Underrated David Bowie albums?

Space oddity for example, just Cygnet committee is enough to consider it a great album

lol

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none of bowie's rca albums is underrated. they're all pretty much considered classics these days.

buddha of suburbia soundtrack is a (sometimes) forgotten gem.

tin machine 2 acutally has a couple of good songs as opposed to absolute stinker tin machine 1.

Lodger is right. Cygnet is amazing.

I think Diamond Dogs is underrated because of how amazing it is to me. The themes explored, the fact it is literally an unauthorized rock opera of 1984 through the eyes of Big Brother and his followers, at least partially, and someone living in that awful world through a lens of love and glam, is entirely overlooked. Plus, the Sweet Thing/Candidate suite, and how it literally plays DIRECTLY into Rebel Rebel is overlooked, musically. It's beautiful.

It is fairly popular as just "Hey, Bowie music!" but I think it's underrated artistically.

I will say, I was pleasantly surprised last night in that "Favorite Bowie songs/albums" thread where a bunch of people specifically noted all that, so hey. Maybe it's just the plebs.

Also, Young Americans. Underrated in general by quality. Young Americans is the greatest song of all time.

I agree to a point, because he had a fucking golden run for just about 14 years from Space Oddity on down. Not a single bad album. However, I think in terms of how people look at it, almost all of the artistic value or quality of them all are entirely overlooked in favor of Ziggy Stardust because that's just what people know, and it's a crime.

Right about the rest, though.

listened to this recently, it's really great throughout
african night flight is mah jam

i reckon repetition is probably the worst on the album, but i need to listen to it more

Also Heathen and the Next Day

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reality is one of his worst albums.

this

diamond dogs gets my vote as the most under-appreciated bowie album

It's also a perfect conclusion for the trilogy imo

i like how it shows bowie opening up and chilling out after the emotional stuff on low and heroes
it's pretty much his first album where the music is concerned with other people's lives and not just his own

You are definitely right.
That album is full of open mindedness, experimentalism, joyfulness and mysteriousness. It's like a big jest, but perfectly pondered and done.

Yeah, I don't know how intentional it was, but it is. I feel like it was just him making his music naturally as who he was, at the time, so they link thematically that way.

Low, because he was, well, low. It had a beautiful sense of ennui and masked depression about it (Sound and Vision). "Heroes" has a little bit of a joke there with the quotes, but is generally more upbeat and thoughtful, and the instrumentals are less downbeat or sorrowful and more contemplative and relaxing, and Neukoln gives a sense of some finish, some final end. It then leads into Secret Life of Arabia (Amazing song), which directly plays the travel theme of Lodger.

Which, that's why it serves as a perfect end, and a transition to the rest. Move On could pretty much sum it up. No more instrumentals, no more slow sadness. Upbeat, adventurous, globetrotting, it's him moving on.

Also underrated, as what the piece meant to him, that PERFECTLY closes the trilogy - Red Money. You know, the song that was literally Sister Midnight, circa Station to Station, with a different set of lyrics. "Project cancelled, tumbling central" and all that. It goes back to show that, he's on this new journey, he's become better, but he's still that same man from before. That dark bit, that period would always be there. It would never leave. Perfect ending.

Plus, there's also DJ, which does something similar. Underrated as a very, very personal song told in a driving, upbeat, sarcastically sardonic way. It's the good ol' Pagliacci joke in song.

Precisely

Definitely. And Outside. That's getting rediscovered lately, and that's great.

Fuck off.

Really though, let's just be honest. If we just skip the 80's after Let's Dance and start back at Black Tie, White Noise, it's all golden. There's good music there, but that's the only misstep. All the rest has something great to it.

> (You)
Very good analysis, user. Agreed.

>Fuck off.

how much of a pathetic fanboy can you be to claim reality is underrated? what a let-down after the admittedly good heathen. fall dog bombs the moon & she'll drive the big car are half decent & that's about it.

how long have you been listening to bowie? you sound fucking new. the first side of never let me down shits all over reality btw.

damn dude calm down

>fuck off

I'm not much of a Bowiefag but Sunday is probably the biggest song I associate with him besides his more well known hits.

arrogant nerd

>very personal song told in a driving, upbeat, sarcastically sardonic way
good point
i like the contrast between Be My Wife and DJ

Thanks. I've thought about it a lot.

