Customer Reviews

Lodger

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

David Bowie has made many fine albums and I own most of them. However, I am always a little surprised that this one seems to get overlooked. My friend loaned me the vinyl when we were in high school in the early 80's (his purchase no doubt prompted by the cool "DJ" video then in heavy rotation on MTV) and I have always returned to it over the years.

To me, Lodger is right up there with Station to Station, Scary Monsters, etc. I have always thought that the late 70's marked the apogee of Bowie's career, where he was at once leading and transcending the New Wave then in vogue by inventing new sounds and new ways to rock out. The rocking out part is key here; you want to crank this record up. Boys Keep Swinging, DJ and Look Back in Anger are take-no-prisoners workouts. I can't tell you how many mix tapes I have made that included Red Sails.

Not usually considered to be Bowie's best, 'Lodger' is a jewel waiting to be rediscovered and reconsidered - as one of Bowie's most daring and underrated ventures. I might be out of my mind - but I just love the eno/Bowie collaborations - even when they sound dated (musically speaking) there is an undeniable charm. It is also one of Bowie's most contagious albums - I find I can't get some of the songs out of my head for hours after I have listened to the album!

This is third and final album in the Eno trilogy. However, Bowie was clearly more in control here. Gone are the instrumentals, and in come ten vocal tracks. Of course, Eno is all over this record. Listen to African Night Flight and Yassasin and Eno quirky influence is easy to hear. Somehow, Bowie managed to weave some songs in between the strange rhythms and clicks, and it really works. I'd listen to African Night Flight just for those crazy crickets.

Apart from the tracks that were singles at the time (Boys Keep Swinging and DJ) there are other Bowie diamonds here. Red Sails is wonderful - and includes an unedited guitar solo where Carlos Alomar badly flubs and then recovers - wonderful!

Red money is also a great track. Actually, after all these years, Repetition becomes a favorite of mine also. Never have I heard a song about domestic violence that so clearly displays the monotonous life of a frustrated man - and his casual disregard of his wife. This is highlighted by a dead-pan delivery from Bowie, and an annoying buzz for a melody. It really works.

Add to that Move On and Look Back in Anger and I find I have mentioned every track on thew album. Which illustrates the high regard I have for this work. Even at the time it was released it was another Bowie effort that refused to comply with the thinking of popular music at the time. It still doesn't.

I can't imagine a Bowie fan won't find a lot to like here.

This album definitely merits more study by people who find it dull. There is no Bowie album which is more art-referential than "Lodger," and a cursory listing of its musical attributes only tells half the story. I've often kept the cover art for the vinyl version on my wall since it was released. It's a unique work of art and never ceases to inspire me.

Unfortunately, many of the graphic elements that made the cover and inner sleeve such a perfect pop koan have not been reproduced in CD form, an omission which is sadly true for virtually all of his CD reissues.

The strange enigma of a cover is a reference to the dadaist Francis Picabia's "Portrait of Cezanne," as well as to Bowie's gatefold image in "Aladdin Sane." Like that album, "Lodger" takes us on a whirlwind tour of landscapes that may or may not exist, but in an inner terrain enabled by Jungian symbolism and dadaist vitriol. It adds up to a form of synthetic modernism that is absolutely unique among Bowie records.

To say that "Lodger" is weak on any level is really to underestimate Bowie's perspective on the future and his own past, to overlook the fact that before Talking Heads, Peter Gabriel, Malcolm McLaren or Paul Simon did their own take on the issue, Bowie was looking to the very foundations of rock to trace the evolution of modern Western consciousness. "Lodger" creates its own language of simulationism which remains unprecedented in pop music. This album is ABSOLUTE genius folks!

Since when is ennui NOT a proper subject for art? I seriously discount the idea that the song "Fantastic Voyage" refers to anything besides Bowie's depression. It's a worthy introduction to a treatise on cultural colonialism (revived in the video for "China Girl" as well as the visual theme for his "Serious Moonlight Tour." "Lodger" also contains Bowie's first major use of angel symbolism, a theme he beat to death in later years.)

