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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
'Plastic Soul' Bowie plays Gamble & Huff to a T., July 13, 2001
Bowie's Glam edifice is reclad in philly soul slacks and swaps Londons West End for Broadway.During his two year North American drive-thru, performing Glitter caked heavy metal at night,Bowie was by day absorbing the sounds of Galdys Night, Billy Paul et al. By 1974, he had already signposted his change of direction on his Orwellian 'concept' album, Diamond Dogs. Listen to 'When you rock and Roll with me' and you'll get the picture. Just in case no one took the hint, he embarked on another jaunt around the states with a convoy of trucks containing a 'post apocolyptic cityscape' stage set, from which he sang soulfull renditions of his back catalogue. Listen to the resultant 'David Live' album and and you can hear radically reworked versions of, most notably, 'Moonage daydream', 'All the young Dudes' and a spectacular camp-soul version of 'Rock'n'roll suicide. When his convoy of props ended up in the florida swamps thanks to a road 'incident', he reopened at the Curtis Hixon Hall, somewhere in florida (don't ask me to be geographically precise here - I'm from Scotland)as a stripped down soul revue. The Diamond Dogs tour was over and the 'Philly Dogs tour began. When Young Americans hit the shelves then, nobody should have been surprised. They were however (myself included, all that knowing cynisism is just hindsight. I was ten!) and the 'chamelion of rock' had just managed another total reinvention. The hype around this was magnified in the UK when the BBC broadcast 'Cracked Actor', a documentry that managed to portray a skeletal anorexic coke head as the most intelligent and (still) glamorous entity in the universe - in the eyes of a ten year old anyhow. Still, He backed up the smoke and mirrors with a batch of music that will stand the most vigorous testing for a long time to come. As the album kicks off with the awesome title track, you know that you are in for something special. He manages to paint a picture if cosmopolotan urban streetlife and varnishes if with a veneer of contemporary political bite. There is even some prototype rapping at the end. 'Win' is a late night candlelit dinner in a Manhattan penthouse that is given a dark underbelly by Bowies' deep swimming vocals and decadent phrasing. Where did Ziggy get that voice?? 'Fascination' is a taster for his later multi layer production techniques with Eno. Here, they are used to convey an urgent and sexy groove and a certain Mr Luther Vandross is used superbly on backing vocals. 'Right' continues the theme in a slightly choppier manner and gives way to 'Somebody up there likes me' which, as well as being astoundingly good, conjured up images of 'The Candidate' and, er, 'Rhoda' (it's MY image and I'm going to use it). Across the Universe should be awfull. I believe that it is generaly accepted as awfull (I may be wrong) but I love it. Compare Lennons' original wispy vocals with Bowies swirling vocal gymnastics and It's plain to see that the whole ethos of the song is being bulldozed. Still, I love it. 'Can you hear me' was the song that I used to play in my teens when trying to be sophiticated with a girl of my fancy. The fact that I didn't score once does not detract from the sheer shaggability factor of this song. Snogtastic. Then there's 'Fame'. One night with Lennon on a James Brown trip and you have the King of dancefloor Strutters. It is so cool it's positively artic. The man was truly godlike in his snide venomous put down of the trappings of his holy grail. The more knowing of us ten year olds could empathise with the man. It really was tough being so creative, enigmatic and famous. The extra tracks on this reissue demonstrate what a hot streak Bowie was on. Somebody else said this and it is true. Bowie was diching tracks that other artists would have built careers on. That they can hold their own in such company should be recommendation enough. This album kicked off the most creative period of Bowies' career. That it did so employing the likes of Dennis Davis, Earl Slick and Carlos Alomar is no coincidence. Check out the credits on the subsequent 'Stationtostation', 'Low', 'Heroes', 'Lodger', and 'Scary mosters' discs. Young Americans is my favourite Bowie album, though not for any inellectual or aesthetic reasons. Scotland had a very rare real summer in 1975 and this music was perfect for bright summer days and hot steamy nights. Even when you were ten. We had even had a drought in '76 but that's another album. This album gets five stars because that's all I'm allowed to award. Go buy it.
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