David Bowie album reviews

 

A Reality Tour

'A Reality Tour' is the double live album from David Bowie which was recorded on he's Reality Tour at the Point Theatre in Dublin back in November 2003.

30 live tracks from he's 1967 self titled debut album up to 2003's 'Reality' feature on the CD whilst the DVD comes bundled with an extra 3 tracks:

The official track list runs:

'Rebel, Rebel', 'New Killer Star', 'Reality', 'Fame', 'Cactus', 'Sister Midnight', 'Afraid', 'All The Young Dudes', 'Be My Wife', 'The Loneliest Guy', 'The Man Who Sold The World', 'Fantastic Voyage', 'Hallo Spaceboy', 'Sunday', 'Under Pressure', 'Life On Mars', 'Battle For Britain (The Letter)', 'Ashes To Ashes', 'The Motel', 'Loving The Alien', 'Never Get Old', 'Changes', 'I'm Afraid Of Americans', 'Heroes', 'Bring Me The Disco King', 'Slip Away', 'Heathen (The Rays)', 'Five Years', 'Hang On To Yourself', 'Ziggy Stardust', 'Fall Dogs Bomb The Moon', 'Breaking Glass', 'China Girl'

A Reality Tour is David Bowie's tenth live album he's most successful was 'David Live' which peaked at number 2 in the UK charts back in 1974.

0 Reviews

Reality [9/10]

1 Reviews
kat aberdeen scotland: This is an amazing follow up to the superb heathen, the major diffrence this has is that its a major combo cocktail mix of genres. pablo picasso, fast funky rock, with david ever so delightful voice throwing itself from pitch to pitch. and the wonderful new killer star absolutely delightful. must be bought!

9/10 [published 8/7/2004 12:09:00 PM]

Heathen

0 Reviews

Diamond Dogs [10/10]

2 Reviews
MP7 Absolute Gem from David,except for Rebel Rebel(death by radio)
and I didn't like Diamond dogs much (title track)
I bought the album when it was released,I was about 12 years
old.I bought it because i liked the cover and after a few listens became a fan.I rate the rest of the album 11 out of 10
It's Esoteric, moody,deep and original, i love it.I've always wondered how many people know and like this record.

Cheers MP7

9/10 [published 11/11/2006 7:04:00 PM]
Anita I liked diamond dogs because of the beginning....and in the death.....I was a shy 15 year old who had to give a presentation for my english cse. I had no confidence but was well into david bowie music, when my english teacher said you could chose any subject I decided to recite the whole of the diamond dogs intro as it was the only thing that gave me any confidence....I decked myself in weird costume and did it.....I got a fantasic mark which otherwise I would have failed....thank you david...........anita

10/10 [published 1/8/2010 10:59:57 PM]

Aladdin Sane [10/10]

1 Reviews
alark in detroit Rating: 10

Aladdinsane is the sound track for the Glam rock movement - when art, rock and roll, stagey performance art, and a healthy spoonful of androgyny all combined to create one of the most influential periods in pop music history. Almost every music artist that made their debut in the 1980's owes their fame in part to David Bowie, who was a decade ahead of everyone else. The songs hearken back to the decadance of New York City during the guilded age, turn of the century Paris, and especially Weimar Berlin. The music on this album is very ambitious, and produced with a quality unseen on rock and roll albums up to that time. Especially great is the title track "Aladdinsane" where David Bowie gives pianist Mike Garson the opportunity to rip out a dissonant piano solo that would make Igor Stravinsky blush! "Time" is another great track where Mick Ronson's guitar work, Bowie's voice, and Garson's piano virtuosity combine to create a glam anthem letting us know that beauty is short lived. This album also features the hits "The Jean Geanie", and "Panic in Detroit".
This is not your mother's Bowie album. It is kitschy, pretentious, and very enjoyable. It should be played at maximum volume.

10/10 [published 12/4/2006 3:16:00 PM]

Ziggy Stardust [7/10]

The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars was released in 1972 and it made number fibe in the UK album charts and also spawned the hit singles 'Suffragette City', 'Rock 'N' Roll Suicide', 'John I'm Only Dancing' and the title track.

