Top 5 Albums of 2013

5. David Bowie The Next Day

2013 began with the year's biggest surprise: a new album from David Bowie, his first of new material in ten years. Every song on The Next Day seems to be inspired by one of the pop chameleon's former phases. Give it a few years and we may look back upon The Next Day as the best album of the year. It certainly is the best of the many come back albums to spring up ( beating out Prefab Sprout, Wire, Mazzy Star and My Bloody Valentine among others)

4. Janelle Monae Electric Lady Suites IV and V

The modern pop album is a cinematic effort and Janelle Monae is the most inventive of the mainstream pop stars I'm hearing these days. She's making the kind of music you'd hope Prince would be releasing. 

3, Bob Dylan Another Self Portrait ( 1969-1971)

1970's mellow and family-oriented New Morning is one of my all time favorite Dylan albums and you get a half dozen alternate takes on those tunes, including two versions of "Went to See the Gypsy" about meeting Elvis Presley. There's an immediacy to the Self Portrait recordings which somehow failed to impress many in its released form back in the day. Glad I got this one!

2 Vampire Weekend Modern Vampires of the City

It doesn't matter how fine your prep school was, at some point even the most precious prepster has to grow up and that's what Vampire Weekend has done of their third and most accomplished album.

1. Parquet Courts in Light Up Gold

This generation's Pink Flag. If I didn't live--musically--in 1973, I'd be listening to this all the time. 

The Very Very Best of 1973's Greatest Hits Albums

As Christmas 1973 approached, record buyers bought friends and family members greatest hits albums released that year by such acts as The Carpenters, John Denver, The Beatles, Bread and Simon and Garfunkel. These were the best selling of the "Best of"s, stacked with hits we all know. But 1973 also provided music fans with far more esoteric compilations. Here's just a few:

Cashing in on Bowie's stardom, Decca releases four sides of Bowie singles B sides and his entire debut album. Notable, for Bowie's Anthony Newley impressions and the horrid "Laughing Gnome" which somehow climbs into the UK Top 10 in late '73.

Double disc collection pairing the first Move album with a collection of singles and B sides. Ignore the rest of the band's output at your own peril.

A very decent sampler of songs from Rod Stewart's first four album, Sing It Again Rod includes "Maggie May", "You Wear It Well" , "Handbags and Gladrags" and a classic album cover.

Six disc collection and informative liner notes make this a solid introduction to the world of jazz, with tracks ranging form the birth of jazz to the early 60's "free jazz" of Ornette Coleman.

Songs Van recorded in 1967 including the powerhouse title track, the hit "Brown Eyed Girl" and early versions of Astral Weeks classics like "Madame George and "Beside You". Released without Van the Man's approval. Deep cut choice is "Ro Ro Rosey".

40 Year Itch : Bowie Does the Midnight Special

By late 1973 David Bowie was one of the biggest rock and roll stars in the UK. In America, not so much. Ziggy Stardust had only peaked at #75 in the Billboard charts. "The Jean Genie" stalled at #71 on the Hot 100 charts. For Bowie, NBC's "Midnight Special" was seen as the best opportunity for a big breakthrough in the U-S.  That meant resurrecting his retired Ziggy Stardust persona for one last wham bam thank you ma'am.

     The result: The 1980 Floor Show featuring one new song, "1984/Dodo", a collection of poorly designed sets, and a bizarre performance from Marianne Faithful in a see-through nun outfit. If the show below doesn't meet your expectations, be thankful you weren't in the studio audience. Writer David Thompson says "It was really disappointing, with him doing the same three songs 40 times."

40 Year Itch : Waves of Nostalgia

[Purchase]

In October of 1973 a surprising number of artists released albums containing  nothing but cover versions of songs. It was a way to pay homage to the artists who influenced them. First out among them was Bryan Ferry's solo debut These Foolish Things, released October 5, which contains covers from artists ranging from The Beatles and The Rolling Stones to Lesley Gore and The Four Tops. But it's his vamping cover of Dylan's "A Hard Rain's A -Gonna Fall" that stands out.

