Label: Deram
Release date: June 1, 1967
Production: Mike Vernon
Album length: 37.07 min
Genre: Psychadelic Pop / Singer / Songwritter
Rating: 7.0/10
In 1967, with the British psychedelic scene at its peak, a talented twenty-year-old kid showed up as a solo artist, sporting a permanently dilated pupil in his left eye, the result of a scrap with a schoolmate who later became a friend. Right from the start of his career, the odd-looking young musician turned a few heads with his unusual stage name, David Bowie, though he’d still have to wait two more years for his first real success. David Robert Jones picked the name so the media of the day wouldn’t mix him up with Davy Jones (The Monkees). Ironically, Bowie would go on to become one of the most unique musicians in history in the years that followed. As one of music’s greatest chameleons and visionaries, David later scored a monster success in the seventies and became a glam-pop-art rock legend, with a whole mythology spun around him. Later on he probably had a good laugh at his modest, relatively obscure beginnings, though in 2001, when he started work on the officially never-released album “Toy,” he re-arranged a few songs from this self-titled debut, which means he was by no means ashamed of his first steps.
David’s self-titled debut, which came out on the very same day (June 1, 1967) as The Beatles’ masterpiece “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” was a light-footed mix of baroque pop, folk and British music-hall burlesque, with orchestral arrangements (horns especially) in the background, a little bit of guitar, and pronounced black-humor lyrics packed with youthful naivety and playfulness. Compared to the far more complex and challenging sonic standards of his later work, it was all ‘sweet simplicity.’ Then again, Bowie had an exceptional knack for crafting melodic arrangements from very early on, and later, once he figured out how to combine that with complexity, he became a musical innovator and a ‘class of his own’ in sonic experimentalism.
Satirical little ditties like “Uncle Arthur” and “Little Bombardier,” both steeped in an ‘Old English’ atmosphere, show off a cheeky mischief and playfulness, while on the romantic ballad “When I Live My Dream” Bowie shows off his gentler side too. “We Are Hungry Men” stands out for its lyrics, since it’s the first time Bowie used the figure of a self-proclaimed messiah, one he’d return to several times in different forms later on. The most ambitious track on the album, if not the best, is “Silly Boy Blue,” which roughly hints at where Bowie’s creative path would lead him next, so it’s no surprise it was one of the songs he re-recorded more than three decades later for the aforementioned “Toy” project.
Despite all its burning ambition and huge creative drive, Bowie’s self-titled debut flopped commercially and didn’t contain any especially thrilling achievements, even though it offered quite a bit of good fun and humor. The disappointment that followed forced David to take a year off before his next studio venture. During that time he got interested in the artistic avant-garde and learned how to turn a stage show into a real art performance, and he also had his first idea of turning himself into a half-real, half-fictional character. So he made good use of his short break from the scene: with the single “Space Oddity” in 1969 he made his big comeback and scored his first noticeable success, which the legendary artist then pushed higher and higher with every sonic and visual transformation from that point on.
Author: Peter “Dr. ProgRock” Podbrežnik
This review is dedicated to the memory of David Bowie (1947-2016).
Track list:
1. Uncle Arthur (2:07)
2. Sell Me a Coat (2:58)
3. Rubber Band (2:17)
4. Love You till Tuesday (3:09)
5. There Is a Happy Land (3:11)
6. We Are Hungry Men (2:59)
7. When I Live My Dream (3:22)
8. Little Bombardier (3:23)
9. Silly Boy Blue (4:36)
10. Come and Buy My Toys (2:07)
11. Join the Gang (2:17)
12. She’s Got Medals (2:23)
13. Maid of Bond Street (1:43)
14. Please Mr. Gravedigger (2:35)
Lineup:
David Bowie – vocals, guitar, saxophone
Big Jim Sullivan – banjo, sitar, guitar
Derek Boyes – organ
Dek Fearnley – bass guitar, orchestral arrangements
John Eager – drums