4 Reviews
Ollie I like this album melody-wise; however all the stupid lyrics about Spiders From Mars and the like piss me off. Musically it is great and although I wholeheartedly approve of concept albums I don't approve of this concept. Why spoil great songs with nonsense about a fictional 'rock star' (God, I hate that term) from outer space who fannies about with a fictional band with a shit name?! David, you could have done so much better. Ground it in realism, not shite. Still, the music is nice.

6/10 [published 6/3/2008 10:00:31 PM]
glen from edinburgh one of the best albums ever made growing up with the music of david bowie was pure joy ollie is probably a brotherhood of man fannie

10/10 [published 6/11/2008 10:21:19 PM]
The Great RT 10 out of 10 say no more ! just listen.............The Main Man !

10/10 [published 8/28/2009 6:44:40 PM]
anita fantasic album, you had to be there and into it at the time...i'm so glad i was....i feel sorry for some of the shit in the charts now...david gave you a reason....Ollie you obviously have missed it...shame for you but never mind you can always watch the x factor!!!!!!!!!!!

1/10 [published 1/8/2010 10:47:36 PM]

Hunky Dory [9/10]

Hunky Dory was David Bowie's second studio album and it reached number three in the UK albums in September 1972, 9 months after its original release date. The 11 track album, which runs at just under 40 minutes, was recorded at the Trident Studios in City of Los Angeles

9 Reviews
Katy David Bowie isn't just for older people; it's for younger ones too! I am 14 years old and I love this album. All the songs are catchy and you can listen to them for hours without getting bored. Bowie has done a great job on this album!

10/10 [published 7/18/2005 11:50:00 PM]
all music guide After the freakish hard rock of The Man Who Sold the World, David Bowie returned to singer/songwriter territory on Hunky Dory. Not only did the album boast more folky songs ("Song for Bob Dylan," "The Bewlay Brothers"), but he again flirted with Anthony Newley-esque dancehall music ("Kooks," "Fill Your Heart"), seemingly leaving heavy metal behind. As a result, Hunky Dory is a kaleidoscopic array of pop styles, tied together only by Bowie's sense of vision: a sweeping, cinematic mélange of high and low art, ambiguous sexuality, kitsch, and class. Mick Ronson's guitar is pushed to the back, leaving Rick Wakeman's cabaret piano to dominate the sound of the album. The subdued support accentuates the depth of Bowie's material, whether it's the revamped Tin Pan Alley of "Changes," the Neil Young homage "Quicksand," the soaring "Life on Mars?," the rolling, vaguely homosexual anthem "Oh! You Pretty Things," or the dark acoustic rocker "Andy Warhol." On the surface, such a wide range of styles and sounds would make an album incoherent, but Bowie's improved songwriting and determined sense of style instead made Hunky Dory a touchstone for reinterpreting pop's traditions into fresh, postmodern pop music

