When He Speaks Like This You Don’t Know What He’s After: Last Thoughts On Leonard Cohen, 1934-2016.

Leonard Cohen is dead.

He was one of those rare songwriters—like Bob Dylan, like Neil Young, like Joni Mitchell—who has been around so long we that we have long since taken him for granted; he keeps active, keeps touring, keeps surprising us with new twists and turns to his career.

But he was 82.

Older than Elvis would have been, older than Jerry Lee Lewis is now. He is easily the biggest pop legend to have begun his career at the most advanced age. In a music world of teenagers and young prodigies, Leonard Cohen released his debut album, Songs of Leonard Cohen, when he was all of 33 years old. If he was Jesus, it was the year he would have been crucified.

On the first and most famous song on the album, “Suzanne,” he addresses Jesus directly, walking across the water, becoming certain only drowning men could see him, and saying that “all men will be sailors then until the sea shall free them.” Cohen then describes Jesus as “almost human.”

This was 1967. People were simply not writing songs like this. Everything was about Sgt. Pepper’s band and Jimi Hendrix’s various experiences, or, if you were lucky (or just hip), The Velvet Underground’s postmodern menace. Only Bob Dylan was hiding out in the basement, but by the end of the year, even he had hired Gordon Lightfoot’s band.

Leonard Cohen clearly borrowed from Dylan—the deadpan voice and folk arrangements are unimaginable without Bob paving the way—and yet he went beyond him. Where Dylan always wanted to be an accomplished writer, Leonard Cohen already was; he was an accomplished novelist before Songs was released. It would be like if John Updike walked away from his books to become a country-rock icon.

And like the greatest modern songwriters, many of Leonard Cohen’s songs are best known by others who put them across in bigger ways. Judy Collins’ “Suzanne” put him on the map, while Jeff Buckley’s “Hallelujah” remains the definitive reading of that beautiful, fragile masterpiece.

And yet, for me, the deepest, darkest, greatest song of all is “The Stranger Song.”

Like his finest work, it mixed the sacred with the profane, the sacrament with the seediness. I’ve listened to it countless times, yet I’m still not entirely sure what it’s about. It’s about love, mystery, mysticism, shelter, dealers, deceit, and fate, but I can’t even figure out if it’s about two people, three people, or an entire parade of people. Yet lines stick out that work despite their seeming pretentions: “He was just some Joseph looking for a manger,” goes one part; “It’s hard to hold the hand of anyone who is reaching for the sky just to surrender,” goes another.

And then, at yet another part are among the most fully-realized and sophisticated lyrics I’ve ever encountered in a pop song:

And while he talks his dreams to sleep

You notice there’s a highway

That is curling up like smoke above his shoulder.

It sounds like a ghost story and looks like a de Chirico painting.

I first got my copy of Songs when I worked in a used record store; it was un-remastered and unremarkable looking, the way those original Columbia CD issues were and I doubt I paid more than five bucks for it.

At the time I knew a girl who was a poet and also appreciated the album. We would celebrate the macabre world it conjured by improvising to each other in deadpan new Cohen “lyrics,” which basically consisted of stringing together images of roads, sex, and New Testament imagery. Like a Leonard Cohen song, she had a dark mysteriousness about her, and a sexiness too.

Years later, I learned that she tried to killed herself and was only saved when her boyfriend and father broke down her door.

And yet, Leonard Cohen had long since beaten me to the epiphany, sung as obvious as though he was a blind man reciting a dog-eared hotel room Bible: “It is you my love, you who are the stranger.”

And this is just one line of one song.

And Leonard Cohen wrote hundreds of songs with thousands of lines.

And I can only imagine the scores of places each one could take us, through his own vision as an artist and through our own experiences as listeners.

And now that voice has been silenced, and we pause to reflect, as we should.

And it comes to you, he never was a stranger.

Endless Summaries: The Beach Boys Compilation Problem.

In mid-1974, just as America was reaching its modern emotional nadir with the Watergate Scandal & President Richard Nixon's subsequent resignation, Capitol Records released a compilation called Endless Summer by The Beach Boys—a group so out of fashion that their previous release had been a reissue single of "All Summer Long" backed by "Surfin' Safari," in an attempt to capitalize on its use in that great bastion of by-gone American culture, American Graffiti.

Although The Beach Boys had released various best-of compilations over the years, Endless Summer was the one that broke the mold. It became the surprise blockbuster of 1974 & remains for many people THE Beach Boys collection, if not statement. Surprisingly, it was only the second Beach Boys' LP to hit #1—the first was their obligatory mid-'60s live album (& no, Pet Sounds never came close as it stalled at #10, although it did make #2 in the UK, but I digress)—& introduced an entire generation to the group, the very same people who ushered in their "America's Greatest Band" phase by the time they were rocking out for the Reagan White House on the 4th of July, which is about as American as a show can get, I'd say.

For this reason, people get pretty misty-eyed about Endless Summer, but upon closer examination nearly 40 years after the fact, the album reveals itself to be the slapdash afterthought it truly was.  Basically, by 1974, The Beach Boys had left Capitol to start their own Brothers label (& unknowingly enter their bizarre "cult" years between hit-makers & oldies-circuiters), & Capitol was looking to make a cheap buck off the band.  As you read everywhere, Endless Summer was made with the help of Mike Love (which, depending on if yer Team Brian, means that it was soiled by the hand of satan, or if yer Team Mike, it was graced by the great unsung hero of American popular music), which means he chose to focus on the Beach Boys' vintage years (1962-1965) to the exclusion of anything later — i.e., Pet Sounds & the #1 "Good Vibrations" (although we will soon see the latter oversight rectified).

It was this emphasis that made it so irresistible to the kids, as the post-'60s purple haze of glass onions & jewels & binoculars hanging from the head of the mule had overtaken the (often great) music that had come just before it.  Enter Endless Summer, which, say what you will about the music (& I will), came in a shiny double-set with lovely artwork—evocative line drawings of the boys among the green trees & yellow sand of the beach, which were a perfect match for the mood of the music inside, while oddly also being a perfect mismatch for the time in which the music was made (despite the fact that all of the recordings were around a decade old & made in their classic preppy matching-striped shirt days, the band was drawn with the long hair & flowing beards that was contemporary to 1974) — & perfect title.  Endless Summer.  Yes.  If there's a more perfect comp title, I've yet to see it.  OK, maybe the Flaming Lips' Finally The Punk Rockers Are Taking Acid, but that's more of an intellectual perfection where as Endless Summer works completely on mood.  Which is what this album is all about.

