1001 Albums Summary

Ziggy Stardust comes to America and joins the hard glam rock showtune cabaret, equal parts garish theatricality and catchy refrains, yet purposefully transparent enough to show the coked-out depressive discordancy underlying it all.

Probably the pinnacle of glam rock, an indelible mixture of androgyny, pop refrains, and hard rock riffs. Mick Ronson's guitar and piano work supply an undeniable pop and punch to Ziggy's infectious grooves and choruses. And Bowie's vocals, always recognizable and forever iconic, imbue Ziggy with cosmic wonder on timeless tracks like "Starman" and provide powerful emotional depth, with his wails on "Five Years" and "Rock'N'Roll Suicide" foreshadowing the despairing howls on his darkest works to come (e.g., 1976's "Station to Station").

Vital, driven, pure, rollicking, and irresistible. Hits the dopamine receptors like a John Henry sledgehammer.

Deserves to stand proud in the pantheon of the late-sixties psych-pop pillars: Forever Changes, Sgt. Pepper, etc. Progressive and baroque, equally indulgent in simple melodies and studio-created multi-layered textures, it conjures the fleeting moments of long-ago in an inexplicable, phantasmagorical, and utterly magic manner.

A melange of modern classical, improvisational prog rock/jazz, and proto-metal. Out of this eclectic mix, David Cross's violin work is especially transcendent. Overall: cinematic, lush, and heavy in equal measures.

It's alright. Maybe if they stuck with this type of sound, they wouldn't be the bastard of the Britpop 3: illegitimate usurpers to the rightful throne of Britpop which, in my opinion, belongs to either Blur or Pulp. But back to this: it's Britpop, optimistic compared to across-the-Atlantic grunge, but it has its shades of punk and northern-tinged sardonicism, lending it some hair on its nether regions. And Liam's vocals--a mainstream version of PiL Johnny Lydon--add a layer of gleeful insouciance. But it does lose its charm when half of the tracks are greater than or hover around five minutes in length and they're really not that groundbreaking. They're not the Sex Pistols/PiL, they're not The Clash, fucking a, they're nowhere near Squeeze; they don't reach anywhere close to real post-punk badass abandon, nor are they concise enough to craft a legit pop-rock killer LP. Still, it was enjoyable, and it shows that Oasis did actually have something going, a smidge of potential. Too bad they totally lost it just a few years later. What utter gobshite they devolved into, ugh.

Fuck yeah.

In which Duane Allman has me yelping "Holy Fucking Shit!" whilst on a crowded NYC subway.

Tentative 4: need to re-listen in a better environment, where I can lend it more scrutiny.