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Bowie`s Greatest Studio Albums

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David Robert Jones would have been 70 this coming Sunday, January 8th. So I think it`s time for a poll to find what the AfterWorders reckon are Bowie`s greatest/favourite STUDIO albums. There was a lot of feeling that `Black★Star`, the last studio album was The Great Man`s best.

So what do you think*?

Pick your FIVE choices numbered 1-5. Only your first 5 choices will be accepted. The scoring will be 5 points for your first numbered choice down to 1 point for fifth. If you fail to number your choices, the first 5 will be awarded 3 points each, the same applies for any entries with less than 5 choices not given preference.

Only STUDIO albums, no box sets, live albums or compilations allowed.

*i am very interested where `Black★Star` figures overall in D.B.`s superb catalogue, if you do not wish to participate, that is fine. I think we have posted our favourite D.B. albums before but not in a poll such as this. Let the thingy begin….

1

Comments

  11. OK –

    1 Station to Station
    2 Hunky Dory
    3 Young Americans
    4 Heroes
    5 Man Who Sold The World

    and Black Star only doesn’t make it cos the others are so fine

  12. 1. David Bowie/Space Oddity
    2. Ziggy Stardust
    3. Blackstar
    4. Young Americans
    5. Station To Station

    Glad to see you included Space Oddity too, Mr Baron sir. It rarely gets praised but I adore it. A collection of good songs with some good lyrics too. Three particular favourites: Memory Of A Free Festival is so evocative of an innocent time (Someone passed some bliss among the crowd and we walked back to the road unchained”), God Knows I’m Good is a great story-song and Letter To Hermione is beautiful.

  13. The brilliant Pushing Ahead Of The Dame blog did this exercise at the end of 2015 and published the results just days before the release of Blackstar and the subsequent Monday morning bombshell…sorry, rambling, here are mine:

    1. Hunky Dory
    2. Station To Station
    3. Ziggy Stardust
    4. Scary Monsters
    5. Low

  15. 1. Low
    2. Hunky Dory.
    3. David Bowie. (The first album)
    4. David Bowie/Space Oddity
    5. Aladdin Sane

    The above does make it look as that I don’t rate Bowie after the 70s but that couldn’t be further from the truth.

  16. 1. S2S
    2. Hunky Dory
    3. 1. Outside (The Nathan Adler Diaries: A hyper-cycle)
    4. Aladdin Sane
    5. Diamond Dogs

    Blackstar doesn’t make that list but doesn’t mean it wasn’t best LP released last year. And that in years to come it won’t make that Top 5. It’s a moveable feast

  19. 1 Ziggy Stardust, by a long way
    2 Hunky Dory

    But then it’s difficult to choose between Aladdin Sane, Station To Station, Low, Scary Monsters, Heathen and Blackstar, but for sake of the poll I’ll say
    3 Station To Station
    4 Scary Monsters
    5 Aladdin Sane

  20. Surprised by the love for Aladdin Sane, a rather hurriedly recorded and released effort. I think it is far inferior to Ziggy with more filler than (almost) any other 70s album. Still a few great tracks of course.

  22. I really cannot choose so am more than happy to go down the 3 points each road.

    INPO.

    Ziggy Stardust

    TMWSTW

    Hunky Dory

    Aladinsane

    Pin ups. (Yes, I know its a covers album, but I think it is magnificent)

  31. 1. Ziggy Stardust
    2. Hunky Dory
    3. Young Americans
    4. Space Oddity
    5. Diamond Dogs

    A list born of nostalgia, I think. But none the worse for that, I hope.

  37. 1. Low
    2. Blackstar
    3. Station To Station
    4. Hunky Dory
    5. The Buddha Of Suburbia

    6. “Heroes”
    7. Aladdin Sane
    8. Young Americans
    9. The Next Day
    10. The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars

  41. Why do you exclude ‘live’ albums?

    ‘Live’ albums often include enhanced or otherwise reworked versions of tracks (sometimes entire studio albums) which bring to life what may otherwise be mundane filler.

    And the Dame is a typical case.

