In January, a notable anniversary slipped quietly by while I was looking the other way - David Bowie's 'Station to Station' turned 50. It can be terrifying stuff, this aging malarky. The album came a mere 10 months after 'Young Americans' and just a little over 4 years after my proper introduction to the man via 'Hunky Dory'. In real time, the gaps between Bowie's releases felt unremarkable because, as Paul Weller noted, '...life is timeless, days are long when you're young...', but looking back at his extraordinary 1970s output (which for me actually begins with 1969's 'Space Oddity' and ends 9 months into the 1980s with 'Scary Monsters'), it's clearly unsustainably prolific in the long term. 13 studio albums, 2 live sets, a clutch of stand alone singles plus all of the unreleased material that has surfaced subsequently, is considerably more than most artists create over an entire career. What a time to be alive. Such is the stuff from where dreams are woven.
Because it wasn't as accessible as, say, Hunky Dory or Ziggy I didn't fully get STATIONTOSTATION at the time. It took a number of years to FOR ME revisit it and immerse myself in it.
ReplyDeleteGood to see you've come to your senses and adopted the tried and tested method for taking a SMcSF.
JM
Because it wasn't as accessible as, say, Hunky Dory or Ziggy I didn't fully get STATIONTOSTATION at the time. It took a number of years for me to revisit it and fully immerse myself in it.
ReplyDeleteGood to see you've come to your senses and adopted the tried and tested method for taking a SMcSF.
JM
Love Station To Station, such a fully realised album.
ReplyDeleteA fantastic album (that could be said about all his 70's albums)..it seemed to be common for 70's bands to release (good) albums every year... sometimes 2 a year, god we were spoilt.
ReplyDeleteJohn: My own Bowie stumbling block (in the 1970s at least) was Lodger, an album I still find it hard to love, in spite of it containing several wonderful moments.
ReplyDeleteWith regards to your second point, I'll have you know that the rarely seen double-handed Swedeface is a particularly tricky manoeuvre, one that should only be attempted by trained professionals.
Adam: Absolutely. A whole universe in six songs.
Softshoebanana: Weren't we just.