My 7 Favorite Bowie Albums
They are sprinkled through this stream of thought.
I have to say, David Bowie left us quite a bit of music and performances to chew on, unlike many of the other stars that shined brightly, yet briefly. We should all feel lucky and happy that he had such a fruitful career.
A few stats:
- 111 Singles
- 26 Studio Albums
- 46 Compilation Albums
- 4 EPs
- 4 Soundtracks
- 10 Film, TV & Theater Roles
- …and an Off-Broadway Play (hope it comes to Broadway!)
I haven’t counted the genres he wrote and performed in yet but I will try to outline those at some point. His vocal styles tripped all over the place and I discovered this morning that one of his later great albums Heathen features almost all of his vocal “personas”. It would take someone new to his trove weeks to get through them all and years to fully appreciate them. I am still discovering musical gems and insights and I have heard most all of them.
I dissected Low and Station to Station in my teens, danced to Scary Monsters at Danceteria and The Palladium in the wild wonderful days of the 80s in New York City, and reveled in the amazing Outside (one David thought fell through the cracks and was going to revisit soon with Eno) — it is still my #1 favorite Bowie album. Another notable album that many people don’t know is The Buddha of Suburbia: very very cool album. OK, I am rambling now but just put on Black Tie White Noise tomorrow morning, first thing and tell me you don’t feel happy, even now after his passing. That was his and Iman’s “wedding album”. It always makes me feel good.
I have a dilemma: now that ★ (Blackstar) is out I have to make a choice and determine which of the above 7 albums I need to remove. I think that a top 10 list is a bit excessive and typical so am trying to cull my favorites down to seven; in general a manageable number of items to remember, kind of like a telephone number was when we needed to use our memory for making phone calls and other things. Now that we have outsourced our memory to technology…oh, that is a topic for another day.
I will miss his future music, but at least I have a huge cache of music from him that I can call my friends forever.
Choices matter…/racine