    • Anyway, aside from the mighty Stage, my vote.

      1. Aladdin Sane
      2. Blackstar
      3. Scary Monsters
      4. Heathen
      5. The Next Day

      I’ve never had an easy relationship with Bowie. His vocal inflections, often emotionless detachment from the melody, his rather uneasy but self aware posturing always grated with me. My main interest was always the anticipation of what he did next, musically.

      Blackstar and his death within days of it’s release was curated as though the events were some sort of dystopian art installation.

      But the two closing tracks on that album are just sublime, marrying beautiful melody, balanced and considered lyricism and heart felt delivery.

    • Sorry I`m late getting back to you @attackdog, I didn`t include live albums because I wanted to stick with `studio` akbums. That`s not an answer is it? IMHO including live albums then opens up the bootlegs, why not include them? No reason apart from maybe not many people may have the bootlegs, I have, DFB also & Tiggs no doubt and others, but then the voting gets spread across too many albums. I have more boots than studio albums. So it`s a `Studio` albums only poll. If you wish and `cause I like this kind of thing we can do a `Live`/`Boots` poll.

      • Oh I understand perfectly Mr Harko (sorry, Baron, Sir, – bows deeply -).

        It’s just my fixation of several years now – live albums. If the buggers can cut it live it must be good and, generally, so much more exciting.

        What are these additional ‘live’ DB albums of which you speak? Is it not just Stage? How would one go about securing copies – for the purposes of posterity and digital archiving of course.

        (Taps nose. Winks. Fawns. Offers funny handshake. Rolls up trouser leg. Keeps mouth shut. Asks no questions. Guv).

  44. I will admit to not being overly familiar with the 85-2000 period, although I haven’t, for the most part, been blown away with those bits I have heard. So, with that caveat..
    1. Ziggy
    2. Stationtostation
    3. Hunky Dory
    4. Scary Monsters
    5. Aladdin Sane

  49. My knowledge of Bowies catalogue is only partial,but here’s five from me. Station to Station wins by a mile – probably would be in my top five albums altogether, never mind just by Bowie

    1. Station to Station
    2. Ziggy Stardust
    3. Hunky Dory
    4. Blackstar
    5. Let’s Dance

  52. Hm…judging by this poll I guess I’ll have to buy Hunky Dory at some point…!
    From my current knowledge of Bowie’s albums:
    1) Aladdin Sane
    2) Scary Monsters
    3) Blackstar
    4) Ziggy Stardust
    5) Diamond Dogs…or Young Americans? hmmm OK; Diamond Dogs it is!

        • The reason I haven’t bought it yet is that I do own most of the tracks on different compilations etc already, and I always prefer to buy something brand new. But hearing songs on the actual original album can often change your view of them, for the better, so I’ll probably get around to it one of these days!

  55. I own a first pressing of Hunky Dory with “Rasputin” in the deadwax. Anyone else ever heard one? The sound is as good as vinly ever gets. Worth two grand probs. With that in mind:

    1. Hunky Dory
    2. Diamond Dogs
    3. Ziggy Stardust
    4. Young Americans
    5. Blackstar (because of side one)

    Apologies to Scary Monsters and TMWSTW. STS I have always found oddly difficult to like all the way through. Perhaps it’s the side effects of the cocaine.

  56. It would be interesting to plot votes against year at the end. So far, I think there are only 4 votes or so for the 20 years between 1983 and 2002.

    What I find interesting is that the two artists who I think had the best 1970s, Stevie Wonder and David Bowie, both ran out of steam at around the same time: 1983 or so.

    • 1983 was arguably Bowie’s most sucessful year in terms of records sold, bums on seats and public profile.

      I’d say his fallow period was quite short from say, Absolute Beginners theme in 86 to 1993’s Black Tie White Noise. More fool the people who didn’t get back on board.

      Buying Outside on the day of release and encountering this headfuck of an album was genuinely thrilling. Such a shame few bothered as we may well have got the other two planned sets with Eno

      • Let’s Dance has had a fairly respectable number of votes so far. I should have said 1984 – 2001. For that time period, there are a couple of votes each for Outside and Buddha of Suburbia and none at all for the other seven albums.

