David Bowies bästa låtar! 

Regler:

Max tre låtar per album.
Minst en låt per album.
Ordning=Noga genomtänkt, men ej rangordnad.
Spotifylista: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6ZbgFwuVaD13FbiWEXXNrz?si=e8b231ee24574fe2

Kommentarer: David Bowie är min idol. Jag försöker göra honom och hans album rättvisa här. Jag hoppas att ni kommer att njuta av min Best of David Bowie. 

Som vanligt har det varit roligast att hitta låtar, plattor, unreleased, demos etc. Mycket av de roliga grejerna är insprängda här och var, men framförallt längst ner i det jag kallar för Bonus. Kolla gärna in de låtarna!

"I'm a pretty cold person. A very cold person, I find. I have a strong lyrical, emotional drive and I'm not sure where it comes from. I'm not sure if that's really me coming through in the songs. They come out and I hear them afterward and I think, well, whoever wrote that really felt strongly about it. I can't feel strongly. I get so numb. I find that I'm walking around numb. I'm a bit of an iceman." -David Bowie

1. Låt: Heroes
Skiva: Heroes
Årtal: 1977
Kommentar: Beauty and the Beast, Heroes, Sons of the Silent Age, The Secret Life of Arabia är mest lyssningsbart. I övrigt är det inte superskoj. På Heroes lirar King Crimsongitarristen Robert Fripp den grymma gitarrslingan som ligger på under hela spåret. 

"This song tells the story of a German couple who are so determined to be together that they meet every day under a gun turret on The Berlin Wall. Bowie, who was living in Berlin at the time, was inspired by an affair between his producer Tony Visconti and backup singer Antonia Maass, who would kiss "by the wall" in front of Bowie as he looked out of the Hansa Studio window. Bowie didn't mention Visconti's role in inspiring this song until 2003, when he told Performing Songwriter magazine: "I'm allowed to talk about it now. I wasn't at the time. I always said it was a couple of lovers by the Berlin Wall that prompted the idea. Actually, it was Tony Visconti and his girlfriend. Tony was married at the time." -Songfacts.com

2. Låt: Space Oddity
Skiva: Space Oddity (David Bowie)
Årtal: 1969
Kommentar: Plattan döptes om 1972 efter att Bowie fått genomslag med låtarna Changes (66:e plats)och Jean Genie(71:a plats). Space Oddity tog sig hela vägen till 15:e plats och blev Bowies första hit att slå sig in på US Top 40.

"I found the whole thing amazing. I was out of my gourd, very stoned when I went to see it—several times—and it was really a revelation to me. It got the song flowing." -David Bowie om att inspireras av Stanley Kubricks film 2001 Space Odyssey när han skrev Space Oddity.

3. Låt: Ashes to Ashes
Skiva: Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)
Årtal: 1980
Kommentar: Kan ses som en uppföljare till David Bowies första hit Space Oddity som handlar om Astronauten Major Tom som nu är i rymden. Han har återfått kommunikationen med jorden och berättar att allt går bra och att han är lycklig. Låten sägs handla om Bowies fight mot drogerna. På jorden ses han bara som en "junkie, strung out in heavens high, hitting an all-time low.".

I re-invented my image so many times that I'm in denial that I was originally an overweight Korean woman." -David Bowie

4. Låt: Aladdin Sane (1913-1938-197?)
Skiva: Aladdin Sane
Årtal: 1973
Kommentar: Frank Zappa-Sheik Yerbouti-Shake Your Booty.Aladdin Sane-A lad insane. Mercury Rev-Yer Self is Steam-Your Self Esteem. Butthole Surfers-Hairway To Steven-Stairway To Heaven. Stratosfear-Stratosphere. Van Halen - For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge-FUCK. Hot Tuna - Pair a Dice Found-Paradise found m.m.

"The song title includes the parenthetical phrase "(1913-1938-197?)". The first two years refer to the years before the two World Wars broke out, and thus the third year reflects Bowie's belief at the time that World War III was imminent, a theme that is dominant throughout the lyrics of this song, and Bowie's songwriting in general at this point." -songfacts.com

5. Låt: Moonage Daydream
Skiva: The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars
Årtal: 1972
Kommentar: Bowie skrev texten genom att stoppa ord och strofer i en hatt och sedan plockade han upp lapp efter lapp och voila så var Moonage Daydream klar. 

"I would also literally draw out on paper with a crayon or felt tip pen the shape of a solo. The one in 'Moonage Daydream,' for instance, started as a flat line that became a fat megaphone type shape, and ended as sprays of disassociated and broken lines. I'd read somewhere that Frank Zappa used a series of drawn symbols to explain to his musicians how he wanted the shape of a composition to sound. Mick could take something like that and actually bloody play it, bring it to life." -David Bowie

6. Låt: Killing a Little Time
Skiva: No Plan
Årtal: 2017
Kommentar: Bowie goes King Crimson. Vansinnigt bra! Från Bowies allra sista EP No Plan som tillsammans med Blackstar blev det sista Bowie släppte. Han dog två dagar efter Blackstar släpptes.

"I love that tune! This was one I was really hoping would be on Blackstar; it's so dark and edgy. The first version, Jason (Lindner) had this really intense synth sound and this was something we simplified when we came back to it in March 2015. I'd lived with the song a while by then, and written these new horn lines, and harmonized them in this dark way." -Donny McCaslin som spelar saxofon på låten.

