Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Young Americans

As David Bowie traversed the deep valley between the vast, self-made mountains of glam-rock apocalyptica (‘Diamond Dogs’) and the ominous Euro-alienation that beckoned (‘Station to Station’), he made his best album of all: ‘Young Americans’ – the sound of a legend passing time.

Bowie appears on the cover looking cool, calm and collected, slick and delicious, yet pensively baleful – he was at his most beautiful, and he knew how to use it. Heavily influenced by the gleaming, commercial sound of Philadelphia soul but with a deferential, elegant curtsey to Lord Lennon (‘Across the Universe’) thrown in to keep his roots intact, the blatantly mercantile ‘Young Americans’ gave Bowie his first US number one hit (the clunky, hollow ‘Fame’), yet it continues to be the album that divides his longstanding fans. But who can listen to the achingly bittersweet ‘Can You Hear Me’, the empty desperation of ‘Win’ or the soft, melodic funk of ‘Right’ and not be completely seduced by the showbiz whore who falteringly led a whole generation through their turbulent adolescence and beyond?

If I had to choose one album to define the soundtrack of my life, ‘Young Americans’ would be it: heartache, devastation, beauty, cynicism and drama contained in just eight songs; life’s rich tapestry in all its vacillating, disingenuous glory.

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