Customer Reviews

Station to Station

5 star:		(99)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The mid-1970's were a stressful time for David Bowie. His marriage to the obnoxious Angela Bowie was disintegrating, he had become a top-notch coke freak, and was convinced that practitioners of black magic were out to get him. He had laid his Ziggy Stardust persona to rest, in favor of a white-boy soul man character, which was not as well-received as he had hoped. While his "Young Americans" album was a bold step in a new direction, it did not receive the kind of adoration that Bowie had become accustomed to. Somehow, while fighting with dictatorial manager Tony Defries, sorcerers, and the homosexual image he had created for himself, David managed to come up with an absolutely brilliant album that retains the disco-funk of "Americans", but pushes it into a whole new direction. The persona that dominates this album is that of the Thin White Duke, an aristocratic European fellow who likes to cruise around in limos, binged out on cocaine, his head swimming in fascist paranoid fantasies (someone once told me that "Station To Station"-era Bowie was one of the people Pink Floyd based "The Wall" on. I cannot verify this but it seems plausible). So self-absorbed was David during this era that he actually made his band play behind a backdrop during concerts, so that he could be the one and only center of the audience's attention. One look at the photos inside the CD booklet (David, looking like a famished hairdresser in sore need of a dental hygienist, scribbling kabbalistic desings on an asylum floor) will clue the listener in to Bowie's frame of mind at the time. The songs themselves are the antithesis of the shallow yet groovy preceding album; the hooks are there, but not as contrived sounding. The title track starts off slow and menacing, then builds to a disco crescendo that could take the Bee Gees on anyday. "Stay" is fast and funky, "Word On A Wing" is very heartfelt and seeminly religious, "Golden Years" (the closest thing to a hit here) is a doo-woppy dance tune that Dave supposedly wrote about Angela (who was also the inspiration behind the Rolling Stones' "Angie"). "TVC 15" seems to be the favorite of most, dealing as it does with a carnivorous television. And finally, "Wild Is The Wind", while not written by Bowie, has to be one of his most heart-felt performances. This album was the transition into a more experimental phase of Bowie's career, and I strongly recommend it.

It's a tragedy that Bowie himself can't remember any of the events that went into the making of this 6-track, filler-free magnum opus. This album is great from beginning to end. Starting out with the 10 minute+ "Station To Station," which is almost symphonic in it's composition, we take a train ride into pop music. "Station To Station" is considered by many to be Bowie's best song, with Bowie not even singing until 3 minutes, 17 seconds in. After that, we head off with a slow start crescendoing to a grand finale of a song. "Golden Years" is pure pop. It's rumored that Elvis Presley was offered to sing this, but turned it down. It's not not to tap your feet and dance to this one. "Word On A Wing" is probably Bowie's plea to God. Apparently, it was answered, since Bowie kicked the habit and left for Germany shortly thereafter. "TVC15" is another pop number. It's one of the most catchiest things you'll ever heard that you'll enjoy having stuck in your head. "Stay" is the backwards version of "Station To Station." The last 2 or so minutes are a instrumental (his next album, "Low," really delved into the art of instrumentals.) It's probably the least exciting song of the album. "Wild Is The Wind" is the only cover song on this album (and it was recently covered again on the George Michaels album "Songs of the 20th Century.") It's a plaintive love song, with one of the most theatrical pleas ("Don't you know you're life...itself! ") Bowie shines on this album. If you go out and buy this right now, you will never look back and you will never be disappointed.

If I could only have five Bowie CDs, "Station to Station" would round out the list. It is a virtual Bowie music primer in that it pulls together more elements of his ever-changing style than any other album. The songs are good, but they work even better together-the whole is stronger than its component parts.