        I remember Black Tie White Noise being seen as his comeback too, but when we’re asked to name our Top 5s we’re pretty much ignoring the best part of 20 years.

      • I’d personally say the fallow period began in 1984 and Tonight, Blue Jean aside (although I think there are signs of it in half the Let’s Dance material). I worked on the record counter at Boots at the time and a hell of a lot of copies came back with mystery ‘scratches’ – the time honoured way of returning an unwanted purchase round our way.

  60. 1. Hunky Dory
    2. Station To Station
    3. Ziggy Stardust
    4. Heroes
    5. Low

    The top 3 are pretty much set in stone for me, 4 & 5 could have been any of a dozen others depending on my mood, as it happens I’ve been in a Berlin mood since Christmas…

    (… and I’d have included Bowie At The Beeb if I’d been allowed.)

    • My pal Ben corrects me. The one I meant (which he loaned me) is Outside not Reality. His 5 are:

      Outside
      Hunky Dory
      Diamond Dogs
      Ziggy
      Aladdin Sane
      Scary Monsters (I know I know, only 5 etc)

  63. Listening to some comedy prose for radio shows this morning, namely “Stop Messing About” on BBC 4 Extra (repeated at noon and 7.00 p.m.), and there is a piece on it entitled “2002, A Space Oddity.”

    The transmission date was Sunday, 4th April, 1969; the 45, inspired by Bowie seeing Kubrick’s film, wasn’t released until Friday, 11th July.

    Was the title “Space Oddity” adopted after he had heard a Kenneth Williams’ sketch on the Beeb?

    • There are demos of Space Oddity going back as far as Feb 1969, although I’m not sure if it had a title at that stage.

      Musicians on the record were Mick Wayne (guitar, from Hull band Juniors Eyes, who backed Bowie for a while in 1969), Rick Wakeman (Mellotron), Herbie Flowers (bass) and Terry Cox, drummer out of Pentangle

      Here’s an impossibly rare 1969 Australian 7″ EP by Junior’s Eyes. The band only made one LP Battersea Power Station but around the same time they played on Bowie’s second album Space Oddity and backed him on a BBC session

      http://i.imgur.com/cttfjJv.jpg

  70. 1. Station To Station
    2. Heroes
    3. Low
    4. Hunky Dory
    5. Reality

    Reality is a much underrated gem. Blackstar is excellent but only on a par with Diamond Dogs, Young Americans or Man Who Sold The World.

  72. Top 5 collated so far (approximately):

    1. Hunky Dory
    2. Ziggy Stardust
    3. Station to Station
    4. Low
    5. Blackstar

    Hmm, I chose all 5 (in a different order)

  75. I get less certain the further down the list I go. STS has to be number one, and I think Blackstar is a great record, even if you can remove the circumstances from it. I started getting into Bowie in 1990 with the CD reissues, so I only experienced classic 70s Bowie in retrospect. There are some album that I’ve owned over twenty years that I’m only finally revising now, particularly Young Americans, which I never really liked but since getting it on the vinyl in the WCIBN? box, I’m changing my perspective on it. Similarly Lodger is an album that whenever I put it on I think “This is great, I should listen to this more!” then I forget about it for a bit. Maybe its best to keep it at arms length, so it’s not blunted by over-familiarity.

    Being a latter day Bowie fan, I have huge love for his post 1990 records, because I was *there* and I was happy and excited to buy them. Three fine albums in 93-95, each one totally different, a treat if you were paying attention. Black Tie… is the true follow up to Let’s Dance: Nile Rogers and Dave do commercial, part 2. Buddah of Suburbia has two of his best songs ever: the title track and Stranger When We Meet. I agreed with DaveDFB that Outside was a gloriously mad disc that should have led to more of the same.

    I disagree with DaveDFB when I say that Reality is a great album, better than Heathen. It’s as good as The Next Day, but it just didn’t have its zeitgeist. The Next Day wasn’t a return to form, it’s just that the public had returned to demanding new music from Bowie, for the first time in 25 years.

