Author: Peter Podbrežnik
Artist: Bowie, David
Label: RCA Records
Release: 1973
Length: 40:47
Rating: 5/5
Review author 2: Peter Podbrežnik
After the phenomenal success of the cult concept album »The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars« (1972), which turned him into a global star, David Bowie, at the peak of his glam rock era, decided it was time to gradually say goodbye to his beloved alter ego, the androgynous alien Ziggy Stardust. Still, on his next studio album, »Aladdin Sane«, which unlike its predecessor wasn’t a concept album, David didn’t bury Ziggy completely, but cleverly turned him into a new character called Aladdin Sane, an unusual pun on ‘A Lad Insane’. Bowie got the idea partly after his brother Terry was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Unlike Ziggy, Aladdin was supposedly a bit more mentally balanced, while the lightning bolt painted across half of David’s face symbolized the split between his real personality and his ‘spacey’ alter ego.
Bowie simply described his new character and the album »Aladdin Sane« as »Ziggy goes to America«, since most of the material on the album was written during the American leg of the ‘Ziggy Stardust’ tour, which is obvious from the title of the song »Panic in Detroit« alone. »Aladdin Sane« was also David’s last album with the classic lineup of his backing band The Spiders From Mars, who got some splendid help this time from guest keyboardist Mike Garson, who laid down a few fantastic piano improvisations. Compared to its more famous predecessor, »Aladdin Sane« was a noticeably grittier affair, with more rock’n’roll riffs and colorful, at times female, backing vocals, while some of the piano arrangements got even more sophisticated and in places stamped a significant experimental mark on the glam rock face of most of the compositions.
It was becoming ever clearer that Bowie’s glam rock phase wouldn’t last long, which was more than noticeable on some of the songs. From The Spiders From Mars, guitar virtuoso Mick Ronson once again shone brilliantly, and he earned a name for himself as a co-author of some of the arrangements too. The rhythm section of bassist Trevor Bolder and drummer Mick ‘Woody’ Woodmansey, who was replaced by Aynsley Dunbar soon after »Aladdin Sane« came out, had by this point become supremely eclectic and tight.
According to Bowie, the somewhat ‘dirtier’ style of the album was also shaped by the American tour, soaked in drugs and decadence, and by his hanging out with The Rolling Stones, led by Mick Jagger. Their influence can be heard on the opener »Watch That Man«, where David’s vocals are deliberately pushed into the background of the production, while bluesy guitar passages, energetic female backing vocals and a piano-driven dance groove take the lead. Even though it’s one of the simplest, most party-minded pieces Bowie made in the seventies, it’s a supremely effective intro to an album that’s insanely diverse stylistically.
The title track, »Aladdin Sane (1913-1938-197?), is a chapter all its own, with its mysterious, enigmatic atmosphere and Garson’s numerous avant-garde jazz-fusion piano improvisations, the kind that even Soft Machine in their mature period wouldn’t have been ashamed of. In the lyrics, Bowie asks whether anyone will even be able to love Aladdin Sane (after the incredible popularity of his predecessor Ziggy Stardust), while the first two years mark the time before the outbreak of the two world wars. The unfinished year is supposed to say that Bowie quietly believed a third world war was getting closer and closer and was something unavoidable, especially after witnessing countless decadent depths of Western capitalism on the American tour. You could say this was the key piece of the whole album when it comes to foreshadowing David’s near musical future, since the most experimental works of his career were still waiting their turn.
The doo-wop-flavored »Drive-In Saturday«, which also came out as a single, with its nostalgic feel and colorful saxophone parts, makes for an interesting ambient contrast. The lyrics are about a completely sterile, dehumanized society in the distant future that has forgotten what sex is and wants to learn ‘how to serve these things’ by watching old porn films. »Panic in Detroit«, drenched in energetic female backing vocals, features an authoritative hard rock guitar phrase, while the lyrics are inspired by the phenomenon of all sorts of revolutionary utopians, led by Che Guevara, whom plenty of Westerners in the middle of capitalist society had a rather romantic view of at the time.