"Diamond Dogs" was a transitional album between Bowie's glam and disco phases. "Station to Station" is transitional on the other side of the disco moment (epitomized by "Young Americans"). This one bridges 70's dance music to the new wave style that would come into its own with the "Berlin Trilogy" of "Low," "'Heroes'," and "Lodger," and reached its zenith with the excellent "Scary Monsters." Songs like the title track, "Station to Station" recall some of the bizarre mystic references that pop up on "The Man Who Sold the World." "TVC15" has choppy, paranoid, non-sequitur lyrics like those on "Diamond Dogs." "Golden Years," the albums pop hit, would have fit well on the earlier "Young Americans" or the later "Let's Dance." "Stay" has the dark and confused undertones that characterize "Low." So, fans of almost any other Bowie album will find something they like on "Station to Station."

The album opens with the highly original title song. At over ten minutes, it is Bowie's longest studio song, and one of his most complex. Immediately he demonstrates what a synthesizer can do by mimicking the sound of a train taking off from a station. Like the train, the song starts slowly before building to a full steam. "Station to Station" is an asymmetrical song - the pace, the melody, and everything else go through a gradual transformation from the start to the end. Despite this transformation and the symbolism of the title, the song itself is not necessarily about transition. After listening to it for years and years I'm still not exactly sure what it is about. It is deliberately confused - like Bowie is trying to describe something that he's having trouble putting words to. He's feeling something, but he's not sure what. He rules out drugs - "Its not the side effects of the cocaine," before tentatively concluding, "I'm thinking that it must be love." So is he speculating about a feeling, or an event? Some of the lyrics hint at a forced separation. He may be trying to make sense of such an occurrence, perhaps because of a war. In this sense there are vague links to "Aladdin Sane," which itself draws on World War I imagery. Then there are the mystical references, "Here are we, one magical movement from Kether to Malkuth," (a line related to the picture of Bowie drawing "the Tree of Life" on the back of the CD package).

"Station to Station" is the only song that mentions The Thin White Duke, which many assume was the newest Bowie persona. That isn't entirely clear from the song. All we know from the song is that the Duke has returned, throws darts in lovers eyes (whatever that means) and makes sure "white stains." The Duke is not necessarily the narrator of the song. It could be a metaphor. It could be cocaine. It could be another World War I reference. It could mean nothing at all. Whatever it all means, it works well and is a worthy kickoff to the album.

The next song is about as different as possible. "Golden Years" is the most accessible song on the album, and it's only hit single. It is a straightforward, positive, nothing song combining a disco beat with a 50's do-wop sound. "Drive in Saturday" meets "Fame." Rumor has it that Bowie originally wrote the song for Elvis Presley, who rejected it. "Golden Years" is catchy, but it is the weakest song on the album. It sounds good at first, but is simply not as enduring or thought provoking as the other songs. Bowie is typically at his worst when he's trying to sing happy, as with the songs "Kooks" and "Fill Your Heart" that mar "Hunky Dory." Its over quickly, then we're back to the more complex with "Word on a Wing."

Bowie toys with religion from time to time in some of his songs. "Word on a Wing" is his most sincere and overall best treatment of the subject. In the song he tries to reconcile his faith with the rest of his life. Bowie concludes, "Just because I believe don't mean I don't think as well, don't have to question everything in heaven and hell." But the tentativeness of much of the rest of the album is present on this song as well. This is not a sermon, it is an attempt to figure things out.

Bowie can't figure anything out in the next song. "TVC15." "TVC15" is barely discernable as a song about a girlfriend getting consumed by a television. It's really an expression of paranoia, and the encroachment of television on personal relations. It is also the most tongue-in-cheek song on the album, but musically it is one of the strongest.

"Stay" is the next song. Again, Bowie sounds deliberately confused. This time he's wrestling with whether a partner should stay the night or not. One can imagine the response to the song being "Should I stay or should I go." Bowie seems to realize that, if she (he?) stays there could be trouble. "Stay" sharply contrasts with the certainty and confidence of "Let's Spend the Night Together," which Bowie weakly covers on "Aladdin Sane." As with his spirituality, Bowie is unsure about his sexuality.