[Purchase]

On October 15th, The Band released Moondog Matinee, a collection of tunes from the late 50's and early 60's that the band played as Levon and the Hawks... including Clarence "Frogman" Henry's "Ain't Got No Home", Lee Dorsey's "Holy Cow" and Elvis Presley's " Mystery Train". Of the album, singing drummer Levon Helm said in 2002:

"That was all we could do at the time. We couldn't get along—we all knew that fairness was a bunch of shit. We all knew we were getting screwed, so we couldn't sit down and create no more music. 'Up on Cripple Creek' and all that stuff was over—all that collaboration was over, and that type of song was all we could do."

[Out of Print]

As if "American Pie" wasn't enough of a tribute to Buddy Holly and the musicians of that era, Don McLean recorded Playing Favorites, an album of covers featuring two Buddy Holly tunes, "Everyday" and the little known B Side "Fool's Paradise". 

[Purchase]

Although I thought "Let's Spend the Night Together" was the worst thing about Aladdin Sane, David Bowie didn't ask me. For Pin Ups, Bowie recorded a selection of his favorite songs from 1964-1967, minus anything by the Beatles or the Stones. Pin Ups held the #1 album spot in the UK for 5 weeks. So I guess he was right but , like bubblegum, Pin Ups loses its flavor after repeated chews.

40 Year Itch : David Bowie's "Diary"

[Purchase]

From 1973 to 1973, David Bowie was supposedly contributing an exclusive weekly diary to the UK teen music magazine Mirabelle. It wasn't until 1998 that Bowie confessed his American publicist Cherry Vanilla, a former member of the Andy Warhol entourage, wrote the column. "The cute thing," Bowie said, "is that every now and then she'd write how I had just come from seeing this great new performer whom everyone should know about...Cherry Vanilla".

Cherry Vanilla and Bowie

8th September 1973 

   I've just remembered that I never told you about the party I had at the Café Royal after my last concert, so I'll make this week's letter about that...

 Oh, what a night it turned out to be! Mick Jagger, Lou Reed, Jeff Beck, Lulu, Spike Milligan, Dana Gillespie, Ryan O'Neal, Elliott Gould, Ringo Starr and Barbra Streisand... all there at my last concert party at the luxurious Café Royal - everyone looking so lovely in their sparkling evening clothes and colourful make-up... dancing, sipping champagne and tasting delicious salmon and big fresh strawberries and cream. The disc jockey played lots of really good soul and rock 'n' roll records, and the dance floor was absolutely packed all night. Cherry Vanilla (my American publicist, a wonderful lady) fell off her gold platforms and split her strapless Chinese dress right up the front, but got up and just kept on dancing and grooving, black suspenders peaking out from newly-opened slit, and that ever wide smile on her face! 

   I got a little off balance myself when Mick and Bianca and Angie and I were all dancing together to 'Honky Tonk Woman' - but managed to stay on my high heels for a few more songs. Most of the evening I spent answering everyone's questions about my decision to stop touring and concentrate on movies and recording. 

  Angie and I arrived a little late because we had gone back to our hotel to change into our party clothes, and then got very involved in conversation with Mick and The Spiders and Gloria (my secretary) - you can't imagine how many telephone calls we received, even though we thought nobody knew where we were. 

   When we made our entrance, Angie in a brand new chartreuse and brown knit ensemble by Freddy, me in my ice-blue iridescent Freddy suit, they announced us over the speaker system, and everyone stood up and applauded.

    Oh dear, I'm running out of space again. Looks like I'll have to save the rest for next week. 

Twiggy and Bowie shot for album cover Pin Ups

 September 22   

  Well, friends, I don't feel I've done justice to that fantastic chateau we stayed at in France. I think I would like to tell you some more - quite a bit more - about it. 

     The Chateau D'Herouville was the name, and what a lovely place to record an album. Warm, summer sunshine, a lovely chateau and a fantastic 16 track recording studio. Enough to please any hard-working, city-weary, young musician. The chateau is in the village of Herouville just outside Paris. We spent three wonderful weeks there, recording my new album 'Pin-Ups'. It's all those fun and fabulous songs from the mid-sixties that never really got quite the attention their lovely easy beats deserved. Ronno, Trevor and Mike Garson were there with us, and Aynsley Dunbar came along to play drums. 

    There seemed to be an endless stream of visitors, like Jean Millington (Fanny), Nico, that really wonderful singer, with a friend of hers, Kid Jensen (of Radio Luxembourg fame) and a lovely French singer called Christine.

