Stephen Holland - Multimedia Journalist

The Bowie Project #14 – Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) (1980) David Bowie’s 14 th studio album, Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) was released on September 12 1980 and would be his final album for RCA Records, the label who had released all of his albums since Hunky Dory in 1971. Over the last number of years Bowie had achieved major artistic success with the release of his Berlin Trilogy, however those albums were less successful commercially and by 1980 Bowie had found himself in the precarious position where bands and artists who were inspired by that trilogy were actually out selling him. Low and “Heroes” , both released in 1977, were seen as precursors to post-punk and influenced artists like Joy Division and the Human League, while 1979’s Lodger’ s use of world music is credited for inspiring artists like Paul Simon and the Talking Heads. Those albums were made in collaboration with self-described “non-musician” ambient pioneer Brian Eno and were incredibly experimental an...

The Bowie Project #13 – Lodger (1979) Lodger is David Bowie’s 13 th studio album. It was released on May 25 th , 1979 and was the final instalment in his Berlin Trilogy after Low and “Heroes” which were both released in 1977. The trilogy comes out of a period when Bowie had moved from Los Angeles to Europe in an effort to rid himself of his drug addiction and was a very prolific time for the artist. The previous two records were highly influenced by German krautrock and the recent ambient releases of Brian Eno, who he collaborated with on all three of the albums. Lodger however moves away from the more minimal ambient sounds of those albums and moves into a more varied array of musical styles and genres including new wave and reggae. It features more accessible songs throughout and the album is split into two parts thematically through its lyrics rather than its music. Side one is primarily devoted to the theme of travel and side two focuses on critiques of Western civilization. Wh...

  The Bowie Project #12 - "Heroes" “Heroes” is David Bowie’s 12 th studio album; it was released on 14 October 1977 by RCA Records just nine months after his previous album Low . Under no obligation from his record label to promote his last album due to their perception it would be a guaranteed flop Bowie instead took a back seat and spent much of that year as touring keyboardist with his friend the singer Iggy Pop. After that tour Bowie worked with Pop to record his second studio album Lust for Life before then regrouping with his collaborator Brian Eno and producer Tony Visconti to get to work on “Heroes”. This album was the second instalment of the Berlin trilogy, an experimental trio of records that was preceded by Low would be followed by Lodger in 1979. Out of the three albums, “Heroes” is the only one to be recorded entirely in West Berlin. This album follows on from the experimental, art rock, and ambitious style that Bowie was exploring at this time. The major...

The Bowie Project #11 – Low (1977) David Bowie’s 11 th studio album, Low , was released on January 14 th , 1977, by RCA Records. After years of worsening cocaine addition Bowie needed to get out of Los Angeles and get clean. Along with proto-punk icon Iggy Pop he relocated to Europe, and it is in this fragile emotional state that Bowie starts work on the experimental art rock trio of album’s that would eventually become known as the “Berlin” trilogy. The first of these albums was Low , an avant-garde pop-rock record that was highly influenced by German bands like Kraftwerk, Neu!, Tangerine Dream and CAN as well as the ambient work of former Roxy Music pianist Brian Eno, who collaborated with Bowie on this album as well as the rest of the trilogy. The first half the album features short, direct, avant-pop song fragments with lyrics that reflect Bowie’s brittle state of mind, and side-two is mostly instrumental tracks inspired by a European sensibility. For the first time Bowie was trea...

The Bowie Project #10 - Station to Station (1976) Station to Station  is David Bowie’s 10 th  studio album, it was released on 23 January 1976 by RCA records. The commercial success of his previous record  Young Americans  gave Bowie renewed creative freedom, allowing him to further develop the funk and soul sounds of that album while also delving into a more art rock experimental direction. In early 1975, Bowie had moved to Los Angelas to play the lead role in the Nicolas Roeg film  The Man Who Fell to Earth , which tells the story of an alien named Thomas Jerome Newton who comes to Earth with the goal of shipping water back to his own planet which is suffering from severe drought, however the alien finds himself getting drawn in to human vices, sex, and corruption. The part would greatly influence Bowie for the next year leading the development of his controversial Thin White Duke stage persona. Bowie’s addiction to cocaine peaked in this period to the point w...

The Bowie Project #9 – Young Americans (1975) A change was taking place within David Bowie, after waving goodbye to the glam-rock aesthetic that had brought him so much success in his previous record Diamond Dogs , he was ready to embrace a new soul-based sound that we find we find on Young Americans , his ninth studio album first released on 7 March 1975 by RCA Records. It was throughout 1974 during the “Diamond Dogs Tour” that Bowie’s style started to majorly shift, the tour originally consisting of elaborate props and set-pieces meant to highlight that concept album’s dystopian Hunger City setting, however Bowie’s continued and worsening cocaine addiction meant the high-levels of theatricality required were too difficult and in October of that year he re-branded it as “The Soul Tour”, a stripped back affair with a more soul and funk influenced sound. This tour is expertly captured in the 1975 BBC television documentary “Cracked Actor” which highlights his fragile mental state during...

The Bowie Project #8 – Diamond Dogs (1974) David Bowie’s eighth studio album was released on 24 May 1974 by RCA Records. The album marks Bowie’s departure from the glam rock genre he had been exploring on his last three records and sees the beginning of a funk/soul influence that he would embrace more fully in his next releases. This album is an amalgamation of three different projects Bowie had been working at the time and while it is usually described as a concept album there is no real narrative running throughout but it’s more a collection of interconnected ideas and themes. One of the projects was a musical based on Ziggy Stardust which was ultimately scrapped, however fragments of songs written for it have found their way onto this release. Another was an adaptation of the George Orwell novel Nineteen Eighty-Four , Bowie attempted to secure the rights to the dystopian novel but was denied by his widow (as she denied any and all requests for adaptations right up until her death)....