7. Låt: ★
Skiva: ★ [Blackstar]
Årtal: 2016
Kommentar: Johan Renck (aka Stakka Bo) fick äran att göra Bowies sista video. 

"I was looking for one of the icons of my youth to write the music for the title sequence, but was presented with a god...His first response was precise, engaged and curious. The piece of music he laid before us embodied every aspect of our characters and the series itself - dark, brooding, beautiful and sentimental (in the best possible incarnation of this word)...All along, the man inspired and intrigued me and as the process passed, I was overwhelmed with his generosity. I still can't fathom what actually happened." -Johan Renck

"My favorite love story is ours" -Iman Abdulmajid 

8. Låt: The Motel
Skiva: Outside: The Nathan Adler Diaries - A Hyper Cycle
Årtal: 1995
Kommentar: Bowies överlägset mest underskattade platta. Lyssna nu!  

"The Motel is the seventh track on David Bowie's 1995 album 1.Outside. It is sung from the perspective of Leon Blank, a former convict and outsider.

"Brian and I wanted to work on the outside or the periphery of the mainstream, and that also meant setting ourselves up psychologically to be somewhere further out than the hub, the nub of popular music. So we did everything within our powers to achieve and understand those different states without taking drugs. [laughs] 

In early '94, for example, we went to the Guggin mental hospital just outside of Vienna, where some of the famous old outsider artists lived and worked. Some of them have been in the painters' wing for, like, thirty years, as an Austrian experiment to see what happens when you allow people with mental disabilities to give free rein to their artistic impetuses.

Before you get to the outsiders' wing, there's this other wing you pass through where all the psychos and murderers live, and the only thing written on the wall is THIS IS HELL. But the painters' wing is coloured with graffiti everywhere. They paint all the trees surrounding their wing – everything is painted! To see it against the starkness of this other wing next door is really hard-hitting. We were both very affected by this experience. It's quite obvious that these outsider artists don't have the parameters that are placed on most artists; they don't have any real drive to sell what they do. Some of them don't even do it as an expression of themselves; they do it because their work is them. Their motivation for painting and sculpting comes from a different place than that of the average artist who's sane on society's terms." -David Bowie

9. Låt: Life on Mars?
Skiva: Hunky Dory
Årtal: 1971
Kommentar: Hunky Dory är en ett av mina favoritalbum någonsin! Helt omöjligt att bara välja tre låtar här så det får bli dagsform som avgör.

"This song was so easy. Being young was easy. A really beautiful day in the park, sitting on the steps of the bandstand. 'Sailors bap-bap-bap-bap-baaa-bap.' An anomic (not a 'gnomic') heroine. Middle-class ecstasy. I took a walk to Beckenham High Street to catch a bus to Lewisham to buy shoes and shirts but couldn't get the riff out of my head. Jumped off two stops into the ride and more or less loped back to the house up on Southend Road. Workspace was a big empty room with a chaise lounge; a bargain-price art nouveau screen ('William Morris,' so I told anyone who asked); a huge overflowing freestanding ashtray and a grand piano. Little else. I started working it out on the piano and had the whole lyric and melody finished by late afternoon. Nice. Rick Wakeman [of prog band, Yes] came over a couple of weeks later and embellished the piano part and guitarist Mick Ronson created one of his first and best string parts for this song which now has become something of a fixture in my live shows." -David Bowie om att skriva Life on Mars?

10. Låt: The Heart's Filthy Lesson
Skiva: Outside: The Nathan Adler Diaries - A Hyper Cycle
Årtal: 1995
Kommentar:

"Bowie going industrial rock/cyberpunk, with an ambitious (perhaps too ambitious, even for Bowie?) attempt at a high-concept album. It's a noir thriller about Nathan Adler, an investigator dealing with "art crimes", set in an alternate 1999." -Teishi

"We improvised those sessions on Outside. David didn't even let us tell each other what keys we were playing in. We basically played two weeks straight, four hours a day onto tape, the improvisations. They have tons of tape. Outside is just some songs that got made and put together by Eno. Him and David would take these improvs that were all on these tapes, and then they'd hear a little hook here and a little hook there and cut it up. 

They would create a song like 'Hearts Filthy Lesson', which I wrote with him and the other guys. That ended up in the movie Seven. It must have been something that they heard, and then they formed it into a song. We were just improvising the way I was just doing it now." -Mike Garson (piano/keyboards)

11. Låt: I'm Afraid of Americans - Nine Inch Nails V1 Mix
Skiva: Earthling
Årtal: 1997
Kommentar: En av de första låtarna som jag laddade hem som mp3 är denna låt av David Bowie, mixad av Trent Reznor. Shout-out till modemen!

12. Låt: Sweet Thing
Skiva: Diamond Dogs
Årtal: 1974
Kommentar:

"We did Diamond Dogs very fast, doing basic tracks in three days in the little studio at Olympic. Bowie was writing a lot of the stuff as we were going. I think it was a semi-rescue attempt from his proposed George Orwell musical. The music was weird. I have to say I found it mildly unattractive at the time, but it was interesting stuff. Touring Diamond Dogs across America afterwards, it felt like those new songs were anarchic, all about tearing things down. It was prophetic in many ways. And the music was so loud and angry. Those shows were well organized. Strange things were going on, too. There was some in-fighting and maybe a lot of other things going on. But the band stuck together." -Herbie Flowers som spelar bas på skivan. Bildade även Blue Mink och lirade med Lou Reed på Walk on the Wildside.