The cunning glam and hard rock hybrid »Cracked Actor« is another of the grittier »Aladdin Sane« cuts, where Ronson’s slick guitar passages rule. In the lyrics, Bowie meanwhile plays with a story about an encounter between an aging film actor and a prostitute, and references to drug abuse are far from missing. »Time«, which also came out as a single and is steeped in a shattering atmosphere, features piano-driven elements of cabaret music and avant-garde jazz, while the ‘victory’ goes to the melodramatic chorus, one of the best on the album.
»The Prettiest Star« is a song that first came out back in 1970, in its original version, as a single with special guest Marc Bolan. The 1972 version sounded way more glam rock, while Ronson took care of a perfect imitation of Bolan’s guitar lines. »The Prettiest Star« is supposedly dedicated to Bowie’s wife at the time, Angela ‘Angie’ Barnett. Of everything on the album, by far the most superfluous is the otherwise very nicely pulled-off cover of The Rolling Stones hit »Let’s Spend the Night Together«, which David’s crew dressed up in glam rock clothes and played in a much punchier way.
One of the most beloved »Aladdin Sane« pieces to this day is the hit »The Jean Genie«, the lead single from the album, where Bowie, within his own particular glam rock mix, brings in elements of blues and proto-punk, while the lyrics contain an allusion to the French writer Jean Genet. The album closes in a majestic and extremely melodramatic way with the shattering love confession »Lady Grinning Soul«, whose enigmatic-romantic pulse strongly recalls the kind of musical backdrop usually associated with films about secret agent James Bond. This hugely overlooked song is a perfect chapter of its own and can’t be compared to anything Bowie made before or after it. It undoubtedly lifts the artistic side of the album up at least a level right at the very end and confirms David’s boundless sonic vision.
»Aladdin Sane«, the next phase of the Ziggy Stardust glam rock saga, is usually one of Bowie’s more overlooked albums in critical circles, even though it proved that his newfound stardom hadn’t put him to sleep artistically, since he managed to pull off another unforgettable masterpiece in a relatively short time. Even though »Aladdin Sane« outshines its more famous studio predecessor in many ways, being yet another important step forward in Bowie’s constant sonic chameleonism, the reactions of the critics at the time were reportedly rather mixed, since most of them expected a complete stylistic continuation of the conceptual masterpiece. Bowie, who never intended to rest on his laurels, had meanwhile already grown tired of glam rock. After releasing the covers album »Pin Ups« in the fall of 1973, his last effort with the members of The Spiders From Mars, he set about shaping his next studio project, on which he finally buried Ziggy, or rather Aladdin, and unveiled some completely unexpected stylistic experiments with an even bigger emphasis on futuristic-dystopian concepts.
This review is dedicated to the memory of David Bowie (1947-2016).
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Review author 1: Aleš Podbrežnik
“Aladdin Sane”, the successor to Ziggy Stardust, is a record on which Bowie defined his experience called rock’n’roll in a much bolder and more direct way. It’s a punchier successor, but strictly a Bowie album, where the man deftly and in his own way bends the formatted reach of early-seventies rock out of shape. It’s also the last record he made with his band Spiders From The Mars. On bass for the spiders from Mars and the crazy Aladdin was Trevor Bolder, who is still active today in Uriah Heep.
One of the most sensitive musicians in the whole history of rock dropped Zyggy this time and identified with a character called Aladdin Sane. It doesn’t take much guessing to see that the asexual hybrid of a being from another galaxy with human contours flung the doors to new musical expanses wide open. Bowie kept building on his own take on simple rock’n’roll, in which a distorted guitar led the way on one side and classical piano on the other. He added erotic palettes of wind arrangements (The Prettiest Star stands out) and teasing female backing vocals to the sound, and transformed the whole through deliberate exposure. That’s how he won himself a distinctive stance under the free sun.
