Add to that the fantastic balance of Vaudevillian piano passages and steaming brass and you have a sublime pop song. “I can’t waste time,” Bowie sings as the arrangement takes us up and down in gentle retrospective reflection as if shedding the shackles of the past and venturing to a new horizon of its own making. The song is so joyful and enveloping with a forward-looking positivity. Changes is an immediate, shameless pop song with a sing-along chorus and killer hooks. In addition to presenting the album as a set of compositions largely conducted by the piano, Changes also signals Bowie’s more melodic and commercial brilliance. The opening track, Changes Bowie’s state of mind couldn’t have been better summed up if he had tried. With only six months between the two records, it was like he couldn’t get it all out fast enough.īesides referring to his family life and thinking about Friedrich Nietzsche, Bowie was obviously impatient. The sheer number of songs Bowie had in the making in the early ’70s is pretty amazing, with several of his Ziggy tracks already taking shape at the time of recording. In 1971, the “Thinking Man Marc Bolan” was clearly overflowing with ideas and drawing inspiration from almost everything around him. The incidental use of a brass section to complement the piano and upbeat rhythm is delightful. It is sincere, authentic and very original incorporating Bowie’s unique turn of phrase as well as beautiful hooks and melodies.
crazy is an underrated wellness masterpiece. While Bowie used some of the cultural touchstones of the time to scatter his lyrics, he also referred to his brother’s struggle with mental health on the closing track – The Bewlay brothers, and just as frankly and touching, marked the birth of her son, Duncan Zowie Haywood Jones, with a pretty brilliant “acoustic quirk” in Crazy. It serves as a vibrant manifestation of the Velvet Underground’s influence on popular culture of the time. It is surely one of the pioneering songs of Glam-Rock, and one of the few on the album not to be conducted by the piano.
Tracks that make up Hunky-dory he’s probably the one that best embodies Bowie’s transition from his work to The man who sold the world to his reinvention as Ziggy Stardust a few months later. Queen female dog is by far the liveliest of the three “tribute” songs, with Bowie managing to capture the essence of the man (Lou Reed) through the conversational lyrics and inspired instrumental soundtrack. Bowie’s use of many pop culture references in his songs was undoubtedly ahead of their time and his choice to include three songs written in homage to Andy Warhol, Bob Dylan and Lou Reed signals where he was drawing from. The 11 titles that make up Hunky-dory see Bowie take on a more art-pop bent as he deals with topics that span mental health, philosophy, and parenting, among others. Bowie has once again teamed up with his “wingman” Mick Ronson as well as Mick “Woodmansey” and bassist Trevor Bolder to produce an inspired album that brilliantly indicates Bowie’s future. This record, and those that followed, used the same final line-up and the same producer. After dabbling in the Blues and Rock on The man who sold the world, Bowie opted for a more characteristic sound throughout the 11 tracks of Hunky-dory. Hunky-dory It might not be the best of Bowie’s’ 70s albums, but it’s widely regarded as the starting point for the journey. After a lot of experimentation, different bands, different looks, and a whole host of sounds, Bowie began to find that extra level of self-confidence and self-confidence that would lead him through an incredibly creative and fertile decade. Released December 17, 1971, Hunky-dory is kind of a transition album.
Barely a year after its release The man who sold the world, and only six months before he released his flagship album – The rise and fall of Ziggy Stardust and the spiders of Mars, David Bowie has delivered his fourth full studio album – Hunky-dory.