At least until the closing song, "Wild is the Wind." "Wild is the Wind" is both one of Bowie's most successful covers and also one of his best (really, one of his only) ballads. The song is a few steps away from being corny, but it somehow works and sounds beautiful at the end of "Station to Station." There is no uncertainty in this song. It is a profound expression of love, and a good way to end the album.

All of this meshes very well together. "Station to Station" is a collection of songs, not a concept album, but it has a pleasing continuity despite the theme of uncertainty. Aside from the weakness of "Golden Years," the album's only other shortcoming is that it's too short. Although the six songs are long, the entire album (minus bonus tracks) contains less than 38 minutes. But it is a very good 38 minutes.

As usual, the "bonus songs" on the Rykodisk version of "Station to Station" add nothing. If you have the EMI version, which duplicates the original, you are missing live versions of "Word on a Wing" and "Stay," two songs that you just heard. The live versions are slightly longer, but sound very much like the studio versions. They are not bad, but they are unnecessary.

I've read that Bowie was so messed up on coke when this album was recorded he doesn't even remember it. Maybe his subconcious mind was writing these songs and recording them, if so, let's hear it for Bowie's subconscious mind!

I was thinking very carefully about WHY I love this album so much and consider it Bowie's best album, which is saying a lot because he's recorded some fantastic albums. I hate to endorse drug use, but maybe the coke had something to do with it. Would Bowie have come up with this album without the influence of coke? Would the Beatles have come up with "Sgt. Pepper" without the influence of acid? I would say highly unlikely on both counts.

Whatever the coke did to Bowie's brain at this time, I definitely find Bowie's musical statements compelling. Bowie's pre-"Station to Station" albums found him searching for the voice he achieved on "Station to Station."

All his albums have flashes of brilliance, but "Station to Station" finds that brilliance sustained throughout. Bowie sings better. That nasal "Anthony Newley" voice of yore is gone. There is a depth and resonance to his voice on "Station to Station." His vocal control is amazing. His finest recorded vocal of all time may be his track, "Wild is the Wind." Bowie writes better. Gone are the wordy, precious, pretentious lyrics he could so annoyingly write on his earlier albums. His words are sharp like razors. He keeps the words clean and concise, but with an edge of danger.

Like the Beatles did with "Sgt. Pepper," Bowies hits just the right balance of pop music and experimental music. His post-"S.T.S" albums with Eno would veer further into the experimental realm. But none of the Eno projects hit this brilliant balance of pop/experimental music which is achieved on "S.T.S."

The Thin White Duke is not Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, Diamond Dog, or the reincarnation of Lauren Bacall's 1940's youth. The Thin White Duke is more of a ghost than a persona. Where Bowie's pre-"S.T.S" albums were often clearly concept pieces centered around a clearly defined persona, "S.T.S" has no precise concept. The six songs on the album stand alone with no problem. There is no looming persona to tie them all together. The Thin White Duke is only mentioned in the title cut, and the Thin White Duke is essentially a spectre hovering around this album who may, or may not, drift into focus sporadically. The album works just as well if the Thin White Duke didn't exist at all.

Post-"S.T.S" albums in the seventies would find Bowie trying to make "experimental" albums while regaining his health, attempting to live a "normal" life in Berlin, becoming a good father to his son, and maintaining his dominant voice in modern rock while being assailed, or praised, by punk/new wave bands as both a "dinosaur" and a "icon."

"Station to Station" sounds just as vital and progressive today, twenty-eight years after its release, as it did when it was released in 1976. How many other albums released in that year can claim that credit.

Earmarking a more experimental phase, Station to Station provides a more angular take on dance rhythms (most obvious on this album through the sublime funk bass of George Murray). Preference herein was for a more chilly alienated mood, percolated through Bowie's heavily stylised vocals and increased use of electronica.