"Sweet Thing' is Bowie at his sleaziest, a song about transactional, loveless sex with the impassive protagonist "putting pain in a stranger", and willing to "wrangle some screams from the dawn"." -bowiebible.com

13. Låt: Slip Away
Skiva: Heathen
Årtal: 2002
Kommentar: Sunday är långsam och mellankoliskt och inleder Heathen på bästa sätt. Det låter modernt även 2024 och Bowies röst är fantastisk i denna storslagna, episka poplåt. Pixieslåten Cactus(Surfer Rosa) följer och är även den kanon. Den spelades flitigt på de kommande två live-turnéerna. Slip Away och Slow Burn följer och det är Heathens stora låtar. Fantastiska på alla sätt och vis under de dryga 10 minuter som de håller på.Sen följer några intetsägande låtar innan I Took a Trip on a Gemeni Space Ship, en cover av bandet Legendary Stardust Cowboy följer. 5:15 The Angels Have Gone och Everyone says Hi är också bra. Kanonplatta!

Tony Levin lirar bas och Jordan Rudess keys. Prog! Matt Chamberlain på trummor. 

"Sometimes you stumble across a few chords that put you in a reflective place. 'Slip Away' started like that. It's odd but even when I was a kid, I would write about 'old and other times' as though I had a lot of years behind me. Now I do, so there is a difference in the weight of memory. When you're young, you're still 'becoming', now at my age I am more concerned with 'being'. And not too long from now I'll be driven by surviving, I'm sure. I kind of miss that 'becoming' stage, as most times you really don't know what's around the corner. Now, of course, I've kind of knocked on the door and heard a muffled answer. Nevertheless, I still don't know what the voice is saying, or even what language it's in." -David Bowie

14. Låt: Lady Grinning Soul
Skiva: Aladdin Sane
Årtal: 1973
Kommentar:

"...was written for a wonderful young girl whom I've not seen for more than 30 years. When I hear this song she's still in her 20s, of course." -David Bowie. Den "underbara" tjejen är troligen Laudia Lennear som även Mick Jagger skrev en kärlekslåt om (Brown Sugar).

"'Lady Grinning Soul' brought out the romantic playing in me that comes from composers like Franz Liszt and Chopin. I mixed this with elements of Liberace and Rodger Williams, which were styles of music that were always put down because they were so mainstream. I played in a very undissonant way here, where 'Aladdin Sane' is about as dissonant as you can get. Actually, 'The Motel' on Outside is my twenty-five-years-later version of 'Lady Grinning Soul'!" -Mike Garson

15. Låt: Seven Years in Tibet
Skiva: Earthling
Årtal: 1997
Kommentar: I'm a Firestarter! Bowie gör en Drum n Bass-platta. Bitvis hyfsat, men oftast tämligen kasst. Seven Years in Tibet, Dead Man Walking, Telling Lies, The Last Thing You Should Do och I'm Afraid of Americans är bra.

"'Seven Years In Tibet' started as a cut-up, and then I started to give form to it. It was inspired by the Heinrich Harrer book and my own interest in Tibetan Buddhism. The 'pigs' mentioned in the song represent the Chinese choppers that in the early '60s would daily fly missions to mow down hundreds of fleeting Tibetans. The 'frail farm' would represent the soul of Tibet. That's as much explanation as I would care to give that song. The rest of the power comes from the music itself. It's probably my favorite track on the album." -David Bowie

16. Låt: Lazarus
Skiva: ★ [Blackstar]
Årtal: 2016
Kommentar: This was David's swan song, his parting gift to the world, and what a gift it was.

Look up here, I'm in heaven
I've got scars that can't be seen
I've got drama, can't be stolen
Everybody knows me now

"When I read the lyrics to 'Lazarus' and a few other songs, I knew what he was doing. I think it was clear in his mind that this could be his last album. He was putting all those messages in there. Like that first verse of 'Lazarus' – "Look up here, I'm in heaven". I heard that and I smiled. "I know what you're saying David," and he laughed." -Tony Visconti

17. Låt: The Width of a Circle
Skiva: The Man Who Sold the World
Årtal: 1970
Kommentar:

"Bowie had already written most of the first song, 'Width Of A Circle', before we went into the studio. It was one of the few songs that was almost complete when we went in. Drums-wise, it was just a case of me finding the right beat. The second part of the song, which has a different tempo, didn't exist until we came up with it through jamming in the studio. Bowie added a melody and vocals to that part later." -Woody Woodmansey

"Proto-metal meets prog rock with some lengthy instrumental guitar/bass/drums passages; the sound of the album is, at times, comparable to Zep, Sabbath and Cream. Add Bowie's lyrics touching on themes of madness, sexual encounters and ghostly nursery rhymes, and The Man Who Sold the World is a thrilling listen." -thepressmusicreviews.wordpress.com

18. Låt: Word on a Wing
Skiva: Station to Station
Årtal: 1976
Kommentar:

"I think we are due for a revival of God awareness. Not a wishy-washy kind of fey, flower-child thing, but a very medieval, firm-handed masculine God awareness where we will go out and make the world right again. I'm feeling more and more that way.

Rock & roll has been really bringing me down lately. It's in great danger of becoming an immobile, sterile fascist that constantly spews its propaganda on every arm of the media. It rules and dictates a level of thought and clarity of intelligence that you'll never raise above… Rock has always been the devil's music. You can't convince me that it isn't." -David Bowie

19. Låt: Warzawa
Skiva: Low
Årtal: 1977
Kommentar: Undrar hur fasen folk reagerade 1977 när de för första gången drog igång nålen över b-sidan på Low? Warzawa är mer Magma än pop. Underbart bra givetvis!

"Side A is more like experimental synth-pop, while Side B is an ethereal ambient/krautrock experience." -misterhubris

"I loved it when David did the quasi-Balkan singing. He had an old recording of a boys' choir from one of the Balkan countries and he played it for me at some earlier date (on reflection, this record was not unlike the female choirs of Bulgaria that eventually won a Grammy in the 80s).