For everything that is on the album, it's interesting to note what isn't.  A handful of big hits are all MIA—"When I Grow Up (To Be A Man)" (#9), "Dance, Dance, Dance" (#8), "Do You Wanna Dance?" (#12), & "Barbara Ann" (#2)—despite the fact that they were all released during the 1962-1965 time period.  Also, minor hits & classics like "409" (#76), "Please Let Me Wonder" (#52), "The Little Girl I Once Knew" (#20), & "Little Honda" (the lead song on an EP that hit #44) are also missing.  & then, most sacrilege of all, on 3 tracks the less-familiar & inferior LP versions were substituted for the famous hit versions: "Be True to Your School" (#6), "Fun, Fun, Fun" (#5), & "Help Me, Rhonda" (one of the Beach Boys' few #1 hits).  This has always struck me as very fishy.  & with everyone agreeing on how thrown-together this compilation was, it's always just felt like some engineer somewhere wasn't really paying attention when they sent the masters to be pressed, & then it wasn't worth fixing once they had been sent, if anyone even noticed in the first place.  & then when it becomes a #1 smash, why fix something that's not broken?

So that's already five Top 40 hits from the period that was left off, plus an additional three Top 10 hits that weren't included in their hit versions.  Really, who was in charge here?  But what did make it on, wrong versions & all, play majestically.  In this regard, Endless Summer plays the ultimate trick of them all: Feeling like the perfect summation of The Beach Boys, even if reality proved otherwise.  For everything that the album wasn't, it was assembled shrewdly.  It balances between rockers & ballads, with the opening side of "Surfin' Safari" (#14) "Surfer Girl" (#7), "Catch A Wave," "The Warmth Of The Sun," & "Surfin' USA" (#3) especially perfect.  The big hits—"Little Deuce Coupe" (#15) "I Get Around" (#1) "California Girls" (#3)—are pretty evenly divided among the smaller ones—"In My Room" (#23), "Shut Down"(#23), & "Don't Worry Baby" (#24)—& the non-charting classics (at least in the relative world of the Beach Boys) like "You're So Good To Me," & "All Summer Long."  The few other filler tracks—"The Girls On The Beach," "Girl Don't Tell Me" & "Let Him Run Wild"—can be excused as filler, given the fact that you are getting a 20-song, double album.

But wait just a minute there—only one song breaks the 3-minute barrier (the inferior version of "Rhonda"), while two don't even break the two-minute barrier, resulting in a breezy album that runs a little over 45 minutes.  That's shorter than the Beatles' Abbey Road, Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited, & the Rolling Stones' original UK version of Aftermath, all of which sit comfortably on a single disc.  Indeed, while the average LP side can hold around 20-23 minutes, Endless Summer opts for around 12 on each of its side.  Thus, it could've been issued on a single LP — which, incidentally, is exactly how it was issued in the always-thrifty UK.  But Americans are all about space & a double-album feels fuller than a single, & this is an album all about feel.  Also, as any business undergrad can tell you, a double-album can be sold at a higher price.

& then I almost forgot.  When it was reissued on CD in 1981 (with one of those "A Double-Album Set On A Single CD" stickers—ha ha!), they added what may have been the first CD bonus track ever: "Good Vibrations," a #1 single that even the most armchair of armchair Beach Boy quarterbacks must've noticed was absent.  When you think Beach Boys (not to mention the phrase "Endless Summer"), I bet "Good Vibrations" is the first thing most people would think of.  Yes, it broke Mike Love's "early years" rule (it came out in 1966), but from the Reagan era, it all looked the same.  Beach/surf/hippie music.  Maybe it wasn't all so bad after all…

But with no other songs in between the original running-order & "Good Vibrations," the now 21-track, 51-minute CD Endless Summer, the album simply bypassed the Pet Sounds material altogether.  Perhaps this was allowed Mike Love to go with it, if he was even consulted when the transfer to CD was made.  Love had famously referred to Brian Wilson's Pet Sounds-era stuff as "Brian's Ego music," so in this version of the story, the ego music could still be out while the closer of all closers, "Good Vibrations," ends things with a gorgeousness that can't be denied by either Team Mike or Team Brian.  Or anyone with ears for that matter.

With the CD Endless Summer now neatly skipping Pet Sounds, it remained the optimal recommendation for many critics, just as the 2 albums appear in Rolling Stone's 200 Essential Albums list in 1997.  Unlike so many other artists, these albums seemed to fit together perfectly, with Endless Summer leading just up to Pet Sounds, Pet Sounds filling its own void, then the bonus track of "Good Vibrations" (released after Pet Sounds) to finish the story with seemingly everything you need to know.

But there are still the missing hits, & still the three inferior non-hit versions.  Now, I've read that when they put out the special remastered gold CD edition (Remember those things? Pay twice as much for an album that you've already bought on vinyl, cassette tape, and normal CD!), they corrected the inferior versions, making it the first time that you could actually hear all of the hits in the hit versions that the album's sleeve always claimed to have.  At any rate, my copy of the non-gold CD (an old Columbia House mail-order one I found used in a record store) has the stupid versions of the three songs.  (I mean, there's a reason why the single of "Help Me, Rhonda" doesn't playfully fade in & out for a few extra choruses—it's kinda annoying.)

Now, assuming we can call the 3 "wrong tracks" issued resolved given that they were (finally) corrected, I still don't understand how some of those songs made it on the album.  Maybe I'm quibbling here (OK, I'm definitely quibbling here), but I can't believe that legitimate Top 10 hits like "Dance, Dance, Dance," "When I Grow Up (To Be A Man)," & "Barbara Ann" were MIA while second-rate, derivative fodder like "Girls On The Beach," "Girl Don't Tell Me," & "You're So Good To Me" made the cut.

It is probably for these very reasons (plus I don't think the sound was ever remastered for the non-gold CD edition) that Endless Summer has remained out of print for at least a decade now (at least as a hard-copy; you can still download it—3 wrong songs & all—on iTunes).  But what kills me most is that nothing worthy of its vision was put in its place.

Before Endless Summer appeared, there was the old vinyl Best Of The Beach Boys, Volumes 1 & 2 that have been out of print longer than I've been alive.  Just as well since, despite Greil Marcus's claim about the second volume, they both seem to skimp on length (as many LPs did back then) & add some needless junk amongst the hits (namely, The Beach Boys trying to beat the Kinks in the contest for the worst "Louie, Louie" cover on Vol. 1 & something called "Long Tall Texan" on Vol. 2).  Sometimes there's a reason things are outta print.