    Angie and Zowie came down every weekend, and one day we were photographed together by Terry O'Neil for the Daily Mirror. Angie wore some lovely things from the Paris collections, and I wore my favourite Freddy suit. Oh, and Justin De Villeneuve photographed me with his favourite model 'Twig The Wonder Kid' (Twiggy) for a Vogue magazine cover. 

    Dinners were really momentous occasions, with everyone seated at a super-long table with candles and dry wine, delicious food and all those beautiful faces with their suntanned cheeks and twinkling eyes. 

   The food was very French... though they did seem to serve an awful lot of potatoes! The vegetables and fruits were very fresh and lush, though - and with that famous Paris bread, everything tastes great. 

   It's a good thing we had a nice big swimming pool outside to let everybody burn up some calories each day - everyone but me, of course. I only ventured in once when the heat of the day got to be a bit too much. But Ronno and Jamie (my road manager) had a few good workouts every day.

40 Year Itch : Ziggy Commits Rock n Roll Suicide

On July 3, 1973 David Bowie executed his Ziggy Stardust persona on stage at the Hammersmith Odean. At the time Aladdin Sane was the #1 album in the UK and "Life on Mars" was the #4 single. Rock documentary filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker and two other cameramen captured the evening for a film to eventually be called Ziggy Stardust: The Motion Picture.




The film begins in the dressing room where Pierre La Roche is applying makeup. In his book Ziggyology, Simon Goddard describes Bowie looking at himself in the mirror

He saw a not a person but a monster. A Frankenstein jigsaw. An eternity of human dreams and fears in one grotesquely gorgeous visage.

By all accounts it was a fantastic show. And of course you can see it for yourself. Bowie appeared to be savoring the moment. He dedicated "Let's Spend the Night Together" to Mick Jagger and "White Light.White Heat" to Lou Reed. For the encore, Jeff Back joined the band for "The Jean Genie/Love Me Do"

And then Bowie made his farewell speech. ( It begins 2:30 in the clip below).

"Of all of the shows on this tour, this particular show will remain with us the longest (cheers from the audience) because not only is it...not only is it the last show of the tour, but its the last SHOW that WE'LL ever do. Thank you"

The band played "Rock and Roll Suicide". Bowie said "Thank you very much. We love you. Bye Bye " and walked off the stage.

Fans were distraught. Reporters didn't quite catch the gist of what happened. The next week NME's headline read "Bowie: That's It, I Quit". Of course Bowie didn't quite. He simply retired one persona, making room for many others to come.

So why give up on Ziggy?  Bowie says he needed to get away from what all that he/Ziggy had become:

 It was circusy. I was never much of an entourage person - I hated all of that. It's a relief for all these years ... not have a constant stream of people following me around to the point where, when I sat down, fifteen other people sat down. It was unbearable.

40 Year Itch: David Bowie 1973 TV Documentary

A ten minute UK doc on the "skinny lad with a pasty complexion" who has, in the past six months,  "transformed himself into an object that is worshipped by millions of girls". The film, narrated by a witty and disdainful narrator,  features a concert performed at The Winter Gardens on May 25, 1973.

40 Year Itch: Smack! Baby! Smack!

[Purchase]

More urgent and far more challenging than its predecessor, Aladdin Sane (released April 13, 1973) explores stardom from the inside. Many of the songs were written during Bowie's 1972 tour ( "Time" in New Orleans; "Drive-In Saturday" between Seattle and Phoenix) which is why it's been called the American Ziggy Stardust.

Note: Bowie supposedly shaved his eyebrows when Mott the Hoople turned down "Drive In Saturday"

What kind of debauchery did David Bowie witness in America? The album oozes with sex ("Cracked Actor", "Drive In Saturday") violence ("Panic in Detroit") and rock and roll ("Watch That Man"). Mick Ronson's guitar is often higher in the mix than Bowie's voice but it's free form pianist Mike Garson who steals the show with his freaked out solos on the title cut ( starts 2:00 in).

Bowie has been accused of , to put it kindly, borrowing ideas from other artists. "Panic in Detroit" has a Bo Diddley beat. " The Jean Genie" sounds like the Yardbirds doing Diddley. And there's the final cut, the fan favorite "Lady Grinning Soul".