'Warszawa' reminded him of that recording and he went in front of the microphone to try and re-create it. To make him sound like a boy I slowed the tape down about three semitones and he sang his part slowly. Once it was back up to speed he sounded about eleven years old! I can't tell you how much fun the three of us had recording side two – it was more fun than side one." -Tony Visconti

20. Låt: Sue (Or In A Season Of Crime)
Skiva: ★ [Blackstar]
Årtal: 2016
Kommentar: Vansinnigt bra platta. Donny McCaslin härskar på sax och varje låt är svinbra. Ett värdigt avslut på en fantastisk karriär. Vila i frid.

"He had said he wanted it to be dark, but I said to him, 'This melody is Lydian, which is the brightest of modes.' We put in this dark interval at the bottom, which created this density. I started playing what I was hearing. We worked on harmonising and creating form, and worked on a 'B section' together. I liked the idea of something like ecclesiastical chanting – on one note. He wasn't sure what the lyrics were. I said, 'What's it about?' and he said, 'I don't know. Maybe vampires?' And he laughed.

At the session he came in with the new lyrics. I looked at them and said, 'Oh, my god.' He looked quite delighted with himself. I was reading them and it was very dark, like, 'Sue… beneath the weeds' and 'Sue… goodbye' and he just said to me, 'He murders her…'" -Maria Schneider (piano) om Sue (Or In A Season Of Crime).

"Ibland kommer man inte veta ett ögonblicks sanna värde förrän det har blivit till ett minne".

21. Låt: Quicksand
Skiva: Hunky Dory
Årtal: 1971
Kommentar:

Do you know who else was very hot on England's magical force? Hitler. He wanted to possess our country for that reason; he needed that power to develop his Aryan race. Himmler, his right hand man, sent over 117 million pounds of SS money trying to find the Holy Grail in England. In England, the Druids have access to a lot of the Nazi books. They were turned on to the idea of Homo Superior long before anyone else. They found out that that was what the Nazi thing was about and they just collected all the books before anybody else got interested in it, or even was aware that there was such a thing as Homo Superior." -David Bowie

22. Låt: The Man Who Sold the World
Skiva: The Man Who Sold the World
Årtal: 1970
Kommentar: Black Country Rock, She Shook Me Cold, After All, Supermen, The Width of a Circle och All The Madmen är bra låtar! 

23. Låt: I'd Rather Be High
Skiva: The Next Day
Årtal: 2013
Kommentar:

"The song's protagonist is a seventeen-year-old soldier, seeking mental escape from his service by dreaming of Berlin, London, and Cairo, and wishing to be anywhere but "training these guns on the men in the sand"." -bowiebible.com

24. Låt: All The Madmen
Skiva: The Man Who Sold the World
Årtal: 1970
Kommentar:

"Originally entitled Metrobolist (a 50th anniversary release is well underway) the album's name was changed at the last minute to The Man Who Sold The World – the original stereo master tapes were in fact labelled Metrobolist, with the title ultimately crossed out." -thepressmusicreviews.wordpress.com

"I went to the States for three months to promote The Man Who Sold the World and when I returned I had a whole new perception on songwriting...My songs began changing immediately. Secondly, by the time I came back I had a new record label, RCA, and also a new band. America was an incredible adrenaline trip. I got very sharp and very quick. Somehow or other I became very prolific. I wanted to write things that were more...immediate. " -David Bowie

"Who knows? Maybe I'm insane too, it runs in my family, but I always had a repulsive sort of need to be something more than human. I felt very very puny as a human. I thought. 'Fuck that. I want to be a Superman.' I guess I realized very early that man isn't a very clever mechanism. I wanted to make myself better." -David Bowie

25. Låt: Oh, You Pretty Things
Skiva: Hunky Dory
Årtal: 1971
Kommentar:

"A lot of the songs do in fact deal with some kind of schizophrenia or alternating id problems and 'Pretty Things' was one of them. The sky, the crack in the sky is always… According to Jung, to see cracks in the sky is not, is not really quite on. And I did, you know, the sky for me representing something solid that could be cracked and I still had a dome over the world which again I found out was just my own repressions. I haven't been to an analyst, my parents went and my brothers and sisters and my aunts and uncles and cousins and … they ended up in a much worse state so I stayed away. I thought I'd write my problems out really.

One of the times I actually went out with my step-brother, I took him to see a Cream concert in Bromley, and about halfway through – and I'd like to think it was during 'I Feel Free' – he started feeling very, very bad… He used to see visions a lot. And I remember I had to take him out of the club because it was really starting to affect him – he was swaying… He'd never heard anything so loud; he was ten years older then me and he'd never been to a rock club, because jazz was his thing when he was young. He turned me on to Eric Dolphy…

Anyway, we got out into the street and he collapsed on the ground and he said the ground was opening up and there was fire and stuff pouring out the pavement, and I could almost see it for him, because he was explaining it so articulately." -David Bowie om Oh, You Pretty Things 

26. Låt: Wild is the Wind
Skiva: Station to Station
Årtal: 1976
Kommentar:

"Bowie was snorting Tony Montana amounts of nose-sugar around this time, so maybe that is the junkie's remorse that I hear in my speakers." -cancon

"Station to Station" är knarkromantik, drömmar, kärlek men mest av allt Bowies rop på hjälp. 

27-28. Låt: It's No Game pt.1-2
Skiva: Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)
Årtal: 1980
Kommentar:

"On the album there are two versions of 'It's No Game', the opening track and the closing track, both done in completely polarised styles. I think the reasoning behind that stemmed from wanting to not come out with one blatant, sort of, protesty song, that showed that feelings of anxiousness about society are expressed on different levels and with different intensities.

The course of the album takes you through a lot of the doubting and the dilemmas that I, myself, as a writer find myself in, and so you open with one kind of protest which gradually and insidiously becomes something less traumatic by the end of the album. Anyway that's the way it was originally focused.