The two-record 1986 set Made In The U.S.A. came the closest for me to reaching the promise of Endless Summer, chronologically taking the story up through the then out-of-print (!) Pet Sounds (adding "Caroline No," a minor hit (#34) that was issued as a "Brian Wilson" single) & "Good Vibrations," & then closing it with the one-two punch of "Heroes & Villains" (#12) & their made-in-1968-but-already-was-feeling-nostalgic "Do It Again" (#20), before then adding five needless newer songs that, while hits of varying degrees, feel like a tack-on, as opposed to the continuation of a narrative.  Plus, when I look at it now, I see that, despite my very clear memories of the album, it apparently doesn't have "Little Deuce Coupe" on it.  Although I coulda sworn that my copy did.  At any rate, another Beach Boys aficionado could just as easily point to the absence of "In My Room" or "Catch A Wave" & make just as strong as an argument.  (For those keeping score, all three of those songs are on Endless Summer.)

The early 1990s saw a major remastering & reissuing of the Beach Boys catalogue for their 30th anniversary as a band, culminating in a boxed set, Good Vibrations: 30 Years of the Beach Boys, which is in its own category (& has already been masterly/obsessively deconstructed by David Leaf in his short revival of Crawdaddy! from that time).  By this point, they had been discovered by a third generation of fans, as highlighted by a surprise #1 single, "Kokomo," which I always hated, from the Cocktail soundtrack (Tom Cruise used to be famous for being an actor!), & seemingly omnipresent guest spots on Full House (in truth they only appeared a few times, usually with just one or two of the members).

Hot off the hit (in the box set world, anyway) collection, it was time to make a new, definitive CD of the Beach Boys hits, especially since they now had their fourth #1 hit!  But instead, they made The Greatest Hits — Volume 1: 20 Good Vibrations.  Issued in 1995, the album was the exact opposite of Endless Summer: With a corporate title & an ugly cover, it looked like the perfect summation of the Beach Boys' career, but had none of the feel.  At only 20 songs, it still only ran for about 50 minutes, meaning that another half hour of hits could've been added.  & also—clearly some misty-eyed Endless Summer-ers were at the helm here—they substituted the stupid versions of "Be True To Your School" & "Help Me, Rhonda" for the hit versions.  Now they had no excuse.

Which is probably why only 4 years later, they weirdly reissued the album with the same name & title, but with a different (now chronological) running order & the actual hit versions of "School" & "Rhonda."  But still at only 20 tracks, it feels a bit skimpy, not to mention MIAs like "Don't Worry Baby" & "When I Grow Up (To Be A Man)" (does everybody really hate that song THAT much?), plus the awkward fact that there's a good 22 year gap between the 19th & the 20th songs ("Good Vibrations" & "Kokomo," respectively, natch).  The Greatest Hits — Volume 2: 20 More Good Vibrations filled in the cracks, but it definitely felt like leftovers, with the sputtering ballad start of "In My Room," "The Warmth Of The Sun," & "Don't Worry Baby," all excellent songs, but not the best way to start an album—& once you get to lesser-hits like "The Little Girl I Once Knew" & non-hits like "You're So Good To Me," it's clear that the real party lies elsewhere. By the time they put out the third volume, of their cultish "Brothers" years (which killed a potentially great idea by including weak minor-hit singles like "California Saga" over stunning album cuts like "This Whole World" & "Forever"), I'm not sure if anyone was paying attention anymore.  Except me, apparently.

Then two years The Beatles single-handedly changed the entire reissue playing field with 1, collecting 27 number one songs (well, 26 #1 songs technically, plus "Something," but I digress) between the US & UK charts on a single disc.  Not to be outdone, the Elvis people put out the weirdly titled ELV1S, which had 31 of his US, UK, & Cash Box #1s (well, I could quibble, but I'll refrain).  Before long, everybody from James Brown to Marvin Gaye to Elton John to the Bee Gees had to release THEIR albums of number one songs (although many would be quite liberal in their definition), with further acts like Three Dog Night, The Steve Miller Band, & Joe Cocker putting out as-many-songs-as-can-fit-on-a-disc compilations nobody asked for that tried to make up in breadth what it could make up for in chart positions.

It was only a matter of time before The Beach Boys jumped in the fray.  & so, in 2003 (to mark their 41st anniversary?), The Beach Boys released Sounds of Summer: The Very Best Of The Beach Boys, a single-disc, 30-track CD that sought to be the end-all, be-all Beach Boys compilation.

Only it wasn't.

To begin with, the songs were not in chronological order, something that I personally feel is essential for a grand retrospective (see: 1, ELV1S, etc.).  Instead, they were done as a sort of stream-of-consciousness flow that some praised but I thought failed miserably.  Hearing "Surfin' Safari" & "Surfin' USA" back-to-back does nothing to make either one better, while the "Surfer Girl" & "Don't Worry Baby" back-to-back is like, OK, it's now ballad time.  Also, this being a career-long sweep in the model of the other definitive single-disc compilations, they included their '70s & '80s hits that are at once less familiar & not as good, both in terms of songwriting strength & production values.  When "Wouldn't It Be Nice" gives way to "Getcha Back," it sounds as though someone has ripped off the record & replaced it with a #26 hit from 1985.  Which is exactly what it is.  (Here's an example of where chronology could solve the problem.)

Don't get me wrong, the Beach Boys did have some surprisingly respectable hits since "Do It Again," with 1969's "I Can Hear Music" (#24), 1976's "Rock and Roll Music" (#5, not sure how, but it was), & the aforementioned "Kokomo"; not to mention the minor hits between "Heroes & Villains" & "Do It Again"—namely, 1968's "Wild Honey" (#31) & "Darlin'" (#19).  But basically, anything more than these songs feels a bit over-inflated, which is exactly how tracks like 1978's "Come Go With Me" (#18) & 1979's "Good Timin'" (#40) are left in the mix, while other songs—most disgracefully, for me anyway, "409" & "Catch A Wave"—are left off.

It wasn't until recently that I realized the 30 songs on Sounds Of Summer was the first place to gather all of The Beach Boys' Top 40 hits in one place, minus 2—the always-a-bridesmaid "The Little Girl I Once Knew" (#20 in 1965) & the forgettable "It's OK" (#29 in 1976). Hence no "409" (which only made #76 as the B-side to "Surfin' Safari") nor "Catch A Wave" (which was never released as a single in the first place. These songs, along with "The Little Girl I Once Knew" & "It's OK" were gathered on the obligatory "leftovers" album Warmth Of The Sun, which was interesting for its own purposes as an alternative history of the group, but suffered from the same problems as the earlier "leftover" collection 20 More Good Vibrations—namely, more ballads ("Kiss Me, Baby"), second-rate rockers ("Hawaii"), & inexplicable MIAs ("This Whole World").