Bowie adopts a new persona, the Thin White Duke. This cold New European, forever restless, introduces the whole album on the title song. Station to Station is about the strains of the three-day train journey from New York to Los Angeles - all condensed into ten minutes of music. It begins with the sound of a train moving from speaker to speaker and ends as an all-out rocker. "It's not the side effects of the cocaine - I'm thinking that it must be love", he tells us. Only the song's coldness and desperation prevents it from being as commercial as, say, Modern Love from his 1983 Let's Dance album.

The next song, Golden Years, was the album's only hit single. A melodic but restrained disco song with strong lyrics, it became the follow-up to to his US chart-topping song Fame. Legend has it that Bowie originally wrote the song for Elvis Presley, he reportedly rejected it.

Word On A Wing on the other hand, is a ballad about Bowie's restless searching - this time for God. Perhaps inspired by The Man Who Fell To Earth, refuge is found in the Lord and prayer. The song is literally heavenly with is choir-of-angels effect.

TVC 15, a bizarre, raunchy song inspired by a (supposedly drug-inspired) story Iggy Pop told Bowie - about how Iggy's girlfriend was swallowed by his TV set!

Stay is a smooth effort from the master. Running breathless on a funk groove, it continues on the "it's too late..." theme ("Stay . . . or do something..."). Carlos Alomar and Earl Slick get a chance to reveal their talent in the final (instrumental) two minutes of the song.

Wild Is The Wind is a cover of a song written for a 1957 western starring Anna Magnani. The romantic mood of the song seems to have inspired Bowie, his singing is brittle and vulnerable.

This cd is a must for any genuine music lover.

After Ziggy Stardust, and Aladdin Sane, after the theatricality of "Diamond Dogs", and the plastic-soul of "Young Americans" there came prehaps Bowie's most haunting persona, The Thin White Duke, and this is his record.

At time of recording Bowie was in the depths of a serious cocaine addiction. It is said that he now remembers very little of the recording of "Station To Station". But once you have heard this album you will not forget it easily.

The title track is a ten minute epic in which Bowie's vocal range travels in leaps and bounds. Meet The Thin White Duke himself and gasp in awe as he screams: 'It's not the side effects of the cocaine/I'm thinking that it must be love'.

"Word On A Wing" sees Bowie at his most poignant as he pleads for grace in a desperate search for God. Shiver as he croons his way through the best version of "Wild Is The Wind" ever recorded.

This CD not important, it is *essential*! No collection should be without it.

When the ever-changing persona of David Bowie morphed into the sly, disco-ish blue-eyed soul singer heard 1975's Young Americans, many thought that the androgynous rock star had dumped the sinister ambiguity and self-destructive bedlam that laced albums such as 1973's the Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and 1974's Diamond Dogs, but such was not the case. By late 1975, Bowie was already examining the mechanics of that sleek, stylish music in order to configure a way to show his own vindictiveness and despair with its chemistry. He found his method during the coked-up, late night recording sessions that sprouted his 1976 masterpiece, Station to Station.

Bowie's scheme is similar to that which fellow musical alchemists, Pink Floyd, employed on their outstanding release, Wish You Were Here, a year earlier. The silky, electronically enhanced tracks initially seem expressive and gracious, yet the theme of absence plays such a large role that a motorized feeling of sadness and isolation strongly permeates. On Station to Station, Bowie, in his most soulful voice, sings of golden years that have not yet arrived ("Golden Years"), romantic proposals that receive no response ("Word on a Wing") and an impassionate relationship full of intellectualizing and hesitation ("Stay").

On the magnificent, sprawling, mechanical title track, the absence of compassion and humanity defines the Thin White Duke, a persona accumulated through Bowie's flirtation with fascism (On the Young Americans tour, Bowie gave an adoring crowd a fascist salute and was caught with totalitarian literature on the Germany border). The Duke is a bitter, affection-starved, fascist misfit who leads his "European cannon," sulkily "throwing darts in lover's eyes." "It's too late/to be grateful/It's too late/to be late again/It's too late/to be hateful/The European cannon is here," Bowie sings of his emotion-squashing protagonists. It is an excellent way to begin the calculated, withdrawn feel of an excellent, unique album.