The opening version, it's almost inarticulate at times, the vocals on it. And it owes an awful lot to John Lennon. But there again he always had that same intensity that I hope I capture in some of my things, when I try that kind of move." -David Bowie, 1980.

29. Låt: Rebel Rebel
Skiva: Diamond Dogs
Årtal: 1974
Kommentar:

Låten handlar om en pojke som bär kvinnokläder och sminkar sig för att sätta sig upp mot sina föräldrar. Låten är definerande för hela glamrocksscenen.

"I can tell you about the time that I first met Marc Bolan who became a very, very good friend of mine. We actually met very early on in the '60s before either of us were even a tad pole known. We were nothing; we were just two nothing kids with huge ambitions, and we both had the same manager at the time. And we met each other firstly painting the wall of our then manager's office." -David Bowie

30. Låt: Letter to Hermione
Skiva: Space Oddity
Årtal: 1969
Kommentar: "I think David expresses himself beautifully. But they weren't written and handed to me, there wasn't any ulterior motive. Obviously they strike into the heart. They're wonderful, wonderful love songs, whoever they're for… To me, that's just the David I know. Who was very personal. These weren't works of fiction, they were just heartfelt songs." -Hermione Farthingale

31. Låt: Ziggy Stardust
Skiva: The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars
Årtal: 1972
Kommentar:

"The time is five years to go before the end of the earth. It has been announced that the world will end because of lack of natural resources. Ziggy is in a position where all the kids have access to things that they thought they wanted. Ziggy was in a rock-and-roll band and the kids no longer want rock-and-roll…" -David Bowie

32. Låt: Untitled No.1
Skiva: Buddha of Suburbia
Årtal: 1995
Kommentar:

"The last name, Stardust, came from another of my favourites, the Legendary Stardust Cowboy, who was on Mercury Records along with me in the 'Space Oddity' days, and he sang things like 'I Took A Trip In The Gemini Spacecraft' [sic]. His big hit was 'Paralysed'… well, I bought it! He was a kind of Wild Man Fischer character; he was on guitar and he had a one-legged trumpet player and in his biography he said, "Mah only regret is that mah father never lived to see me become a success." I just liked the Ziggy Stardust bit because it was so silly." -David Bowie om var namnet Ziggy Stardust kom från.

33. Låt: Fame
Skiva: Young Americans
Årtal: 1975 Kommentar: Bowie goes soul och funk på Young Americans!

"Originally the album was to be called Shilling The Rubes, which is circus slang for taking money off people, with Bowie saying, "I was advised that my stunning wit would not go down well." -David Bowie 50th Birthday Chat.

34. Låt: When I Live my Dream 
Skiva: David Bowie 
Årtal: 1967 
Kommentar: David Jones Bowies första platta är inte jättemycket att hänga i julgranen. There is a Happy Land, When I Live my Dream, Come and Buy me Toys är bra låtar dock. 

"What the fuck? This album actually reminds me of Leonard Nimoy's song about Bilbo Baggins more than it does anything else I've ever heard from Bowie." -stereobread

35. Låt: Love Is Lost
Skiva: The Next Day
Årtal: 2013
Kommentar:

Kommentar: Bättre än debuten. Space Oddity, Unwashed and Somewhat Slightly Dazed, Letter to Hermione, Wild Eyed Boy from Freecloud, An Occasional Dream, God Knows I'm Good och Memory of a Free Festival är lyssningsbara. 

'Cygnet Committee' is one way of using a song. But these people – they're so apathetic, so lethargic. The laziest people I've met in my life. They don't know what to do with themselves. Looking all the time for people to show them the way. They wear anything they're told, and listen to any music they're told to. People are like that.

37. Låt: Suffragette City
Skiva: The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars
Årtal: 1972
Kommentar:

"At its core, "Suffragette City" is a song about chaos and anarchy. The lyrics are filled with references to rioting and rebellion, and the song's title itself is a nod to the suffragette movement of the early 20th century. Bowie was known for his fascination with British culture and history, and this song is no exception." -lyricalinsight

38. Låt: Bring Me The Disco Kid
Skiva: Reality
Årtal: 2003
Kommentar: Resor sämre än föregångaren Heathen. The Loneliest Guy, Reality och Bring Me The Disco Kid är bra. 

39. Låt: Cracked Actor
Skiva: Aladdin Sane  
Årtal: 1973  
Kommentar:

"I love this one. David grasped what was going on in society. Sadly much of the same is going on today. He seems to have had an intuitive insight even way back then, of what was still to come. That's David for you." -Mike Garson

" 'Cracked Actor' conveyed the tale of an ageing Hollywood star and an encounter with a sex worker ("Forget that I'm fifty 'cause you just got paid"), but was almost diary entry-like in its depiction of decadence. The lyrics are awash with onomatopoeia (smack, suck, crack) and double entendre ("I'm stiff on my legend", meaning elderly and yet erect; "show me you're real"/"your reel")." -bowiebible.com

40. Låt: Here Comes the Night 
Skiva: Pin Ups 
Årtal: 1973 
Kommentar: Bowie får för sig att göra covers. Det går sådär. Närmast olyssningsbart. Får säljas...

"Pinups is the seventh album by David Bowie. It is a covers album, featuring songs by the Pretty Things, the Who, the Yardbirds, Pink Floyd, Them, the Mojos, Easybeats, the Merseys and the Kinks." -david-bowie.fandom.com

"It was originally conceived to contain one of David's songs and the rest covers of songs by English club bands of the Sixties, the opposite of the last three albums, but somehow David's song never came to fruition. For the covers we would listen to the original records, then a decision was made as to whether to keep close to that arrangement or change it, then work it out and record." -Ken Scott, producent på bland annat Hunky Dory, Ziggy Stardust och Aladdin Sane.