& now, as The Beach Boys' turned 50, Capitol didn't miss a beat, issuing a new boxed set, double-album, & single-album overview. While all 3 succeed to varying degrees (especially the double-album, 50 Big Ones, which, despite the fact that its allusion to the 1970s Beach Boys album 15 Big Ones, was lost on 98% of the people who bought it, was the first compilation to cover the post-1960s years adequately), our focus here is on the single-disc album, titled simply Greatest Hits. Starting with their new reunion song, the solid-if-not-stellar "That's Why God Made The Radio," its 20 songs include nearly every Top 10 hit (minus 2—"When I Grow Up (To Be A Man)," is once again the first hit voted off the island, while the #2 "Barbara Ann" is omitted, presumably because it wasn't written by them), plus essential smaller hits like "Don't Worry Baby" & the always-welcome "Do It Again." The post-'60s era is represented by a whopping 3 songs ("Rock & Roll Music" representing the '70s & "Kokomo" representing the '80s, along with the aforementioned "Radio"). & the strangest choice to make the cut is "All Summer Long," which has never charted in any form. "Barbara Ann" would have made a far better choice. & once again, things are not chronological, although this time the set ends with "Kokomo" instead of "Good Vibrations," instead of the more rewarding other-way-around.

So let's get this straight—a 20-song, non-chronological hits package that omits "When I Grow Up (To Be A Man)" & "Barbara Ann" at the expense of "All Summer Long"? Sounds to me like we're back where we started: Endless Summer.  & maybe that's the point.

Again I will take it out & again I will listen to it, but again I will hear just as much of what it could've been as I will what it is.

* * *

For all of you out there like me (& I know there are thousands of you!), I made up my own little "extended" Endless Summer, which I feel like captures the spirit (& trackless) of the original, while then adding 9 extra bonus cuts that fill the story out. I left the original running order alone, but substituted the hit versions for the stupid versions.  I grouped them in fives because I feel that it is instructional to hear them in the small sets as they were intended on the original LP configuration. Finally, I added my 9 bonus cuts, thinking of them as small sets, as though they were a third LP in the set, taking the story up the place where it should (& does) end: "Good Vibrations." So while my heart longs for "Heroes & Villains" & "Do It Again" (& yours may long for—gag!—"Kokomo"), these songs are simply not part of the same story that can be told up through "Good Vibrations."

It is the story of the rise of The Beach Boys, which is to say it is the story of the rise of America's greatest rock band.

Endless Summer [Reconstructed] [Bonus Tracks]

1.  Surfin' USA [#14 US, 1962]

2.  Surfer Girl [#7 US, 1963]

3.  Catch A Wave [Album Track, 1963]

4.  The Warmth Of The Sun [B-Side, 1964]

5.  Surfin' USA [#3 US / #27 UK, 1963]

6.  Be True To Your School (Single Version) [#6 US, 1963]

7.  Little Deuce Coupe [#15 US, 1963]

8.  In My Room [#23 US, 1963]

9.  Shut Down [#23 US, 1963]

10.  Fun, Fun, Fun (Single Version) [#5 US, 1964]

11.  I Get Around [#1 US / #7 UK, 1964]

12.  Girls On The Beach [Album Track, 1964]

13.  Wendy [#44 US, 1964]

14.  Let Him Run Wild [B-Side, 1965]

15.  Don't Worry Baby [#24 US, 1964]

16.  California Girls [#3 US / #26 UK, 1965]

17.  Girl Don't Tell Me [B-Side, 1965]

18.  Help Me, Rhonda (Single Version) [#1 US / #27 UK, 1965]

19.  You're So Good To Me [B-side, 1966]

20.  All Summer Long [Album Track, 1964]

[Bonus Tracks]

21.  Dance, Dance, Dance [#8 US / #24 UK, 1964]

22.  409 [#76 US, 1962]

23.  Barbara Ann [#2 US / #3 UK, 1965]
24.  Little Honda [#65 US / #11 UK, 1964]

25.  When I Grow Up (To Be A Man) [#9 US / #27 UK, 1964]

26.  Wouldn't It Be Nice [#8 US, 1966]

27.  Please Let Me Wonder [#52 US, 1965]

28.  Sloop John B [#3 US / #2 UK, 1966]

29.  God Only Knows [#39 US / #2 UK, 1966]

30.  Good Vibrations [#1 US / #1 UK, 1966]

Oh, & if anyone at Capitol is reading this, feel free to give me a heads up. Maybe we can reissue later this year for the 50th anniversary of "Good Vibrations"?

The Ultimate David Bowie Playlist.

Back in the Tower Records Golden Age of CDs, Rhino Records was the compilation king. They put out the best single & multiple-disc collections of artists, always striking a perfect balance between including all the chart hits (for the casual fans) & representing all the albums (for the completists). When appropriate, a killer B-side or deep album cut might be thrown in for good measure.

What made collecting albums in the '90s so amazing has now jaded me for the rest of my life. As the music store has given way to the music website, individual tracks have usurped the well-chosen collection. Rhino Records has since gone the other way, making extravagant box sets for increasingly specific periods of an artist's career or movements in rock & roll. The art of the compilation album is dead; Long live the art of the compilation album.

Through the magic of iTunes (& the drive of a lifelong obsession), I welcome the current predicament as a challenge to create my own best-of albums, with a nod to the Rhino style. Thus, with the recent passing of David Bowie, my task was clear: Make a compilation of his most classic material in under 80 minutes or less. (Oh, & for the record, I called this a playlist, with the assumption that few to no one would bother to burn it onto one of those compact discs from the 1900s). Here was my criteria:

• I focused on David Bowie's finest & most influential era: 1969 to 1983. Bowie would go far beyond this period, but his streak from "Space Oddity" to "Modern Love" represents his most essential work. Anything thrown in after would seem like a distraction & require key songs to be missing.
• Each studio album in this period is represented. Bowie released 14 studio albums in these 14 years, all of which range from worth checking out to indispensable. I have seen lists (especially after his death) where all of these are ranked somewhere—yes, even Pin-Ups, thanks to Greil Marcus's classic "Treasure Island" list in the rock-on-a-desert-island-book Stranded.
• Each hit song in this period is represented. Pretty much. The US was easy: Always less of a deal than in his native UK, this contains all of his songs to make the US Top 50—& nearly all of the ones to make the lower reaches of the Top 100 as well. The UK was trickier, but what follows below contains every hit that landed within the UK Top 10 (as in #9 or higher). On a few occasions, I put in an album track ("Ziggy Stardust," which somehow was never released as a single) or a minor hit ("Suffragette City," which was originally released as a B-side) instead of a Top 10 UK hit (like the #10 hits "Starman" & "Knock On Wood" from Ziggy Stardust & David Live, respectively) when the former songs were more essential.
• There is only David Bowie. In an effort to streamline things, I left out any collaborations, which means that I left off 2 big hits—"Peace On Earth/Little Drummer Boy" with Bing Crosby (#3 UK) & "Under Pressure" with Queen (#1 UK, #29 US)—the latter of which will probably piss off most people who read this list. I LOVE the song "Under Pressure," but I don't see it as a true Bowie song: If it was, it would have been included on one of his albums, but it wasn't, it appeared on Queen's Hot Space. To me, this makes it more of a Queen song. It's like when Michael Jackson & Paul McCartney both sang on "The Girl Is Mine" & "Say, Say, Say": "The Girl Is Mine" landed on Michael Jackson's Thriller (& subsequent Jackson compilations) while "Say, Say, Say" landed on Paul McCartney's Pipes Of Peace (& subsequent McCartney compilations). "Under Pressure" is unimaginable without Bowie, but for me, it is essentially a Queen song that he guests on.

