January 26, 2016 Playlist

Have a Rotten 60th birthday, Johnny!

and tribute to Bowie

CLASSIC ALBUM OF THE WEEK David Bowie "The Man Who Sold The World"  1970 (UK) David Bowie passed away at the beginning of the year, just two days after the release of his final album. He has been widely hailed as a trailblazing artist whose influence went far beyond music, but for the purposes of this show that's what we're going to concentrate on. After releasing an unusual, twee pop album around 1967, Bowie's career really began with his second LP, released in 1969 and featuring the classic track "Space Oddity", rightfully acclaimed as one of the epochal recordings of the rock era. His next album was our CAOTW, an album which is mainly recalled due to the controversial gender-bending cover photo of David reclining on a couch in a dress (for the more conservative American market, the photo was replaced with a cartoonish cowboy painting). The "Glam Rock" era which Bowie helped create was still a couple years away, but in 1970 he was already moving away from the artsy hippie balladry of his earlier recordings towards a futuristic hard rock sound with increasingly theatrical concepts. Sold The World lacked any hit songs, thus is a somewhat overlooked record from Bowie's formative period. His next LP Hunky Dory begins with the hit "Changes," and from there on he was consistently on the charts for more than a decade. Bowie continued to release albums every couple years up until 2003, at which time he took ten years off, before returning with two solid efforts in The Next Day (2013) and his intriguing final statement, blackstar (2016).

(N) = New Release