Some say it sounds an awful lot like the Quincy Jones track "On Days Like These" , featured in the 1969 film The Italian Job. I don't really hear it. Can you?

I'll let Bowie off on this one. The cover of "Let's Spend the Night Together" ,however, is an appalling preview of the covers album Pin Ups that would come out in October.

40 Year Itch: Bowie's St Valentine's Day Massacre

[Purchase Aladdin Sane]

  With the likes of Truman Capote, Salvador Dali and Todd Rundgren in the audience, David Bowie took the Radio City Music Hall stage to perform an unforgettable sold out concert on Februaru 14, 1973. It was unforgettable alright.

After a fan leaped on stage to embrace Ziggy during "Rock And Roll Suicide", Bowie fainted. Some people thought it was part of the act. Others could swear they heard gunshots. But those who have listened to the concert bootleg, St Valentine's Day Massacre, couldn't hear anything like that.


     An attending nurse blamed the ordeal on exhaustion. Someone with a medical degree added that Bowie's blocked up pores from all that Ziggy Stardust make-up probably didn;t help matters. David Bowie slept for 12 hours straight and performed again the next night.

SET LIST
1. Ode to Joy (Introduction)
2. Hang Onto Yourself
3. Ziggy Stardust
4. Changes
5. Soul Love
6. John I'm Only Dancing
7. Moonage Daydream
8. Five Years
9. Space Oddity
10. My Death
11. Watch That Man
12. Drive-In Saturday
13.Aladdin Sane
14 Panic in Detroit
15 Cracked Actor
16 The Width of a Circle
17. Time
18. The Prettiest Star
19. Let's Spend The Night Together
20. The Jean Genie
21. Suffragette City
22. Rock N Roll Suicide

40 Year Itch : The Lost Jean Genie Performance

On January 3rd, 1973, David Bowie recorded this performance of "The Jean Genie" live to air the following night on the BBC's "Top of the Pops". Check out Mick Ronson's extended guitar solo and Bowie's extended harmonica solo! Tapes of the show had been wiped and the video was lost for decades before the only man with a copy, cameraman John Henshall (whose fish-eye lens shots are used several times here),  made it available for the BBC to re-air in 2011, much to the delight of rock fans worldwide.

 

"The Jean Genie", featuring its dirty Bo Diddley riff and lyrics that may be about Iggy Pop, was released November 24, 1972 and peaked at #2 in the UK but only #71 in the US. The Sweet's "Blockbuster", released in January of 1973, shares the same beat and heavy guitar sound. But both Bowie and Sweet have all agreed it was coincidence.
     Songwriter Nicky Chinn described a meeting with Bowie at which the latter "looked at me completely deadpan and said 'Cunt!' And then he got up and gave me a hug and said, 'Congratulations...' After all "Blockbuster" went #1.

 

40 Year Itch: David Bowie Writes "Time"

[Purchase]

David Bowie performed two concerts in New Orleans in mid November. The first was uptown, November 14 at the Jesuit university, Loyola, which always had a better meal plan than Tulane University across the street. The second was November 22 at The Warehouse downtown, where Jim Morrison performed his last show with The Doors and where a friend of mine made out with a shockingly beautiful girl at a 1982 Talking Heads concert and discovered she was a he. It was sometime during this week that he wrote "Time" which would greatly benefit from the piano theatrics of Mike Garson when it was recorded a month later at Trident Studios.

The song is best known for its line : "Time; He flexes like a whore/ Falls wanking to the floor". RCA was fine with the masturbation imagery but removed the line "in quaaludes and red wine" from the US single. Not a big fan of the cabaret theatrics of Bowie, I like other things on 1973's Aladdin Sane a great deal more ( "Panic In Detroit", "The Jean Genie", "Cracked Actor").

40 Year Itch All The Young Dudes

[Purchase]


Mott The Hoople had practically thrown in the towel for reasons previously discussed when bassist Pete Overend got a call from David Bowie offering Mott  "Suffragette City". Hours after Overend idiotically declined, Bowie called back with a new song he had written, a glam rock anthem that would revive Mott.  The single "All The Young Dudes" was released in July of 1972 and  peaked at #3 in the UK and #37 in the US.