    Having said all that:

    1. STATIONTOSTATION
    2. Hunky Dory
    3. Low
    4. Blackstar
    5. The hardest place to fill: Today it’s Lodger.

    • I think we also need a ranking of Bowie hairstyles.

      It was actually pretty poor in the late 70s, but he sorted it out for Scary Ms.

      The Let’s Dance look was at least funny – like a cartoon cloud made of custard.

      The absolute peak for me was the time of the first Tin Machine album. I doubt anyone has ever looked cooler.

      The 1969 bubble perm is surely the nadir. He looks like Dierdre Barlow without the glasses.

  84. “Low” is universally acknowledged as a classic album now, but I seem to recall that when it was released, it’s sales were pretty disappointing, despite the reasonably successful “Sound and Vision” single.

    • When Aladdin Sane was released it was a huge deal, coming immediately after the genre-changing Ziggy. And yet, despite a great cover and some wonderful packaging, it didn’t quite meet expectations. The sound of the album was somewhat harsh and the songs just weren’t as good as those on Ziggy and Hunky Dory. I still love the album though.

    • If you grew up in the 80s then Scary Monsters is probably the first Bowie you became aware of. The first time I saw him on TOTP was for the Ashes to Ashes video. It introduced him to people who were listening to the New Wave and early New Romantic music (isn’t it interesting that everything was “New” around 79-81: New Wave, New Romatic, NWOBHM etc).

      Anyway, I think it’s interesting it’s so high simply because I don’t think it’s that great an album; i think the quality drops away dramatically on Side Two.

      • You might be right there. I was at that crucial early teenage period when SM came out and although Bowie was already known to me as a birrova genius, when Ashes to Ashes appeared it sounded extraordinary. The video cost fourteen thousand pounds! That was reported as a “the world’s gone barmy!” item at the end of the news.

        I loved the fact that Bowie seemed healthy and was still producing the kind of music that wouldn’t occur to anyone else. He was quite old, after all! If we use the four singles as a guide to the album, they are four very different pieces and certainly not yer usual pop chart fodder. There was a pleasingly sleazy and sinister edge to the album too – lightened by Up the Hill Backwards (which reminds me of Grandma Pepper).

      • Spot on both. SM was when Bowie came into my peer group’s consciousness. Those of us keen to project a pale and interesting tortured bedroom genius vibe were somehow made aware of Hunky Dory and then the rest of the catalogue was typically bought Nice Price or at second hand record stores. Aladdin Sane had lots of skippable songs (Panic, Drive In, Prettiest Star), a cover version that could have been by Showaddywaddy and a “classic” track whose significance didn’t really resonate.

    • Aladdin Sane was relatively expensive to buy at the time, because of the cover (I think, with the silver or is it mercury?). I can’t remember how much it was – maybe £3 when most albums were retailing for £2:50. But if I remember correctly, I had already bought Jean Genie and Drive-In Saturday on 45, and my feeling was that it was a bit of rip-off to expect fans to buy an album with singles on it they’d already bought.
      Also, musically (and this isn’t hindsight talking) it’s a bit of a mish-mash. If it had all been like Drive-In and the title track, it would have been a real classic. Diamonds Dogs has that quality, but on AS there are too many bog-standard boogie songs (Watch That Man, Cracked Actor, Let’s Spend the Night Together). I’m a big fan of Mick Ronson’s playing on Hunky Dory and Ziggy, but it’s all a bit one-dimensional on Aladdin Sane.

      • I don’t think it was silver foil on the sleeve but it was a gatefold with inner sleeve and a fan club membership card on early pressings. At that time RCA had a pricing system on the back cover, eg HH. GG etc. I’ll check AS when I get home and report back

      • I see Aladdin Sane is getting a bit of a kicking. It’s the Goats Head Soup of his catalogue, dirty, sleazy, flawed and magnificent. Sure, he had writer’s block, ending up doing a cover, an old, previously rejected one, one he’d written for someone else and one with a huge hole to fill (fortunately Mike Garson filled it with aplomb). The mix is unbalanced, the musical styles range from theatre to metal and the lyrics are bonkers. Yet, Aladdin Sane has etched its place in my heart. It is a definitive sex, drugs and rock & roll album and, its flaws are essential to its appeal. Cracked Actor is as disturbing as You Can Leave Your Hat On. Panic In Detroit is Iggy in a Funk. Watch That Man is the most debauched party you could wish for. Drive-In Saturday is a stoned afternoon in bed and Lady Grinning Soul eroticism from another world. The piano is florid, the drum kit a set of bins, the guitar rips snorts and the bass bounces like a maniac. Play it loud.