Well, if that hasn't bored you or turned you off thus far, you should be rewarded with the list:

Sound+Vision: The Essential David Bowie [1969-1983]

1. Space Oddity (single from David Bowie, 1969; #1 UK [1975 re-release], #15 US [1973 re-release])

2. The Man Who Sold The World (album track from The Man Who Sold The World, 1970)

3. Changes (single from Hunky Dory, 1971; #49 UK [2016 re-release], #41 US [1975 re-release])

4. Life On Mars? (album track & later single from Hunky Dory, 1971; #3 UK)

5. Ziggy Stardust (album track from The Rise & Fall Of Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders From Mars, 1972)

6. Suffragette City (album track, B-side, & later single from The Rise & Fall Of Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders From Mars, 1972; #194 UK [2016 re-release])

7. The Jean Jeanie (single from Aladdin Sane, 1973; #2 UK, #71 US)

8. Drive-In Saturday (single from Aladdin Sane, 1973; #3 UK)

9. Sorrow (single from Pin-Ups, 1973; #3 UK)

10. Rebel Rebel (single from Diamond Dogs, 1974; #5 UK, #64 US)

11. Young Americans [Single Version] (single from Young Americans, 1975; #18 UK, #28 US)

12. Fame (single from Young Americans, 1975; #17 UK, #1 US)

13. Golden Years [Single Version] (single from Station To Station, 1976; #8 UK, #10 US)

14. Sound & Vision (single from Low, 1977; #3 UK, #69 US)

15. "Heroes" [Single Version] (single from "Heroes", 1977; #12 UK [2016 re-release])

16. Boys Keep Swinging (single from Lodger, 1979; #7 UK)

17. Ashes To Ashes (single from Scary Monsters (& Super Creeps), 1980; #1 UK, #101 US)

18. Fashion (single from Scary Monsters (& Super Creeps), 1980; #5 UK, #70 US)

19. Let's Dance (single from Let's Dance, 1983; #1 UK, #1 US)

20. China Girl (single from Let's Dance, 1983; #2 UK, #10 US)

21. Modern Love (single from Let's Dance, 1983; #2 UK, #14 US)

Oh, & yer welcome. Now let's dance.

The Top 10 David Bowie Songs.

David Bowie left us with a wealth of classic songs—hit singles & deep album cuts alike. But when you tally up his most classic records, it's remarkable to see how almost all of them were major hits (either upon initial or re-release). Of the list that follows, only two didn't make the Top 20 in either the UK or US ("Changes" & "Ziggy Stardust")—& those two songs are actually better-known than many of the other songs that were hits.

For this list, I left out any collaborations, such as Bowie & Queen's classic "Under Pressure," for I wanted these songs to represent 100% Bowie compositions. Likewise, I left out Bowie covers, such as his versions of The Rolling Stones' "Let's Spend The Night Together," Eddie Floyd's "Knock On Wood," or Bruce Springsteen's "It's Hard To Be A Saint In The City." Finally, I chose songs in the versions that Bowie himself recorded; thus, a song like "All The Young Dudes" didn't make the list because, although the famous Mott The Hoople version is phenomenal, Bowie's own solo version on it is less than stunning.

These are songs that represent Bowie the singer & Bowie the songwriter, his own unique style as expressed through sound & vision.

& there's no better place to begin than—

10. "Sound & Vision" (Low, 1977; #3 UK, #69 US).

David Bowie's manifesto for his career—a true artist, working in sound & vision. Appropriately, the song finds him at the forefront of cutting-edge art rock, with an assist from muse/co-conspirator Brian Eno. It is a rich yet textured array of funky electronic sounds that seem to be powered by a lovely mechanical hiss that sounds like a factory engine releasing steam. For me, it is this sound that makes the record, a milestone where man vs. machine became not just about computers & outer space, but music & our inner-spaces. All of this gives way to a small set of elusive, brittle lyrics that seem to hide as much as they reveal. Such is the artistic process, & no song summed it up better—at least for the artist who was David Bowie. 

9. "Modern Love" (Let's Dance, 1983; #2 UK, #14 US).

For all of the styles & genres that Bowie embraced—rock, pop, show tunes, glam, soul, art-rock, electronic, & countless others—"Modern Love" is the closest he ever came to gospel. The song stands out as the most exciting track out of an overrated "comeback" album that effortlessly builds off of its own energy like the finest church music. It's at once a funky '80s dance tune & an ancient call-&-response spiritual that uses the spirit of sacred music to power a song about secular love. To do so is well & good, but the song works because it simply sounds so infectious. It's one of those rare dance songs—like Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons' "December 1963 (Oh, What A Night)" or ABBA's "Dancing Queen"—that has the power to pull you out of whatever context may have initially surrounded it—& onto the dance floor.

8. "Changes" (Hunky Dory, 1972; #49 UK [2016 re-release], #41 US [1975 re-release]).

If "Sound & Vision" was Bowie's artistic manifesto, then "Changes" was his initial statement of purpose, a portrait of the artist as a young kook. Looking out at on the brink of the 1970s, it is tempting to say that it was Bowie who most saw the onslaught of styles & conflicts that were to come in popular music—or, perhaps, that he was the most prepared to deal with them. Thus, by the decade's end, he was the artist who had best weathered it all (with the possible exception of fellow iconoclast Neil Young) in terms of artistic consistency & commercial appeal. Very few could have weathered hard rock & disco so well, let alone punk & the postpunk music that was soon to be known as New Wave. "Changes" seems to posit that in this river of pop music, the only constant is change. Is there any other reason why it has become so engrained as a classic rock anthem despite never being much of a hit?

7. "Rebel Rebel" (Diamond Dogs, 1974; #5 UK, #64 US).

