The Goo 1
Regular CONOR FARRELL A column celebrating memora
ble anniversary’s in music. THE GRAPE VINYL Aladdin Sane - David Bowie (1973). 50th Anniversary year. When I was seven, we visited an aunty who had twin teenage girls. Just as they were planning to give me a horrifying makeover, I spotted their record player. Noticing my sudden interest, they pulled out some records and fought over the Bay City Rollers and Olivia Newton John. But something else had caught my attention and made my tiny mind explode. It was an album cover like none I had seen in my brief existence. It depicted a strange glamourous being. Was it a boy or a girl? Was it of this world? Did it even matter? The cover seemed to fill the room with colour. It screamed rock ‘n roll, rebellion, art and all things that I couldn’t possibly articulate. “That’s David Bowie”, said one of the twins, breaking the silence. “I think he might prefer Gilbert O Sullivan,” said the other. I never got to hear Bowie that day but the cover art left a deep impression on me and when I did start discovering Bowie in my early teens, Aladdin Sane was one his first albums I bought. Success didn’t come overnight for Bowie. Even his breakthrough single, Space Oddity (1969), was a short-lived success. It seemed that Bowie might fade back into obscurity until he released The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars in 1972. With Ziggy Stardust he had created an alter ego that would finally turn him into a big star. Aladdin Sane was released in 1973 as the follow up to Ziggy Stardust. Bowie described it as “Ziggy in America” mainly because most of it was written on the road while touring America. The American influences were plainly there with some of the hardest and raunchiest rock ‘n roll of his career to date. But for every New York Dolls or Velvet Underground reference he also paid homage to The Stones and T-Rex. There was a lot of heavy guitar work from the great Mick Ronson, such as on ‘Cracked Actor’, the glammed up Bo Diddley-esque ‘Panic in Detroit’ and ‘Jean Genie’. And some softer spacey glam on ‘Drive in Saturday’ and ‘The Prettiest Star’, both of which were underpinned, to great effect, by doo-wop backing vocals. Elsewhere on the album were European influences of a different kind. The musical theatre of Kurt Weill/Brecht and the chanson style of Jacques Brel can be heard on Time, Lady Grinning Soul and the astonishing title track. It is on these songs that Bowie releases his secret weapon, classically trained New York pianist, Mike Garson. Garson’s eclectic mix of classical and avant-garde jazz gives Aladdin Sane its experimental edge. When I first heard the title track, several years after seeing the album cover, the music exploded with as many colours as the sleeve artwork had. I was once again bewitched. Garson played as if someone had swapped all the keys around. It was wild and exciting like Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue on acid. ‘Time’ was a decadent cabaret number with a ghostly, sepia toned ragtime piano and a theatrical lyric that could have easily been written by Brel himself. The sultry ‘Lady Grinning Soul’ had a stunning chanson style vocal from Bowie against the backdrop of Ronson’s beautiful Spanish guitar and Garson’s classical inspired glissandos. Aladdin Sane is a thrilling ride from start to finish! Not only is it a worthy successor to Ziggy Stardust but it’s a progression both musically and conceptually. It has an experimental edge and a wide pallet of cultural references and to this day remains a highlight in a career full of highlights. GARSON’S ECLECTIC MIX OF CLASSICAL AND AVANT-GARDE JAZZ GIVES ALADDIN SANE ITS EXPERIMENTAL EDGE PAGE 40