Song of the Day #2,867: ‘Ziggy Stardust’ – David Bowie

ziggy_stardustI’m often amazed by how prolific the great musical artists were in their early days. Looking at the output of a Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder or The Beatles, I can only imagine how great it must have been to be a fan hearing new, incredible material year after year.

David Bowie released what might be his best album, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, in June of 1972, just six months after Hunky Dory. And his next classic album (stay tuned ’til next week) came out less than a year after this one. To put it in terms Hamilton fans will appreciate, the man was non-stop!

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Song of the Day #2,866: ‘Changes’ – David Bowie

bowie_hunky_doryBowie followed up The Man Who Sold the World with the very different Hunky Dory. Where the former was a hard rock exercise, all grungy guitars, the latter is filled with delicate piano pop.

Hunky Dory is one of two Bowie albums I already owned. I bought it for the three hits — ‘Changes,’ ‘Queen Bitch’ and ‘Life on Mars?’ — but never gave the rest of the tracks a very careful listen.

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Song of the Day #2,865: ‘The Man Who Sold the World’ – David Bowie

bowie_man_who_sold_worldWhen I decided to take a deep dive into David Bowie’s catalog, I started by Googling every list of his “best albums” I could find. My goal was to come up with a top ten that averaged out those lists.

Bowie released 27 studio albums over the course of his career, but the same dozen or so dominated every list I found. In the end, I settled on 13 albums that I bought (or already owned) and studied for the purposes of these theme weeks.

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Song of the Day #2,864: ‘Space Oddity’ – David Bowie

david_bowie_space_oddityDavid Bowie’s second album was, like his debut, titled David Bowie.

Released in 1969, it is most notable for the inclusion of ‘Space Oddity,’ a song that would become a theme of sorts for Bowie. The record was re-released three years later under the title Space Oddity to capitalize on the song’s success.

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Song of the Day #2,863: ‘Rubber Band’ – David Bowie

david_nowieIn January, shortly after David Bowie shuffled off this mortal coil, I promised to take a deep dive into his catalog. For the next three weeks, I’ll do just that.

I’ll get more into my preparation in future posts, but for now I want to kick things off with a single from Bowie’s first album, self-titled and released in 1967.

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