41. Låt: Loving the Alien
Skiva: Tonight
Årtal: 1984
Kommentar: Loving the Alien är en bra låt. Undvik de värdelösa försöken till reggae (Tonight och Don't Look Down som Iggy Pop tvingade på Bowie samt Blue Jean som måste vara den sämsta, men fortfarande kända Bowie-låten. Tonight är Bowies sämsta platta hittills.

Förutom det så sjunger Bowie fantastisk på den något onödiga Beach Boys-covern God Only Knows.

42. Låt: Diamond Dogs
Skiva: Diamond Dogs
Årtal: 1974
Kommentar: Kanonplatta med Rebel Rebel, Diamond Dogs, 1984, Sweet Thing och Sweet Thing Reprise

"This song introduces us to Bowie's post-Ziggy Stardust persona, Halloween Jack: "The Halloween Jack is a real cool cat and he lives on top of Manhattan Chase." It has also been suggested this song was influenced by Dhalgren, a science fiction novel by Samuel R. Delany." -songfacts.com

43. Låt: Win
Skiva: Young Americans
Årtal: 1975
Kommentar: Young Americans, Win, Right, Somebody Up There Likes Me, Fame och Can You Hear Me är nice!

44. Låt: Station to Station
Skiva: Station to Station
Årtal: 1976
Kommentar: Wild is the Wind, Word on a Wing, Station to Station och Golden Years är kanon.

"There was no enjoyment in the working process [in America]. I'd exclude from that Station To Station. That was fairly exciting because it was like a plea to come back to Europe. It was one of those self chat things one has with oneself from time to time.

Christ, no… what am I talking about? A lot of that and Young Americans was damn depressing. It was a terribly traumatic time. I was absolutely infuriated that I was still in rock 'n' roll. And not only in it, but had been sucked right into the centre of it. I had to move out. I never intended to be so involved in rock and roll… and there I was in Los Angeles, right in the middle of it.

Whether it's fortunate or not I don't know, but I'm absolutely and totally vulnerable by environment, and environment and circumstances affect my writing tremendously. To the point of absurdity sometimes.

I look back on some things in total horror… And anyway I began to realise that the environment of Los Angeles, of America, was by this time detrimental to my writing and my work. It was no longer an inspiration to be caught in that environment.

I realised that that was why I was feeling so claustrophobic and cut off. I was adopting such a hypocritical stance. There was this incredible fight between materialism and aestheticism. My commitment has certainly never been in rock 'n' roll. I've made no secret of that. I was just a hack painter who wanted to find a new medium to work in, frankly." -David Bowie Melody Maker, 29 October 1977

45. Låt: Sound and Vision
Skiva: Low
Årtal: 1977
Kommentar: Helt ok a-sida med Sound and Vision, Be My Wife, Speed of Life.

"Eno and Bowie both resembled beings from other worlds at the time - Bowie may well have been one. It is, of course, an album of two halves. 20 minutes of bizarre pop songs, followed by 20 minutes of stunning, near-instrumental baroque soundscapes." -Mymagician

"A very sad song for me is 'Sound And Vision'. I was trying very hard to drag myself out of an awful period of my life. I was locked in a room in Berlin telling myself I was going to straighten up and not do drugs anymore. I was never going to drink again. Only some of it proved to be the case. It was the first time I knew I was killing myself and time to do something about my physical condition. I had a few scares and thought, 'Well, I got through that by the skin of my teeth.' Serious haemorrhaging from the nose, passing out… awful stuff." -David Bowie

46. Låt: 5:15 The Angels Have Gone
Skiva: Heathen
Årtal: 2002
Kommentar:

"Confront a corpse at least once. The absolute absence of life is the most disturbing and challenging confrontation you will ever have." -David Bowie

"Pete and I had a lot of shared experiences. One was taking the milk train back home after a weekend in London, and there was only one train, it went at like 5.15 in the morning, and you had to wait hours on the platform after the clubs were finished. We both wrote a song called '5.15', both very different, and I dedicate this one particularly to John Entwistle." -David Bowie

47. Låt: The Loneliest Guy
Skiva: Reality
Årtal: 2003
Kommentar:

"Att vara berömd är som att vara en guldfisk i en genomskinlig skål" -David Bowie

" keep touching on something that I am awfully scared of: the prospect that there really is no meaning to anything. I was trying to avoid it like crazy on this album, but it did slip into that song." -David Bowie

48. Låt: You Feel So Lonely You Could Die
Skiva: The Next Day
Årtal: 2013
Kommentar: Love Is Lost, The Stars (Are Out Tonight), Where Are We Now, Valentine's Day, (You Will) Set the World on Fire är fina bitar.

"This melodramatic soul-drenched waltz-time piano ballad finds Bowie singing a kiss off to a would-be suicide, whose depression appears to have been brought on by the loneliness of a city. "I can see you as a corpse, hanging from a beam... Oh, see if I care, Oh please make it soon," he croons." -songfacts.com

49. Låt: See Emily Play 
Skiva: Pin Ups 
Årtal: 1973  
Kommentar: Bowie gör Pink Floyd.

"The album was recorded in the weeks immediately after Bowie's on-stage retirement of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars. Although he had publicly broken up the band, Bowie retained Trevor Bolder on bass guitar after his first choice, Cream's Jack Bruce, was unable to attend the sessions."