10/10 [published 7/29/2004 2:08:00 PM]
rolling stone David Bowie, the swinging/mod Garbo, male femme fatale, confidante to and darling of the avant garde on both sides of the Atlantic, and shameless outrage, is back, and with a bang, although bearing little resemblance to the dangerous loony of The Man Who Sold The World from earlier this year.For the most part, Dave is back, after an affair with heavy! highenergy killer techniques, back into his 1966-ish, Tony Newley/poprock thang, and happily so: Hunky is his most easily accessible, and thus most readily enjoyable work since his Man Of Words/Man of Music album of 1969.Much of The Man Who Sold's appeal is derived from the incredible ferocity of Bowie's accompanist's instrumental backing and from Tony Visconti's masterful production, which propelled it into a tie with the Move's Shazam for the title of the best-recorded and-mixed heavy! album of all eternity. Relative to Bowie's own talents it was erratic in the extreme, tedious music and hopelessly obscure (and sometimes downright embarrassing) words alternating frequently within the space of a verse with exciting melodic phrases and poignant, incisive lyrics.Hunky Dory not only represents Bowie's most engaging album musically, but also finds him once more writing literally enough to let the listener examine his ideas comfortably, without having to withstand a barrage of seemingly impregnable verbiage before getting at an idea-only in "The Bewlay Brothers" does he succumb to the temptation to grant his poetic faculties completely free rein, and there with expectedly frustrating results.Here the backing, including strings, doesn't oppress him as it sometimes did in The Man, but rather creates a casual pop atmosphere in which Dave's voice, which loves to entertain company, is free to perform all manner of little tricks for us. To top all of this off, Ken Scott's production is quite splendid-delicious little flourishes of the sort that the casual listener will not detect but that one who gives the record a few serious spins will find thrilling abound, like, say, Mick Ronson's guitar suddenly beginning to echo distantly at the onset of a solo.While compiling material for this album Dave's thoughts apparently turned frequently to the imminence of the birth of his first son, Zowie, which preoccupation is reflected in the album's two obvious candidates for release as a single, "Oh! You Pretty Things" and "Kooks." The former, which was a hit in England for Herman Hermit, intimates that homo superior-the superman race-is about to emerge, implicitly in the form of the wee Bowie. "Kooks," which is even catchier, finds Dave urging the infant to stick around with his folks, shameless aberrants though they may be, with such lines as, "Don't pick fights with the bullies or the cads/'Cause I'm not much cop at punching other, people's Dads," revealing remarkable self-candor on Papa's part."Eight Line Poem," which is tacked onto the end of "Pretty Things" for reasons obvious only to Dave, is musically blah but boasts the following haiku-ish couplet or whatever at its conclusion: "But the key to the city/Is in the sun that pins the branches to the sky.""Changes" has an irresistible stuttered chorus sung by dozens of overdubbed Daves alternating with faintly Newley-ishly-delivered verses that may be construed as a young man's attempt to reckon how he'll react when it's his time to be on the maligned side of the generation schism."Quicksand," a melodically lovely affair that boasts superb singing from Dave and a beautiful guitar motif from Mick Ronson, also speaks of confusion. Through two verses it's typical erratic Bowie-a flaccid, strained image in the same breath with an extremely effective one (as in "I'm the twisted name on Garbo's eyes/I'm living proof of Churchill's lies"), until in the third it abruptly becomes clear and controlled as it betrays the paradoxes the Bowie intellect finds most troubling:I'm not a prophet or a stone age manJust a mortal with potential of a supermanI'm living onI'm tethered to the logic of homo sapienCan't take my eyes from the great salvationOf bullshit faith...A delightfully and appropriately good-natured rendition of Biff Rose's sprightly "Fill Your Heart" opens side two, ending with a truly deft swoop into falsetto by the Bowie vocal chords and a taste of the provocative Bowie saxophone, heretofore left un-unveiled on the Bowie records.Then Dave falters momentarily with two tunes that suggest to Lewis Segal and other astute Bowie-watchers that the lad's tongue may be less firmly against his cheek than originally suspected when he suggests that he is in the vanguard of, and therefore a qualified commentator on, hip and avant - garde goings - on-both "Andy Warhol," whose only notable feature is its extraordinary all-acoustic-guitar accompaniment, and "Song For Bob Dylan" impress even these unastute ears as self-indulgent and trivial."Queen Bitch," though, with a vocal right out of Lou Reed and an arrangement right out of the Velvet Underground and a theme right out of the novel of the same name, is fascinating and scandalous, describing a "swishy ... Queen" successfully hustling the singer's boyfriend. And after all this reviewer did to portray Dave as a clean-cut normal in these pages!"The Bewlay Brothers" sounds like something that got left off The Man Who Sold because it wasn't loud enough. Musically it's quiet and barren and sinister, lyrically virtually impenetrable-a stream-of-consciousness stream of strange and (seemingly) unrelated imagery-and it closes with several repetitions of a chilling chorus sung in a broad Cockney accent, which, if it's any help, David usually invokes when he's attempting to communicate something about the impossibility of ever completely transcending the mundane circumstances of one's birth.And there you have it. With his affection for using intriguing and unusual themes in musical settings that most rock "artists" would dismiss with a quick fart as old-fashioned and uncool, he's definitely an original, is David Bowie, and as such will one day make an album that will induce us homo superior elitist rock critics to race about like a chicken with its head lopped off when he learns that he's a couple of pretentious tendencies he'd do handsomely to curtail through the composition of an album's-worth of material. Until that time, Hunky Dory will suffice hunky-dorily.

