0157. David Bowie
Hunky Dory
Bowie's fourth album was the first with the setting of the backing band soon to be known as the Spiders From Mars.
His chosen vocal poses pushes him from imitating Dylan (to which he also dedicated a song on the album) in Changes to Kermit-is in parts of Fill Your Heart. For the most part though, his voice is tinged with the female characters from the Monty Python show: high pitched and swaying.
It's probably telling for his career that as he samples others' style of singing (either by purpose or by design) he also mixes his musical influences. Basically it's rock, but in places there's a hint of music-hall and ballads.
The riff in Andy Warhol makes it one of the albums highlights, even though it spaces out during the last minute and starts to go out of sync (at least it feels like it). Weird that it's never mentioned, cause it doesn't deserve to get overshadowed by Life On Mars? and Changes.
After this, he went on to being so impressed by Iggy Pop and Lou Reed that he tried to meld them together, producing the persona Ziggy Stardust for his next album.
By the way: I got to say it's a nice gesture recording a track like Kooks for your kid, but you know what had been better? Not naming him Zowie Bowie.