50. Låt: Young Americans  
Skiva: Young Americans 
Årtal: 1975 
Kommentar:

"Over the course of about eight very creative days, Bowie recorded most of the songs for Young Americans at Sigma Studios. He usually recorded his vocals after midnight because he heard that's when Frank Sinatra recorded most of his vocals, and because there weren't so many people around...The line near the end, "I heard the news today, oh boy," is a reference to the Beatles song "A Day In The Life." John Lennon worked with Bowie on "Fame" and also Bowie's cover of "Across The Universe." Both songs are on this album." -songfacts.com

51. Låt: Subterraneans 
Skiva: Low 
Årtal: 1977 
Kommentar: Berlin-triologin startar med Low och fortsätter med Heroes och Lodger. 

"I really can't remember the details, but there was a great row – not between Nic and I because we kept apart from those areas; I didn't want to row with Nic – a couple of er, unusual people who were putting the thing together.

I was under the impression that I was going to be writing the music for the film but, when I'd finished five or six pieces. I was then told that if I would care to submit my music along with other people's… and I just said 'Shit, you're not getting any of it.' I was so furious, I'd put so much work into it.

It turned out for the better and of course it did prompt me in another area – to consider my own instrumental capabilities, which I hadn't really done very seriously before. The area was one that was suddenly exciting me, one that I never really considered would. And that's when I got the first inklings of trying to work with Eno at some point." -David Bowie

52. Låt: Sons of the Silent Age 
Skiva: Heroes 
Årtal: 1977 
Kommentar: Sons of the Silent Age låter som om Hours kom redan 1977.

53. Låt: Fantastic Voyage 
Skiva: Lodger 
Årtal: 1979 
Kommentar: På inledande Fantastic Voyage visar David Bowie sin otroliga röst. Efter den dyker den extremt märkliga låten African Night Flight upp. Hade vi sluppit Davids vita rapp till vers hade den varit fräckare. Som platta är Lodger resor intressantare än tråksläppet Heroes, även om den inledningsvis kanske känns väl spretig och flippad. Lyssna även till Red Sails, Yassasin, D.J., Look Back In Anger, Boys Keep Swinging och Red Money.

"In the meantime, Lodger is a loud, schizophrenic, paint splattered patchwork quilt of noise and ideas, doubtless the result of several years of experiments that were orphaned for stronger material or concepts. Presented as a mish-mosh labyrinth of songs, this is a tasty little slice of chaos that serves as a perfect climax to an entire decade's groundbreaking classic material." -Anxiety

54. Låt: Fashion 
Skiva: Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) 
Årtal: 1980 
Kommentar: Up the Hill Backwards, Ashes to Ashes, Fashion, Teenage Wildlife, Scream Like a Baby, Kingdom Come, Because You're Young, It's No Game pt.2. Det kryllar av bra låtar här!

55. Låt: I Know It's Gonna Happen Someday
Skiva: Black Tie White Noise
Årtal: 1993
Kommentar: Vad gjorde Bowie mellan 85-93? Tror inte han skrev musik ivf. Sablar så dålig platta. Jag vet inte vilken av I Know It's Gonna Happen Someday och Nite Flights som är minst sämst.

56. Låt: Buddha of Suburbia
Skiva: Buddha of Suburbia
Årtal: 1995
Kommentar: Popiga Buddha of Suburbia, delar av jazziga, men tyvärr också elektroniska South Horizon, Eno-ambienta The Mysteries, NIN-doftande Bleed Like A Craze, Strangers When We Meet och Untitled No.1 är lyssningsvärda låtar. Ungefär 3000 ggr bättre än Never Let Me Down, Tonight och Black Tie White Noise. 

57. Låt: Modern Love 
Skiva: Let's Dance 
Årtal: 1983
Kommentar: Modern Love, China Girl, Let's Dance är ingen trökig öppning på en platta. Bespottad av många, men helt av fel anledningar. Suverän pop om än väldigt radioanpassad. Without You, Criminal World och Cat People tåls också att lyssnas på. 

"This is about the struggle to find solace in love and religion. It has also been suggested this song contemplates the old adage "The more things change the more they stay the same." Explaining how he remained a force in pop music for so many years, Bowie sings, "It's not really work it's just a power to charm." -songfacts.com

58. Låt: South Horizon
Skiva: Buddha of Suburbia
Årtal: 1995
Kommentar:

"On my favourite piece, 'South Horizon', all elements, from lead instrumentation to texture, were played both forwards and backwards. The resulting extracts were then intercut arbitrarily giving Mike Garson a splendidly eccentric backdrop upon which to improvise. I personally think Mike gives one of his best-ever performances on this piece and it thrills on every listening, confirming to me at least, that he is still one of the most extraordinary pianists playing today." -David Bowie

59. Låt: Hallo Spaceboy
Skiva: Outside: The Nathan Adler Diaries - A Hyper Cycle
Årtal: 1995
Kommentar: Det Bowie gör här borde vara en del av musikundervisningen i grundskolorna. Bowie fullständigt slaktar alla förutfattade meningar och påståenden om att han ska vara slut, slutat att utmana lyssnarna m.m. Här får vi industri/alternativ/jazz/metal/triphop och rock i ett. Fullkomligt makalöst bitvis. Lyssna till: The Heart's Filthy Lesson, A Small Plot of Land, Hallo Spaceboy, The Motel, The Voyeur of Utter Destruction (As Beauty), Wishful Beginnings, Thru' These Architects Eyes och Strangers When We Meet är bra låtar!

