Up the hill backwards (David Bowie) (LP 1026 -1029)

David Bowie  Low (CD, RCA Records, 1977) *****  

David Bowie  Heroes (CD, RCA Records, 1977) ****  

David Bowie  Lodger (CD, RCA Records, 1979) ***

David Bowie  Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) (CD, RCA Records, 1980) **** 

Genre: Pop/rock

Places I remember: Kings Recording (Abu Dhabi); Real Groovy Records

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Subterranean (Low)

Gear costume: Sound and Vision (Low); Heroes; Ashes To Ashes (Scary Monsters) 

Active compensatory factors: It's taken me a while to get back to the Bowie albums. That's thanks to a few circulations through the vinyl albums which delayed my return. That previous Bowie entry was August 2021.

The good thing about that is I can re-examine the German albums (Low to Lodger) with a bit more distance. 

I can see why he returned to the Heroes artwork for his re-emergence with The Next Day in 2013. The experimentation on the 1977 albums is outstanding and clearly something he thought The Next Day echoed in some way.

There is still commercial brilliance on the albums - Sound and Vision, Heroes, Boys Keep Swinging,  but the main feature on display is Bowie's questing spirit for new combinations of sounds.

It's taken me a while to embrace these albums, and without The Next Day and Blackstar I doubt I would have actually got there. 

Low gets an extra star as it's my fav of this bunch but it's also the bravest one as he ditched the Station To Station persona completely.

Lodger gets three stars from me because it's a bit cacophonous to my ears - maybe it would be better on vinyl?

I indicated in the 2021 post that I was going to look at the 1977 to 1980 output so here's the final one of the four - kinda sitting outside it, but also kinda linked because after it he went full bore pop again.

1980's Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) synthesizers all that experimentation and largely applies it skillfully to his commercial instincts. Ashes To Ashes and Fashion spring spectacularly from those antecedents. Even Major Tom makes a return!

Where do they all belong? Only three more Bowie CDs in the collection. Might be a year or so before I get there, but it will be worth it!