In short, in the Seventies, Bowie was more than a musical figure, he was a cultural prophet, and "Lodger" finds him poised as a lonely scout for the human tribe. His art then was as much visual as it was musical, and in the entirety of this album are artfully conceived, enigmatic mysteries that have kept me fascinated for nearly 25 years.

1979's Lodger is the album most people tend to forget from David Bowie's career, and it's a real shame because I think this is one of his five best albums

After two avant-garde masterpieces with Brian Eno (Low and Heroes), Lodger ups the ante. Gone are the instrumental pieces, but in it's place is even more attitude and Bowie really cuts loose during this album, pretty much merging the Eno albums along with the more straight-ahead rock which was to follow with next years "Scary Monsters"

"Fantastic Voyage" gets the album off to a great start, a fairly nice and pleasant (and conventional compared to the rest of the album) slower-paced rock track.

"African Night Flight" is where all hell breaks loose, definately one of Bowie's oddest recordings but you cannot get it out of you head, especially Bowie's "raps" and the chanting.

"Move On" is another great and very memorable track.

"Yassassin" is the albums reggaeish track, the type of song you will sing along with.

"Red Sails" is IMO, the weakest track off the album

"DJ" is one of Bowie's more ubiquitious numbers, recently broadcast in XM Satellite Radio numbers that Bowie happens to appear in. Even though Clear Channel didn't exist in 1979, DJ totally puts radio corporations like that in it's place.

"Look Back In Anger" is a somewhat rock-disco number with a somewhat religious message, short but sweet

"Boys Keep Swinging" is the best known track off the album if for nothing more than it's controversial video

"Repetition" is a song about domestic violence that ironically is addictive

"Red Money" is the masterpiece off the album, one of my favorite Bowie tracks ever. The song is a sonic assault and the production is absolutely perfect, and the song itself is fantastic.

With a career as varied as Bowie's, it is all but impossible to pick a favorite album, especially since he's assumed so many guises and toyed with his sound as much as his image. If you are talking about social impact, Ziggy Stardust would be the likely winner. If you're talking about scraunching rock and roll performed with an attitude that transcends mere mortals, then Aladdin Sane might cop the prize. For inventiveness, Low could win. It all depends what you are looking for, but if it is possible to judge Bowie's work objectively (a ridiculous thought, actually) then what album contains the best of all his virtues? Probably Lodger.

Lodger hits upon so many touchstones that it is practically impossible to categorize, even for Bowie. Everything that it does, it does with elan. World music, atmospherics, driving rock and roll, pensive ballads, phenomenal musicianship and stunning lyrics flow from this album with such grace and ease that it is almost easy to overlook just how creative it all is, especially as a package. The `hits' are among Bowie's best, from the smarmy, sarcastic 1-2 punch of "D.J." to the tongue-in-cheek mannerisms of "Boys Keep Swinging," they are flawless in their execution. Adrian Belew's guitar work on the latter song is so over-the-top loony that it inspires fits of laughter and admiration.

Bowie's palette is so broad on Lodger that it overwhelms. It is hard to fathom what sort of imagination could conjure the stream of consciousness reverie of "African Night Flight" as well as the dream-state playfulness of "Red Sails", only to accurately capture the mental state of a frustrated wife-beater with "Repetition" and reflections on mortality suggested by the beautiful "Fantastic Voyage." Throw in a Turkish-inspired melody ("Yassassin") and what might be one of his hardest-rocking songs ever ("Look Back in Anger") and you've got a full-blown masterpiece. This point is only driven home by the fact that it sounds just as futuristic/contemporary today as it did in 1979. If Bowie is a genius, then the evidence lies herein. A+ Tom Ryan

Lodger is every bit as good as Low and Heroes. It's different from those two, though. This one doesn't have any soundscapes or instrumentals. Lodger is also a little more experimental. The first time I heard tracks 2 through 5, I was laughing hysterically and rolling around on the floor, because the songs are so messed up and out there. Whenever you're feeling sad, just listen to those and they'll cheer you right up! Man, they're hilarious!!