"It's common for people who aren't equated with the underground to equate popularity with quality. The more people like something the better it is right? That's why artists like Ed Sheeran and Taylor swift are the greatest of all time, they have millions of listens. This is where a lot of attention stops for the more pedestrian music goers for lack of a better term. Now if you're a crate digger like me, someone like an RYM user, you probably understand that niche and eclectic music doesn't need mass appeal and still be phenomenal, however there's sub sects of listeners who go even deeper, scour an artists catalogue and find the best of the rarities. I'm in that camp. When I love an artist I obsess over every 6in, EP, and bootleg I can find. That's why some of my friends find it strange when I say Bowie is my pick for greatest songwriter who's lived. I usually go for more underrated and lesser known artists. But it's undeniable the amount of artistry and sheer talent Bowie brings to the table." -bl1ss_f1elds

60. Låt: China Girl
Skiva: Let's Dance
Årtal: 1983
Kommentar:

"It was virtually a new kind of hybrid, using blues-rock guitar against a dance format...There wasn't anything else that really quite sounded like that at the time." -David Bowie

"He made 'China Girl' with Iggy Pop. Based on my experiences with my own album, I recognized he needed trailers. In my opinion, 'China Girl' didn't have a real hook. I didn't think it was going to connect with audiences. I told him it was wacky and wouldn't be easy for folks to get. I thought I was going to be fired, but we ended up having a fabulous discussion about all this abstract stuff and how he never felt the need to conform to anything." -Nile Rodgers

61. Låt: Something in the Air
Skiva: 'Hours...'
Årtal: 1999
Kommentar: Jisses vad jag spelade denna platta när jag köpte den 1999. Det var min andra Bowieplatta och jag var besluten att David skulle bli min nya idol. Thursday's Child, Something in the Air, Seven, New Angels of Promise och The Dreamers är ok. Som album är det sämre än jag kom ihåg.

62. Låt: Everyone says Hi
Skiva: Heathen
Årtal: 2002
Kommentar:

63. Låt: Never Let Me Down
Skiva: Never Let Me Down
Årtal: 1987
Kommentar: Vilken missvisande albumtitel. Sicket dret till platta. Ber om ursäkt. 

64. Låt: Let's Dance  
Skiva: Let's Dance  
Årtal: 1983  
Kommentar:

"Genom hela min karriär har jag egentligen jobbat med samma ämne. Byxor har jag kanske bytt några gånger, men allt jag skrivit och gjort handlar om isolering, övergivenhet, rädsla och ångest. Alla livets höjdpunkter". -David Bowie

Bonus:

65. Låt: Can't Help Thinking About Me 
Skiva: Can't Help Thinking About Me -single 
Årtal:  1966
Kommentar: Bowies första singel som David Bowie

66. Låt: An Occasional Dream
Skiva: Clareville Grove Demos
Årtal: 2019
Kommentar: Inspelat 1969

67. Låt: Life Is a Circus 
Skiva: Clareville Grove Demos 
Årtal: 2019 
Kommentar: Inspelat 1969

68. Låt: I Can't Read '97 
Skiva: Is It Any Wonder? 
Årtal: 2020 (1997)
Kommentar: Akustisk version av Tin Machine-låten I Can't Read.

69. Låt: Stay '97 
Skiva: Is It Any Wonder?  
Årtal: 2020 (1997) 
Kommentar:

70. Låt: Shadow Man (Unplugged & Somewhat Slightly Electric Mix) 
Skiva: Toy:Box
Årtal: 2022 (1971) 
Kommentar:

71. Låt: Starman (top of the pops)
Årtal: 2022 (årtal?)

72. Låt: A Small Plot of Land (Live at The Shakespeare Festival, New York, September 18, 1995) 
Skiva: Brilliant Adventure EP 
Årtal: 2022 (1994 - 18 September 1995)
Kommentar:

73. Låt: China Girl (Cinemix) 
Skiva: China Girl (Riff & Vox Mixes) 
Årtal: 2023
Kommentar:

74 Låt: Abdulmajid (Pekka Tuppurainen, Brian Eno)
Skiva: Blå/röd
Årtal: 2010
Kommentar:

75. Låt: Wild Eyed Boy From Freecloud 
Skiva: Five Years 1969-1973
Årtal: 2015
Kommentar:

76. Låt: Drowned Girl 
Skiva: Bertolt Brecht's Baal 
Årtal: 1982 
Kommentar:

77. Låt: Lightning Frightning aka The Man
Skiva: Divine Symmetry
Årtal: 2022
Kommentar:

78. Låt: Amsterdam
Skiva: Five Years 1969-1973
Årtal: 2015 
Kommentar:

79. Låt: Some Are (Pekka Tuppurainen, Brian Eno) 
Skiva: Blå/röd 
Årtal: 2010 
Kommentar:

80. Låt: Trying to Get to Heaven
Skiva: Trying to Get to Heaven/Mother single 
Årtal: 2021 (?)
Kommentar:

81. Låt: Shadow Man
Skiva: Nothing Has Changed (The Best of David Bowie Deluxe Edition)
Årtal: 2014
Kommentar:

82. Låt: No Plan
Skiva: No Plan
Årtal: 2017
Kommentar:

83. Låt: All The Young Dudes
Skiva: Nothing Has Changed (The Best of David Bowie Deluxe Edition) 
Årtal: 2014 
Kommentar:

84. Låt: Under Pressure (Queen feat Bowie)
Skiva: Hot Space
Årtal: 1982
Kommentar:

Albumranking:

Hunky Dory
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars
Station to Station 
★ [Blackstar] 
Outside: The Nathan Adler Diaries - A Hyper Cycle
Diamond Dogs 
Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) 
The Man Who Sold the World 
Aladdin Sane  
Low 
Let's Dance  
Heathen  
Young Americans 
Lodger  
Heroes  
Space Oddity
The Next Day   
Earthling 
Buddha of Suburbia   
'Hours...' 
Reality  
Pin Ups
Black Tie White Noise  
Tonight  
David Bowie
Never Let Me Down