10/10 [published 7/29/2004 2:08:00 PM]
ink blot magazine For any youngsters or neophytes out there who define David Bowie by his recent regurgitation of currently hip musical styles, a visit to his back catalogue is in order. Recorded during his most fertile and productive period, Hunky Dory is a powerhouse of a record that reminds us that Bowie was once a leader so far ahead of the game that he seemed to be writing the rules as he went along.Hunky Dory is Bowie's most varied recording to date, wandering fluidly on a musical terrain that shifts unexpectedly between melodramatic show tunes, flawlessly constructed pop, trippy art-rock, and earthy folk. Somehow, Bowie pulls off all of these styles with equal aplomb, lending his remarkable songwriting ability to each number and never allowing the style to outweigh the substance.The album's most enduring and ironically prophetic moments come near its ending, with two paeans to the cult of celebrity and the price of fame. "Andy Warhol" is a piercing ode to one of Bowie's friends and biggest influences, an unblinking look at the emptiness of image: "Andy Warhol looks a scream / hang him on my wall / Andy Warhol, silver screen / can't tell them apart at all." "Song For Bob Dylan" is a brilliant examination of the use of an alter-ego to step out of one's self and create powerful art: "Now hear this Robert Zimmerman / Though I don't suppose we'll meet / Ask your good friend Dylan / If he'd gaze a while down the old street / Tell him they've lost his poems / So they're writing on the wall."Within a year of this recording, David Bowie would come to personify both of these ideas, creating the androgynous, glam-rocking alter-ego of Ziggy Stardust, soon after shedding the image that had grown as static as a painting on a wall and creating a new persona to push himself forward.

10/10 [published 7/29/2004 2:08:00 PM]
Bex Yup, Bowie can definitely be for kids too (I'm 13) Hunky Dory is excellent. Changes, Life on Mars and Andy Warhol are brilliant songs, and the rest just as catchy - there's certainly no filler material in this absolute gem of an album

10/10 [published 9/19/2005 6:26:00 PM]
andy everything you heard about this album is true.
I'm not a Bowie fan, but this album is right up there in the top 10 of the decade, if not top three. Drugs didn't help the Beatles or many other artists to create great music, but this album seems to have been written entirely out of drug abuse; the lyrics, the riffs, the songs: I have no diea what he's on about, but it's beautiful stuff. I once read that Bowie can't remember even recording this album. That may just be a scurrilous rumour. Besides, the craftsmanship of the songs speaks to some kind of demented genius. You could not construct such songs as Queen Bitch or Life on Mars unless you really knew what you were doing surely.
I don't care about Bowie's image or his acolytes. I care about the music. This album is a work of art. It should be installed in a spaceship like Voyager as proof that the human race, while mostly evil and violent, is capable of beauty and genius.
It's an album to play to your grandchildren and hopefully, they'll get it.

10/10 [published 10/1/2005 4:10:00 PM]
Andy The best Bowie album bar none. Not being a Bowie fan means I can be very honest about this album. I was stunned when I first heard tracks like Pretty Things and Live on Mars in the early 70s. As I grew up I realised that the hype was well founded at least for this album. The 12 string guitar is great, and this album nestles very neatly next to Chameleon in the Shadow of the Night for early 70s angst. Great.

10/10 [published 8/14/2007 9:52:00 PM]
zach Way TOO much said about a VERY mediocre album. . . A 150 word paragraph about the David Bowie Album Hunky Dory would certainly do. I love David Bowie music just not this effort.

1/10 [published 9/27/2008 10:44:16 PM]
The GREAT RT From the man who could do no worng in the 70's & 80's ........yet another master piece from the MAIN MAN (check Out DAVID LIVE for good listen !)

10/10 [published 8/28/2009 7:55:55 PM]
 
 
 
 

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