        • I agree. One of my sisters had that LP, one of very few pop LPs in our house. It got played to death and I knew every word thanks to the lyrics on the inner sleeve. But in those days TVs got hot and one of us kids left it on the TV and it warped. Flattening it overnight with about 10 volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica didn’t quite do the trick, so I as the youngest sibling old enough to go was delegated to take it back. The next Saturday I went to Robins Records and told them that I had bought this battered, warped LP last Saturday and it was in this condition so could you please replace it (and no, I didn’t have the receipt!). Needless to say I was sent packing, but if I listened to that same LP today I’m sure I would still know when it would click.

    • By any normal standards, Aladdin Sane would be a career-defining album. Just shows what an incredible career Bowie had that according to the most discerning cognoscenti on t’internet 😉
      it only ranks as an also-ran.

  87. I’m a 70s Bowie fan. So for me it’s:
    1. Hunky Dory
    2. Ziggy Stardust
    3. Station to Station
    4. Diamond Dogs
    5. Low

    These are the albums I grew up with, so there’s a big emotional attachment to them.

  88. After a lot, a LOT of thought, here’s my list. For now:

    1) Ziggy – my introduction to Bowie
    2) Aladdin Sane – It seems a lot of people don’t rate this one too highly because of what came before, but for me Side One (in old money) is as good a collection of songs Bowie ever released, and while the second side maybe trails off in quality (I am not now, nor have I ever been, a fan of Time, reeking as it does of Bowie’s obsession with tedious cabaret eurobore Jacques Brel) but it does finish with one of Bowie’s most gorgeous songs. And I even like the Stones cover!
    3) Low, because OBVIOUSLY….
    4) 1.Outside – I admit I am a late convert to this, as I only got a copy last year after reading about it in Nicholas Pegg’s peerless Bowie compendium, but holy fuckballs what an incredible, amazing album. Were it not for Blackstar it would stand as his finest post-imperial phase album.
    5) Hunky Dory – I just couldn’t leave this out – when I feel like just sitting in my comfy chair and mellowing out, this is the one I reach for.

    Bubbling under – TMWSTW, Station, Blackstar, Buddha, Scary Monsters

  91. 1) Low
    2) Young Americans
    3) Hunky Dory
    4) Station to Station
    5) Blackstar

    6) Ziggy
    7) Heroes
    8) Scary Monsters
    9) Diamond Dogs
    10) hours

    All have degrees of greatness….how lucky are we to have lived in his era and enjoyed the genius.

  92. I know it’s a lot of people’s favourite Bowie song but I’ve never rated ‘Heroes’. I can admire the performance and Tony Visconti’s engineering but the song itself has never resonated with me.

  94. Here we go –

    1. Hunky Dory
    2. Ziggy Stardust
    3. Low
    4. Diamond Dogs
    5. Station to Station

    6. AladdinSane
    7. Young Americans
    8. Heathen
    9. Space Oddity
    10. Heroes

  95. 1. Hunky Dory
    2. The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars
    3. Low
    4. Station To Station
    5. Blackstar

    are the 5 most consistent for me.

  99. Crikey, this is hard, like choosing your favourite child.

    Equal first place:
    1. Hunky Dory
    1. Low

    3. Ziggy Stardust
    4. Scary Monsters
    5. Station To Station

    Equal 6th place:
    Heroes
    Let’s Dance
    Outside
    The Next Day
    Blackstar

    I could live without the rest of the studio albums plus the Nothing Has Changed 3CD comp and Stage, if I really had to.

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