If "Changes" is a classic rock standard in hindsight, "Rebel Rebel" seemed to be one from the moment it was conceived. Released as part of Bowie's messy last stand of late-glam, Diamond Dogs, "Rebel Rebel" was everything that they album which contained it was not: Sharp, clear, & an unabashed success. The guitar riff sounds like it was copped out of Keith Richards' unconscious & was applied to Bowie's slickest set of androgynous lyrics. But most important of all, it has a killer hook for a chorus, driven endlessly forward by that glorious backbeat. Once when I was in a guitar shop, I heard someone testing out a guitar & stack rig with its hook, & it cut through all of the watered-down Zeppelin & Metallica riffs that were playing around it, as though it would be stupid for a decent guitarist to ever play anything else.

6. "Ziggy Stardust" (The Rise & Fall Of Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders From Mars, 1972; Album Track).

How to best encapsulate the Ziggy Stardust phenomenon? "Five Years" has that exciting build, "Moorage Daydream" has better production values, "Rock & Roll Suicide" has more ambition, & "Lady Stardust" may just be the most beautiful one of them all. But "Ziggy Stardust" has the whole package—summing up the entire project into a little over 3 minutes of space age rock music. Built around a jagged riff that could only be described as Bowie-esque, the music evokes hard rock & heavy metal without ever quite falling victim into it, with a strange set of lyrics that appear to be more straightforward than they actually are. Scattered throughout are our most graphic fleeting glimpses of Ziggy himself, playing left-handed guitar, screwed-up eyes & screwed down hair, & best of all, making love with his ego. Was this supposed to be a send-up of Hendrix? T. Rex? Iggy? Listening it to today, it sounds like all of them combined, consciously & convincingly, until all that can be seen clearly is the legend of Ziggy Stardust—or rather, David Bowie.

5. "Young Americans" (Young Americans, 1975; #18 UK, #28 US).

"Young Americans" stands in a long tradition of rock & roll—not just in terms of its conception as a soul record, but as a soul record that should have been a much bigger hit. In the latter regard, it stands in good company—The Five Satins' "In The Still Of The Night" (#24 US Pop), Marvin Gaye's "A Change Is Gonna Come" (#31 US Pop), & Ike & Tina Turner's "River Deep—Mountain High" (#88 US Pop)—for, like those other records, listening to its grooves doesn't explain how it was not a #1 (let alone Top 10) pop hit. For all of the ink that has been spilled about Bowie being a chameleon of rock music, I think I better word might be "student"—he truly studied & understood the music the way few had before or after him, like Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, or Bruce Springsteen. "Young Americans" has all of the hallmarks of a bristling soul record—a funk beat, a sharp tune, great call-&-response vocals—plus a handful of Bowie's own signature touches—a cop of the "I heard the news today" line from The Beatles' "A Day In The Life" & a surprise shout-out to the recently-resigned Richard Nixon. & just when you think it can't get any better, check out the live version he sang on Dick Cavett's show here.

4. "Ashes To Ashes" (Scary Monsters (& Super Creeps), 1980; #1 UK, #101 US).

If "Young Americans" was the rare breed of a soul song that should have been a bigger hit, "Ashes To Ashes" was the even rarer breed of a #1 UK hit that failed to make the US Top 100 entirely. (Other notable examples include The Shadows' "Apache," Elvis Presley's "Wooden Heart", & The Rolling Stones' "Little Red Rooster.") At least part of the reason for it is because, even in the realm of Bowie, it is utterly bizarre. It is also hauntingly beautiful. Built around a shimmering, funky hook that sounds like it is made out of both water & glass, "Ashes To Ashes" continues the tale of Major Tom from Bowie's "Space Oddity," bringing the astronaut back down to earth & into an underworld of drug addiction, sung in a weird falsetto with a deadpan Greek chorus underfoot. Throw this together with the most expensive music video made up to that point & you have a true, bizarre, truly bizarre classic that hasn't aged a minute—if only because it doesn't sound like anything else.

3. "Space Oddity" (David Bowie, 1969; #1 UK [1975 re-release], #15 US [1973 re-release]).

David Bowie was 22 when he released his first hit single after a half-decade of toiling under non-hits & failed projects. It is rare that an artist's breakthrough hit can remain a high-water mark for a creative career to follow, but if anyone can defy the odds, it's David Bowie. "Space Oddity" is at once effortless & highly sophisticated, blending psychedelic rock & mainstream pop over a multi-part saga with a drawn-out & involved narrative. It seems as though nothing is compromised—the long, endless fade-in of an acoustic guitar, the wry cleverness of the countdown verse, the shifts back & forth from the brooding, tension-filled narrative sections & the bouncy, hand-clapping bridges, the utter sadness of the melody combined with the sheer wonder of the lyric. By the end, the song is soaring, & then suddenly lost, just like Major Tom himself. But between his disappearance in "Space Oddity" & his reappearance in "Ashes To Ashes," Bowie would chart the course of his own journey as a space-aged rock & roll legend.

2. "Heroes" ("Heroes", 1977; #12 UK [2016 re-release]).

Of all the wonderful film moments to incorporate a David Bowie song (& there are lots & lots of them), the one that stands out the most for me is the use of "Heroes" in 2012's The Perks Of Being A Wallflower. In it, Emma Watson's Sam asks her stepbrother to blast a song with which they are unfamiliar—spoiler alert: it's "Heroes"—as she stands on the back of a pickup truck going through a tunnel. When the film characters revisit the song & tunnel towards the end of the film, lead character Logan Lerman's Charlie sums up the feeling of the song in three words: "We are infinite." This is the sound of "Heroes," a glorious onslaught of guitars & synthesizers that both fades in & out, like it continues indefinitely in some other realm. But what carries it all is Bowie's most passionate reading of the lyric, wringing all of the beauty from the lyric & the melody. It acknowledges the ultimate potential of humanity ("We can be heroes…") as well as its frail limits ("…just for one day"). Sewn together with an allegorical tale of love, loss, & the Berlin Wall, "Heroes" is easily the most powerful song Bowie ever recorded.

1. "Life On Mars?" (Hunky Dory, 1971; #3 UK).

It's probably appropriate that every song from #6 on up is about space beings or space travel—& the one song that isn't ("Heroes") sounds like it was recorded in an intergalactic vortex. Living in the space age has greatly influenced David Bowie's entire career & so it comes as no surprise that his greatest song is called "Life On Mars?" More than any other song he would perform, "Life On Mars?" contains all of the elements that makes Bowie so brilliant: It's a cinematic, sweeping epic swirling with surreal lyrics & music that builds from an unsuspecting show tune ballad into an avalanche of cascading freaks & string. Sailors fight in the dancehall, cavemen in the best-selling show, lawmen beating up the wrong guy; if we are to take the singer at his word, it is in part a disjointed paean to "My mother, my dog, & clowns." The music is no less diverse, with music-hall piano growing into a symphony, slithering violins, searing electric guitar, rollicking bass, thundering drums, & atmospheric synthesizers—it all adds up to an orchestra playing on a careening a pirate ship. In a career that summoned countless distinct worlds, "Life On Mars?" is the rare David Bowie song that seems to capture them all. & if anything else, the song—as well as the catalog it caps—proved that the answer to the title was a resounding YES.