Also, another note on Move On. I'm pretty sure there's a ghostly, tone-altered, softer repetition of "Arabia" though a lot of the song, which plays perfectly with the closing track off "Heroes" for obvious reasons.

u wot m8

It's been a couple years but I've listened to the most of it. Go look into the point behind Reality, it's very relative to the times, and it gave a good "I'm getting old" kind of close before Next Day and Blackstar. Plus, I think it sounds great.

I'm curious, though, tell me how you think Never Let Me Down kills it. I've only ever heard of that as pretty much universally reviled, but I still enjoy bits of it, what do you think?

not the guy you're replying to but

glass spider was a surprising jam
i felt bad for them poor babby spiders

it also reminded me a lot of the start of diamond dogs, which aint a bad thing

>i like the contrast between Be My Wife and DJ
Same

>repetition of "Arabia"
Wow, never noticed it. I need to listen to the song again

Fair point. Like I said, I find stuff to like on it. Bowie himself said those were good songs he did wrong. If nothing else, they're danceable pop with more substance than most from the time, and sometimes there's more after that, even.

>Start of Diamond Dogs

I think that's intentional. I have a personal theory I've never quite fully parsed that he was incredibly self-aware and intentionally ironic at the time, and made a move with the Glass Spider tour to be a numb, saccharine pop Big Brother in the vein of Diamond Dogs. In short, I think it's no coincidence that, in the year 1984, with billions across the world coming to see him, he, for the first time since '75, brought back Big Brother as a song while his wardrobe had many echoes of the one he wore back for the Diamond Dogs tour. I may be making patterns where there are none, but I feel like that's definitely something he'd touch on.

While he, supposedly, was done with characters after Ziggy (According to Cracked Actor) and he DEFINITELY seemed to be done with it after the Duke, he'd continually go back and touch on them in some way. After all, they were always parts of him; and what is an artist's work but themselves?

Absolutely. Also, one of my favorite songs of all time, and one I hold close to myself is Alternative Candidate, B-side off of Diamond Dogs. If you read into the lyrics it's the most directly personal song he ever wrote. Plays well as almost a prequel to those. Definitely agree, though.

Yeah, I noticed it listening to the album twice in a row the first time at like 6 in the morning drunk. Starts at about 33 seconds in.

Yeah Space Oddity is like the weakest track on that record (maybe just cos it's overplayed) but Cygnet Committee & God Knows I'm Good are GOAT

a highlight of space oddity for me is the spacey intro that evolves into madness on unwashed and somewhat slightly dazed

i have a feeling bowie was really proud of his work on diamond dogs
since he played sax, guitar and self-produced the album

>he was incredibly self-aware and intentionally ironic
Absolutely true.

Well, he generally was, but especially at the time. He even went back and said something similar; he went so poppy to play to his new, howling audience, and kind of lost himself artistically because of it. I could definitely seem him doing that as a kind of ironic "Fuck you" artistic refuge to a crowd that, generally, would have no clue.

Hell, he did that a lot, later on. Miracle Goodnight WAS the actual return of the Thin White Duke and nobody even batted an eyelash.

Space Oddity is really underrated musically. I love that transition on Unwashed a lot, Wild-Eyed Boy From Freecloud is great, Memory of a Free Festival really touched some people and begat many cover versions, and Cygnet Committee is possibly one of the most underrated songs of all time.

I greatly enjoyed where he went after that album, but it really does not get the attention it deserved.

Outside, The Buddha of Suburbia (it's often listed as a soundtrack but it's a proper Bowie album, only one track is in the show it's from, even Bowie said if was one of his fave albums) and Hours, I don't think it's anywhere near as bad as people say.

I don't know about albums, but Letter to Hermione is secretly one of his best songs.

Personal, heartbroken love song from a real young poet. Yeah, I believe it.

The Next Day is really quite fantastic

IMHO the best album by Bowie.

Totally agreed, I love this album to death