On September 8, 1972 the Bowie produced album All The Young Dudes, one of my favorite albums of all time, was released. I knew nothing of Bowie swooping in to save the band. I just heard greatness.I found a cassette copy of the album in a Reno pawn shop. There was no case. No cover. I made my own cover using the bubblegum card photo of Elvis sailing.

Well, it is better than the album cover Mott used.And surprisingly, not that different from the originally planned cover photo -shot by Mick Rock. It might have been one of the seminal rock n roll photos of all time had it been used. No one from Mick to Ian Hunter can remember why it wasn't.

All The Young Dudes has one of the greatest A sides in rock history. It's also extremely sexual with sadists, evil mothers, schoolgirls in need of "reincelibation", a black man's balls and a singer who's been wanting to do "this" for years.

    It kicks off with a cover of the Velvet Underground's "Sweet Jane" written by Lou Reed who was also in the process of getting a make-over from Bowie. The result would be Transformer and  the single "Walk On The Wild Side".



Love the second cut, "Momma's Little Jewel", with its false beginning ( that's Bowie supposedly saying "Don't stop ...No...Carry on" and playing the dissonant sax at the end) and made up word: "Don't know why but I'm gonna try/ to reincelibate you ".



That's followed by the glorious title track and then another favorite of mine, "Sucker" , with its opening line " Hi there, your friendly neighborhood sadist want to take you for a ride".



The great "A" side ends with "Jerkin' Crocus", the Sticky Fingered tale of an aggressive "nads puller". There's the oft quoted line "I know what you want, just a lick from an ice cream cone." Jesus the riffs on this one!



It's a shame Side Two can't keep up the momentum. It's probably mostly noted for the single "One Of The Boys" and the first appearance of "Ready For Love" which Mick Ralphs would take with him when he joined Bad Company after 1973's classic Mott. Yes, a lot of fans say the best was yet to come for Mott The Hoople but All The Young Dudes will always be my favorite.

40 Year Itch: Oh Lordy! Oh Lordy!

On September 1, 1972 David Bowie released the single "John, I'm Only Dancing". A gay anthem? It never struck me as such in my teenage years. I figured Bowie was dancing with John's girlfriend and explaining to his mate "we're only dancing". But because of the supposed subject matter, the song didn't get played in the US even as Bowie strutted onstage in full Ziggy Stardust mode, drawing full houses for his concert tour.

 In the UK, the single peaked at #12 as would the 1979 sequel "John, I'm Only Dancing ( again)". Queen stole the strumming guitar intro for "Crazy Thing Called Love". Trevor Bolder is playing the walking bass lines. The official video, seen below, was banned for its sexually suggestive dancers.


 

Peter Murphy's All Time Top 10

From SMASH HITS JUNE 24, 1982 courtesy of Brian at Like Punk Never Happened

Peter Murphy provided this list for Smash Hits around the same time the single "Spirit" had charted. The forthcoming album The Sky's Gone Out featured covers of Brian Eno ( "Third Uncle") and, as a bonus track, David Bowie ("Ziggy Stardust") which may explain why those artists show up twice on this list.




   1. DAVID BOWIE The Bewlay Brothers - The lyrics are abstract but they convey something special to me
2. SCOTT WALKER If You Go Away- A very haunting love song beautifully sung

3. JACQUES BREL My Death- The lyrics are really strange.  They're also very moving because it celebrates death (which is how I think it should be approached because it's a rebirth.
4. JOHN LENNON Working Class Hero- I just totally agree with the lyrics.
5. THE BEATLES Within You Without You- It's a great psychedelic dance and it's way ahead of its time
6. BRIAN ENO Sparrow Fall Part Three- This conveys more in its simplicity than many songs manage in all their complexity
7. PATTI SMITH Horses- It's a strong poem set perfectly to music. Patti Smith sings like she's possessed and sometimes she goes into hysterical, indecipherable sections which amaze me



8. MARC BOLAN Life's A Gas- It's really sad when you think of him not being here anymore. And this is nice to remember him by
9. DAVID BOWIE All The Madmen- "And I'd rather play here with all the madmen for I am quite content they are all as sane as me."
10. DAVID BYRNE AND BRIAN ENO The Jezebel Spirit- This is set to a recording of an exorcism. It's very interesting.