The Top 5 David Bowie Albums.

One week ago, rock icon David Bowie left our galaxy for a new interstellar realm. Bowie was one of the few rock artists of his era—along with Neil Young & Bruce Springsteen & a few others—who turned out a remarkably consistent body of work that stands the test of his time. His most influential & creative work is in turn some of rock music's most influential & creative work.

Here are his 5 most legendary contributions to the rock canon.

5. Scary Monsters (& Super Creeps), 1980.

Turns out that it is much harder to pick a fifth greatest Bowie album than a first, second, or third. Aside from the 4 masterpieces that follow, Bowie had a lot of near-masterpiece level albums, such as Aladdin Sane & "Heroes". But Scary Monsters (& Super Creeps) beats the others for its consistency of sound & quality. Here his textural explorations of the '70s met head-on with the challenge of punk, its postpunk aftermath, disco, & hard funk. They would call the result "new wave," but Bowie outstrips nearly all of his peers who would follow. (The promotional sticker that initially put on the album touts it as "punk rock," but this does more to do with the industry's misunderstanding of the term than anything inside of its vinyl grooves.)

"It's No Game (No. 1)" sets the pace with a woman's voice speaking in Japanese & Bowie singing painfully, absurdly badly, missing some notes & turning others into an ugly yodel. "Up The Hill Backwards" is one of the catchiest songs he ever produced, built around a Bo Diddley-style beat & a vibe that is not all that unlike The Clash in their absurd one-offs like "Hitsville UK." "Ashes To Ashes" is at once both haunting & funky—& I still have no idea how it isn't the most sampled hook this side of James Brown—a surreal pop song that brings his beloved Major Tom from "Space Oddity" back to the cold ground of earth. The result was one of the strangest singles ever conceived of, & indeed, was one of the very few songs to hit #1 in the UK while missing the US charts entirely. "Fashion" both celebrates & mocks the industry with which Bowie has always had a special fascination, resulting in another major hit; meanwhile, the title track is a space-age wonderland of sounds & lyrics, held together by stuttering drumming that sounds like it was copped from a Joy Division single. & songs like "Scream Like A Baby" & "Because You're Young" reached back to a classic pop sensibility that dug deeper than their experimental sonic trappings. If it all felt a little jagged & disjointed, but that was the point. After trailblazing his way through the 1970s, Scary Monsters set a solid course for the 1980s—it's just too bad that neither Bowie nor his peers were able to live up to it.

4. Station To Station, 1976.

Bowie's most appropriately-titled album finds him transitioning between the "plastic soul" of Young Americans & the "Berlin Trilogy" of Low, "Heroes", & Lodger. The epic title track—which, clocking in at over 10 minutes, is the longest song that Bowie ever released—is nearly an album into itself: Scattered instruments fall together into the slow yet driving rhythm that introduces The Thin White Duke, Bowie's porto-disco, white suit-wearing icy crooner who would be his most celebrated persona after Ziggy Stardust; things pick up in a second section ("Once there were mountains…") that pick things up into a clipped bridge of plastic soul, before delivering into the final section ("It's too late…"), which ranks among the finest pop music he would ever record—that rare, elusive kind that doesn't fit into any one sound or era but, in seemingly borrowing from them all, transcends into its own. The result is definitely not the side-effects of the cocaine, so I'm thinking that it must be love.

The following "Golden Years"—originally written for Elvis (who turned it down, though it would have been worth it just to hear him sing "run for the shadows"), but loved by Zappa (it was said to be his favorite Bowie song)—resurrects a lovely doo-wop feeling that reminds one that no matter how far afield Bowie would stray, the old-time '50s rock & roll were never that far away. Yet all of the attention it has gotten as a lovely anachronism misses the point—though classic in style & lyric, it was couched in a sound as modern as a spinning spaceship, giving it an extra layer of both underlying depth & superficial style. The first side closes with "Word On A Wing," returning to the futuristic soundscapes that charted the way to Bowie's future. It made for a beautiful, searing ballad that was at once hip & romantic, without crossing over into maudlin dross. If David Bowie never released another song after Side 1 of Station To Station, he would remain near the top of rock's most innovative artists.

If the album's second side didn't quite live up to the first, it's not Bowie's fault—few albums could—but keeps tirelessly venturing onward through the funny hallucination of "TVC-15," the dance-floor plea of "Stay," & the closing dreamlike cover of Johnny Mathis's 1957 hit, "Wild Is The Wind." In the hands of nearly anybody else, the album would be a career-high masterpiece, but for Bowie, it was merely a weigh station between bigger destinations.

3. Low, 1977.

Released to mixed reviews in early 1977, Low has since become a cornerstone of modern rock music: It was one of only two Bowie albums included in Rolling Stone's 200 Essential Albums list, it was the first Bowie album to receive a volume in the 33 1/3 series, & Pitchfork chose it not only as Bowie's greatest album, but the greatest album of the 1970s, ever. Despite popular belief, it was not produced by Brian Eno (Tony Visconti did the honors), but Eno is all over this album, both in terms of a musician playing on the tracks & a muse that inspired them. The work is divided into two halves: Side 1 is five song sketches sandwiched by two sweeping instrumentals; Side 2 is four mostly-instrumental extended soundscapes. Together, they form a singular vision of a rock artist growing in his confidence as a songwriter & at the peak of his powers as a performer. 

Each instrumental track is striking in the way in which it evokes an entirely different world (as it should, since much of it was intended for Bowie's film The Man Who Fell To Earth). The opening & closing instrumentals of Side 1 are decidedly more pop—the soaring, funky "Speed Of Life" is utterly life-affirming & the cinematic "A New Career In Town" sounds like it was copped from a musical montage in a 1980s film (even if it was recorded several years before the 1980s existed)—while the instrumentals on Side 2 are fascinating excursions into art rock: The cold, haunting wasteland of "Warsaw," the sad & stately overarching sky of "Art Decade," the bizarre, bubbling sea of "Weeping Wall," & the menacing, cryptic underworld of "Subterraneans." Each is an epoch unto itself.