It seems like there were 3, maybe 4 hits off of this. I think they were "D.J.," "Look Back In Anger," and "Boys Keep Swinging," but I won't swear to it. "Red Sail" might have been too. Somebody else on here has probably said them already, anyway.

Every song on here is great, but the standout tracks would probably be "Fantastic Voyage," "Red Sails," "D.J.," "Look Back In Anger," "Boys Keep Swinging," and "Repetition." Track 4, "Yes, Ass Sin" (Turkish For: Long Live,) is a little bit weaker than the rest of the songs because it's sort of repetative, but it's still far from bad. I highly recommend getting this CD. It might be very experimental, but it's experimental in a good way!

This is the last of 3 albums Bowie did with Eno (his "Berlin" period, although this one was not recorded in Berlin. This is my favorite one of the three, and possibly my favorite Bowie album period. This one has no instrumental pieces, like on "Low" and "Heroes". The first half of the album has a vague "travel" theme to it. In several songs Bowie mixes in bits of African drumming or arabesque sounding string synthesizer sounds. These are all rock or pop songs, but they are all "deconstructed" pop songs, because everything from the instrument sounds to the songs' construction is turned on its head, at least that's how it seemed in 1979. This album features Adrian Belew on guitar making sounds that were basically unheard of at the time. "DJ" and "Boys.." are highlights - absolutely brilliant, and Belew truly uses his guitar like a weapon on his solos. The only really weak song is "Red Money", which is the music from Iggy Pop's "Sister Midnight" set to different (inferior) lyrics. Fortunately it's at the end, so it's easy to skip that tune, but the rest is highly recommended.

This album is a brilliant, on the edge, trend defying masterpiece, that has been very sadly underrated and destroyed by critics. It's difficult to follow two albums like heroes and low, and this of course isn't as cutting edge as them but nonetheless is extremely experimental, and has many excellent tracks, and no bad ones. Also as a plus the greatest progressive guitarist that there is (Adrian Belew) plays guitar along with the excellent Carlos Alomar. This album is like nothing that you've ever heard, if u don't own it, so don't let it throw you, give it a couple of listens, it takes some effort but it's well worth it. Definetly though check into Station to Station, Low, Heroes and Scary Monsters first and whether you like this album or not give one of those stunning albums a fair shot.

It's hard to pinpoint which of Bowie's albums deserves the title "greatest"...there was a period from 1970 to 1980 where pretty much everything he released was an instant classic. From the timespan between "The Man Who Sold the World" and "Scary Monsters", the man could do no wrong.

"Lodger", the last piece in Bowie's Berlin Triology(following "Low" and "Heroes")is probably Bowie's most overlooked album, which is a shame as it's one of his best. Beautiful compositions such as "African Nightflight" and "Move On" easily stand alongside the more sonically groundbreaking tracks of "Low" and "Heroes", while more straightfoward numbers such as hits "D.J." and "Boys Keep Swinging" lend a pop aspect to "Lodger" that the previous Berlin trilogy albums lacked at times. Just as it is more accessible than the previous Berlin albums, it is also much darker in its subject matter(Just take a glance at the cover art, where Bowie appears to be lying dead/incapacitated on the sterile floor of a morgue).

Another plus: "Lodger" lacks the meandering instrumentals that, in my opinion, weighed down "Low" and "Heroes" at times. It's not that those instrumentals were bad...just that they sound REALLY dated nowadays, and distracted from the otherwise solid cohesiveness of those two albums. "Lodger" wisely skips out on the instrumentals in order to make room for another batch of great songs.

Bottom Line: Just as arty as "Low" and "Heroes", but with more pop appeal relevant to more casual fans. Probably a good starting point for those wanting to get into Bowie's music.