired to cover it because he was an admirer of Music/NinaSimone's [[https://youtu.be/QznS9wp4KVw recording]] (and of her work more generally). Even though he didn't need her permission (Dimitri Tiomkin and Ned Washington were the songwriters), he still took her out to dinner to ask her permission to record it. His soulful cover was one of the best vocal performances of his career; he himself regarded it as his finest.
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46	%%[[AC:Music/{{Low\|DavidBowieAlbum}}]]
47	%%* ''Music/{{Low\|DavidBowieAlbum}}'' has a lot of highlights, but [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IevwLPV86os "Subterraneans"]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Gy94N_mcWs "Warszawa"]] stand out. Among the vocal pieces, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoDamvrfUbQ "Sound and Vision"]] is well loved with good reason.
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49	[[AC:[[Music/HeroesDavidBowieAlbum "Heroes"]]]]
50	* "We could be [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kyk7tOiGgZU "Heroes"]]! Just for one day..." While it was ignored when first released as a single, it is now widely recognized and beloved. It's now a candidate for David's SignatureSong, and for good reason. To bolster just how awesome this song is, David's live performance of it on June 6, 1987 at the Reichstag in West Berlin has been cited as a catalyst toward the fall of the Berlin Wall just two years later. After David's sudden death in 2016, the German government thanked Bowie for "helping to bring down the Wall", adding "you are now among Heroes". Now ''that'' is awesome.
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52	%%[[AC:Music/{{Lodger}}]]
53	%%* Highlights include [[https://youtu.be/TP4WoA7rBoU "African Night Flight"]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgPUxjQOk-w "D.J."]].
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55	[[AC:Music/ScaryMonstersAndSuperCreeps]]
56	* The album is well enough loved that it's become a reviewer cliché to describe Bowie's latest album as "his best since ''Scary Monsters''" (much as Music/BobDylan gets the same treatment with ''Music/BloodOnTheTracks''). Particular highlights from the album, beyond [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YF_ESqYuhSQ "Ashes to Ashes"]], include the EpicRocking "Teenage Wildlife", the title track, and both parts of "It's No Game", but it's really hard to go wrong with any of the album's ten cuts.
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58	[[AC:Music/LetsDance]]
59	* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4d7Wp9kKjA "Let's Dance"]]. When Bowie gives an order, the world listens. According to the official book chronicling the Serious Moonlight Tour, when the song became a hit women all over Europe bought red shoes, causing shortages in stores, so they could be ready for dancing!
60	* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmLowvnCvRk Cat People (Putting Out the Fire)]] of ''Film/InglouriousBasterds'' fame is an oddly haunting/upbeat track.
61	%%** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4xpdaIZyzs The rerecorded version]] for the ''Let's Dance'' album.
62	* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoDh_gHDvkk "Under Pressure"]]. A breathtakingly uplifting collaboration with the great Music/{{Queen\|Band}}.
63	* Watch this performance of "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hDbpF4Mvkw Modern Love]]". Bowie's sheer exuberance is electrifying.
64	* Much of Bowie's post-''Scary Monsters'' output in TheEighties is dismissed, but there's gorgeous stuff there too.
65	** In particular, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTYvjrM6djo "Blue Jean"]] and "Underground" can leave you dizzy with delight.
66	** So can [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_8IXx4tsus "China Girl".]] The deconstruction of [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaGAJ1l3uRU "China Girl"]] that appears on the ''VH1 Storytellers'' album almost seems like a comment on Bowie's eighties, and still manages to be awesome in its own right. Beginning with a pure TearJerker anecdote about life in Berlin in TheSeventies, and then the song itself starts almost like a cover of Music/LouReed's "Music/{{Berlin}}" before morphing into Music/IggyPop's original punky version, building and building until it finally resolves into a fond take on the glitzy eighties version.
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68	[[AC:Music/{{Outside}}]]
69	* This album is considered by many to be his best work of the 90s. From songs like the [[{{Industrial}} awesome industrial track]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPToRYG-TcE "The Hearts Filthy Lesson"]], famously used in ''Film/{{Se7en}}'', to the [[DarkerAndEdgier darkest]] (and most CreepyAwesome) entry in the [[Music/SpaceOddity Major]] [[Music/ScaryMonstersAndSuperCreeps Tom]] [[Music/BlackstarAlbum saga]], [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHSe4N1tRQU "Hallo Spaceboy"]]. Other great songs include the pulse-pounding DespairEventHorizon that is [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKz_YJhQtzs "No Control"]] and the LighterAndSofter (and surprisingly funky) [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nArLuubNjKs "I Have Not Been to Oxford Town"]].
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71	[[AC:[[Music/HoursDavidBowieAlbum 'hours...']]]]
72	* While this might be the [[LighterAndSofter lightest]] of Bowie's releases in the 90s, it stands with ''Music/{{Outside}}'' and ''Music/{{Earthling}}'' (and [[BrokenBase to a lesser degree]], ''Music/BlackTieWhiteNoise'') as a showcase that, even thirty years on, Bowie was still damn good at what he did. Highlights include the [[SugarWiki/SweetDreamsFuel absolutely beautiful and catchy]] [[https://youtu.be/jTjRMkzxvt8 "Thursday's Child"]] (featuring the gorgeous and backing vocals of Holly Palmer [[SopranoAndGravel providing a perfect contrast to Bowie's lead]]) and the [[EpicRiff rifftastic]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pIyTFynO-8 "The Pretty Things Are Going To hell".]]
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74	[[AC:Music/BlackstarAlbum]]
75	* The album was heavily praised before it was even released. The ten-minute title track is an obvious highlight. So is the album closer "I Can't Give Everything Away", which quotes "A New Career in a New Town" from ''Low'' and verges on TearJerker territory, especially in light of his death two days after the release of the album. "Lazarus" also gains new meaning in light of his death and stands out as a highlight of the album. "Girl Loves Me" also stands out as one of the most avant-garde pieces Bowie ever recorded, both lyrically and musically. The whole album is both a SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome and a beautiful SugarWiki/{{Heartwarming Moment\|s}} as Bowie put it as his GrandFinale, the last album he'd get to release for the fans, as his final parting gift to all. That alone shows awesomeness and love.
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77	[[AC:Others]]
78	* David Bowie first recorded and wrote "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rajof9Qigos All the Young Dudes]]", which soon became an iconic glam rock anthem after being performed by [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKvNtAVZyOc Mott the Hoople]].
79	* When it comes to the PopStarComposer trope, no Disney effort can collectively touch the tunes he wrote and performed for ''Film/{{Labyrinth}}''. Playful ("Magic Dance", "Chilly Down"), [[VillainLoveSong wickedly tender]] ("As the World Falls Down"), thunderous ("Within You"), exhilarating ("Underground")...oh so [[TheEighties Eighties]], ''oh so right''.
80	* The smooth, jazzy sound of [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6If6J8u9av4 "Bring Me the Disco King"]] is just wonderful.

Context AwesomeMusic / DavidBowie