But to my ears, it's the five song fragments on Side 1 that make the album, playing like an artist's sketchbook brimming with ideas. "Breaking Glass" is brittle funk led by searing guitar & building to a perfect lyric—"You're such a wonderful person! But you know you have problems!"—that is at once bluntly cruel & devastatingly funny. "What In The World" is a love song that trips over itself earnestly, taking measured steps that collapse into a sudden flowing refrain that simultaneously ties the whole thing together & demonstrates how unfinished it is. "Always Crashing The Same Car" is a somber rumination on life & automobiles sung with a rare beauty—just listen to the way he says "hotel garage"—that is perhaps the best-kept secret in Bowie's catalog. "Be My Wife" is a pop triumph coming out from the other side that reaches for companionship rooted in a confession of loneliness, all with a cold detachment that nearly defies the work that has gone into it. & centering it all is "Sound & Vision," which is probably the best track of them all—& the album's only real hit (at least in the UK)—half-instrumental & half-adorned with lyrics about the elusive creative process: "Blue, blue, electric blue, that's the color of my room…" It is a churning, minor masterpiece that works as the engine for the album, summing up Bowie's career in three words or less: Sound & Vision.

2. Hunky Dory, 1971.

After years of hard work, promise, & potential, Hunky Dory was Bowie's his first triumph. In hindsight, it's a little striking how showtune-sounding it is—thanks in part to an assist by pianist Rick Wakeman, whose work on this album is so good it almost cancels out his King Arthur-on-ice concept album project some four years later. But good pop music is good pop music, no matter which way you choose it & Hunky Dory is no exception. Taking a step back from the psychedelic rock of his first self-titled album & the harder rock of The Man Who Sold The World, Hunky Dory was nearly unclassifyable as a work, which perhaps means it could be the product of any era. It is a singer-songwriter album that sounds pitched halfway between Broadway & The Bowery, filled with weird characters & sounds that are similar only in how unabashed they all are. There is a certain strangeness in the music, but also a little courage too. It would set the course for Bowie's highest achievements.

The opening pop rocker "Changes" would provide Bowie with a signature statement of purpose that he would spend the remainder of his career living out; "Oh! You Pretty Things" was a strutting celebration of the homo-superior that laid the groundwork for his role as a gay icon; & "Life On Mars" was perhaps the best song he ever recorded--a swirling, cinematic whirlwind of sound that carefully builds on itself before unleashing a sweeping refrain that is equal parts beautiful & surreal. The first side's closer, "Quicksand," is a more mysterious ballad that has been often-invoked since his passing for its verse "I'm not a prophet or a stone age man/Just a mortal with potential of a superman/I'm living on," although its refrain is even more telling, perhaps too much so to be quoted for the mourning masses: "Don't believe in yourself/Don't deceive with belief/Knowledge comes with death's release."

The second side contains Bowie's three ritual killings of the father: "Andy Warhol," "Song For Bob Dylan," & "Queen Bitch" (about Lou Reed). All are charming evocations of their subjects—Warhol is a pure pop-as-surface, near-throwaway tune; Dylan takes the "voice of sand & glue" into its own throat, following in the tradition of Dylan's own "Song For Woody"; Reed is a three-chord slasher right out of The Velvet Underground's Loaded, with deadpan lyrics & a relentless charge. All three would figure heavily into Bowie's persona over the rest of his career—Warhol's philosophy, Dylan's lyrical introspection, & Reed's musical daring, all of which Bowie would make into hallmarks of his own. The album ends with the utterly bizarre (even for Bowie) "The Bewlay Brothers," an enigmatic song that was supposedly written to stump the American audience. Yet this song works too, because it contains beauty—a meandering thing that always winds its way back to the unsuspecting title characters, almost as both an afterthought & a logical conclusion. It doesn't so much close the album on a strange note as it does tap into the strangeness that had been there all along. Bowie would get stranger over the years, but many would hold that, song-for-song, he would never get better.

1. The Rise & Fall Of Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders From Mars, 1972. 

David Bowie's masterpiece—& one of the greatest rock albums ever made, period. Oh, where to begin? Probably with the concept--Ziggy Stardust was a rare concept album that was conceived as a conceptual art project & carried out that way, with Bowie deciding to become Ziggy Stardust, such that he looked & acted the part of the red-haired alien glam-rocker for the entire period surrounding the album's release, insisting on reporters to call him Ziggy, not David. In playing the part of the biggest rock star in the world, he tried to literally turn into it, arguably taking rock artistry to its farthest & most ambitious point. & unlike so many others who attempted conceptual coups on various levels, the album Ziggy Stardust demonstrated that Bowie—or rather, Ziggy—had the songs to prove it.

Here was cutting-edge, underground glam rock, filled with electric flash but grounded by the warmth of an acoustic guitar, the sound of T. Rex filled out with the showmanship of Jimi Hendrix. All put together, the album told the story of a rock & roll savior whose come to save the world: In "Five Years," news reaches Earth that the planet has only five years left, built around the malt-shop "Earth Angel" chords (& complete with a scene in an ice cream parlor), that is at once an invocation of rock "oldies" & a statement of purpose; "Soul Love" heightens the scene by laying a foundation for the love that will be tapped into by Ziggy (both heterosexual & homosexual), collapsing into "Moonage Daydream," in which Ziggy seems to emerge from the cosmos over a refrain that is as weird & beautifully otherworldly as Elvis's "Blue Moon"; "Starman," the album's lead single, documents Ziggy's arrival being spread as a word-of-mouth sensation with a tune that borrows from the octave-jumping hook of "Somewhere Over The Rainbow"; & "It Ain't Easy," the weakest song on the album, closes its first side with the fatal warning that "It ain't easy to get to heaven when you're going down."

The second side opens with the lovely "Lady Stardust," where Ziggy becomes an androgynous pop idol with some of the finest lyrics about the idol-fan relationship ("I smiled sweetly, for a love I could not obey"), which is in its own way is a worthy successor to "Life On Mars?"; "Star" posits the thesis of becoming a rock & roll star by acting like one (ending with Ziggy's line hushed under his breath: "Just watch me now"); "Hang On To Yourself" is a churning rocker celebrating Ziggy & his band, which so effectively summed up their spirit that it was used to open live Ziggy concerts; "Ziggy Stardust," the most familiar song to listeners today, tells the entire tale in miniature—a wild rock star who "made it too far," as everything came crashing down with loud music, sex, & ego; "Suffragette City" focuses on the women backstage through another Velvets-inspired rocker that is among the most covered songs on the album; & finally, "Rock & Roll Suicide" finds Ziggy committing the titular act over another classic "Earth Angel"-like chord progression, all resonating back to the same message, to both idol & fan: YOU'RE NOT ALONE!

Ziggy would famously end his "final concert" with "Rock & Roll Suicide," which at the time led people to believe that Ziggy—& by extension, Bowie—was retiring from pop music permanently. But they soon learned it was just the ending of an act, to make way for a new one—with a new sound & look to go with it. Bowie would have great albums before & after this one, but Ziggy Stardust is his best album because his music & concept, his sound & vision, come together for the first time in a way that was both exciting in spirit & revolutionary in execution.