After the wound-up opener Watch That Man, in the title song Bowie steps up masked as Aladdin Sane, with an icy vocal with a frenetic edge. A song where the piano unconditionally takes center stage, developing a truly psychedelic moment over the closing section, it conjures up the crazy redhead, made up in color down to the last square centimeter of his skin. Supposedly, on tour, the first ten rows were occupied by nothing but Davids Bowie, that’s how much Bowie’s popularity had exploded thanks to his glam antics, which struck the old and stiff as shocking, unacceptable, sloppy, blasphemous, while young people were logically drawn to Bowie’s creative freedom and the courage he expressed directly through his provocative stance – true “bowiemania”.
David’s approach is downright fantastic. Totally immersed, cynical, disillusioned, deliberately exposed, yet utterly convincing in the same breath. Exposed, the way only Bowie’s personality was. What ate at him most was the popularity of Ziggy Stardust. While he had long since morphed into Aladdin Sane, people were still idolizing Ziggy. Will Aladdin be strong enough to convince people that Ziggy is dead? David’s adventure as an artist is a walk through a room of an endless number of mirrors. Some songs carry a real double face, e.g. Drive-In Saturday. Panic In Detroit is Bowie’s memory of the summer of 1972 and the North American tour. The melodic bass lines of Trevor Bolder and the lively guitar riffing of Mick Ronson, who undoubtedly stands out in the song, are anchored over a contrasting foundation built on percussion. A real rocker moment bursts out. The same goes for Cracked Actor and the hit in the style of old Iggy called The Jean Genie. The cover of Rolling Stones’ Let’s Spend Night Together offers an exciting production of David’s vocals, as if his echo were coming from the background.
Time, alongside the title song and the closing Lady Grining Soul, is one of the atmospheric peaks, with an utterly melancholic David up front. Cold as the devil himself. As if hordes of spiders were marching through an icy dark room, across a numb human body. The production pushes the guitar, serving up some truly thrilling “scary licks”, off into the distance, while the backbone of the song is once again the classical piano, guided by the jazz idioms of the thirties and forties, dictating the tempo. The song is put together perfectly. Everything in it fits and simply works phenomenally. The atmosphere keeps growing throughout, peaking at the close.
One of the most beautiful ballads to go overlooked in rock is surely the closing song called Lady Grinding Soul. An exceptional melody, with David deliberately “exposed”, exposed the way the person Aladdin Sane could only be! With the approach of a thin, sensual vocal and a touch of a schizoid mind. It’s the romantic peak of the record. The chemistry between the spiders and Aladdin worked on an exceptional level. The guys freeze cold along with David when needed, but in the next moment they heat things up and serve a full dose of rock. But David “outgrew” them, and when he felt that after this record, he disbanded the Spiders From Mars. With all his otherness, he simply had no other choice. He felt the band was pulling him back.
With the glam peak of the summer of 1973, “Aladdin Sane”, the new wizard of rock music convinced the masses that as an artist he doesn’t just flirt with rock culture, he lives it to the fullest. The decadence and the saturated boredom of human society come across especially strongly through the verses of the song Time. The rock monument “Aladdin Sane” is an album of which every single home should have a copy. A timeless work of art!
Lineup
David Bowie – vocals, guitar, harmonica, saxophone
Mick Ronson – guitar, piano, backing vocals
Trevor Bolder – bass
Mick ‘Woody’ Woodmansey – drums
GUEST MUSICIANS
Mike Garson – piano
Ken Fordham – saxophone, flute
Brian ‘Bux’ Wilshaw – saxophone, flute
Linda Lewis – backing vocals
Juanita ‘Honey’ Franklin – backing vocals
G.A. MacCormack – backing vocals
Production
David Bowie and Ken Scott
Track list
1. Watch That Man (4:30)
2. Aladdin Sane (1913-1938-197?) (5:06)
3. Drive-In Saturday (4:33)
4. Panic in Detroit (4:25)
5. Cracked Actor (3:01)
6. Time (5:15)
7. The Prettiest Star (3:31)
8. Let’s Spend The Night Together (3:10)
9. The Jean Genie (4:07)
10. Lady Grinning Soul (3:54)