Station to Station was born of an unusual mix of influences and inspirations: soul music, cocaine, personal strife, fascism and sleek, computerized recording techniques. It is one of the oddest, most complex formulas of any rock album and THE oddest and most complex to work so well. The album's aura of mind alterations, personal trouble and lack of compassion blend together into an aroma of chronic numbness while sleek, almost danceable music keeps the work infectious and assessable. His fresh, complex and brilliant approach delves into isolation and inhumanity like no other in his career.

Throughout the course of his stellar, impossibly brilliant career, Bowie has released many albums that rank among the best music ever recorded. It is nearly impossible to say any one album is his best... but this one sure could be a contender. The breathtaking epic title track has been my favorite Bowie track ever since the first time I heard it around 8 years ago. It is somehow funky and creepy, uptempo and depressing and all sorts of opposite things at once. though 10 minutes long, the song never drags but builds and builds, with a great Earl Slick solo (boasting one of the wickedest pinch harmonics ever) and the whole band in a frenzy by the end. The next track is the great plastic soul classic "golden years." It is funky, danceable and, like the entire album, finds Bowie exercises his considerable vocal talents (which were arguably at their peak during this era). "word on a wing" is full of passion and sounds desperate (and believe me bowie was getting a little desperate around this time). TVC-15 is one of the most unique tracks you'll ever hear, and is again (like the title track) kind of eerie while being simultaneously danceable and uptempo. "Stay" is one of my all-time favorite Bowie tracks, boasting great lyrics, haunting vocals, and scorching interplay between guitarists Carlos Alomar and Earl Slick (some of which is shortened, quite unfortunately, in the radio mix of the song included on hits collections and on the Christian F. Soundtrack). "wild is the wind" is the closer, and proves that Bowie can more than hang in there with any of the pop crooners that have less range, imagination and longevity than him. What else is there to say? this is an unspeakably brilliant album, that is a must hear for anyone and everyone!... especially those of you that think of Bowie only as a big-haired 80's pop star that wore really tight pants in Labryinth...

This album signifies the start of Bowie's brilliant, groundbreaking "middle" period. Gone are the phony glam or "plastic soul" poses -- in their place: Bowie as Grade-A Genuine Weirdo, making music that still sounds ten years ahead of its time. How anyone can write songs as original, obtuse, and engaging as "TVC15" or "Golden Years" is beyond me. This album, along with "Low", ""HEROES"", "Lodger", and "Scary Monsters" are absolutely essential and flat-out stunning.

The fact that this only had six tracks on it scared me away from buying this at first, but being the Bowie freak that I am, had to buy it sooner or later. My main reason for not buying it is because I had a 'Best Of Bowie' import which featured half of the album's tracks already (albeit, edited single cuts). I could not be happier with this album after a couple listens.

All six cuts are pure gold and to my ears, and are instantly accessible, maybe less than say 'Changes,' or 'Let's Dance' but moreso than the instrumental side of "Heroes." 'Ziggy' may be his most renowned album but it lacks the consistency of 'Station To Station.' 'Space Oddity' was a little rough around the edges, Bowie was still honing in his abilities, and just forget 'Tonight' when he rubbing elbows with Tina Turner and re-doing songs he produced for Iggy Pop. The title cut may be 10:11 long, but every second is used well, it might just be may favorite on the album. 'Golden Years' was the big hit and it deserves it every bit. 'TVC15' with its playful piano and 'Stay' with it's driving funk guitar lines make for upbeat songs ala 'Golden Years' while 'Word On A Wing' and 'Wild Is The Wind' are soulful, slower numbers.

Yes, that is all information you've heard from other reviews basically, because what is there to say that hasn't been said about this great mid-70's Bowie album? Pick it up, it deserves the 4.9 rating it's gotten, standing as Bowie's highest-rated album among reviewers.