A Sense of Doubt blog post #3999 - Listening to all the David Bowie Albums This Month (and how this activity is still about writing...)

A Sense of Doubt blog post #3999 - Listening to all the David Bowie Albums This Month (and how this activity is still about writing...)

This is David Bowie Month because of his birthday (January 8th) and the day of his death (January 10th).

And because David Bowie is my single favorite artist in all of the arts.

So, this month, I am listening to all the Bowie albums. I am pretty much done with that project. I am listening to Space Oddity now, which was the last one, not counting the live albums, which will be the final listens.

Usually Wednesday is WRITING WEDNESDAY. And this post is SORT OF about writing because I have always learned a great deal about writing and art from David Bowie's music.

He was a fascinating thinker and creator with a rich literary experience of reading hundreds and hundreds of books, seeing films, engaging in the world of art within and outside of music.

And everyone has opinions, like this bloke who made the graphic below.

I don't agree with these ratings.

Albums like Scary Monsters and Super Creeps and Outside belong in the iconic category, which I see a synonymous with "masterpiece." Though I can see the argument that 1. Outside would not qualify in the same list of masterpieces as The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars and Low.

I would move all but those two and Blackstar to the great or good categories (which I would split). I also acknowledge that my assessment of Blackstar may be colored by it being his last album. It's surely great, but is it only a masterpiece because it's his last words?

Diamond Dogs is definitely great, and one could argue that it is a masterpiece.

I would also rank Hunky Dory, Lodger, and Buddha of Suburbia above Young Americans or The Man Who Sold the World.

But I am biased. I love all the Bowie albums; I just love some of them more than others.

Yes, even Never Let Me Down.

This bloke's "what was he thinking" category is stupid. Let's Dance??? I can tell you what he was thinking. He made a boat load of money. And though I felt it was a let down after Scary Monsters and Super Creeps, I have come to respect how Bowie reversed direction, read the signs of the times, and exploded at the dawn of the MTV era. Brilliance also seen by Bruce Springsteen, Dire Straits, and, a bit sadly, Van Halen among several others.

...Hours has grown on me and continues to grow on me to the point that I feel it's one of Bowie's bast and most underrated albums.

When I did this post two years ago, I ranked ...Hours seventh.

Thursday, January 18, 2024

A Sense of Doubt blog post #3257 - All the Bowie Albums and my TOP TEN

TOP TEN FAVORITE ALBUMS BY DAVID BOWIE

1. Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)

2. Low

3. Buddha of Suburbia

4. 1. Outside: The Nathan Adler Diaries-A Hyper Cycle

5. The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars

6. Diamond Dogs

7. ...Hours

8. Heathen

9. Station to Station

10. Blackstar

I might revise this list today. My re-discovery of 1. Outside: The Nathan Adler Diaries-A Hyper Cycle

prompted me to over-value it.

And likewise, Buddha of Suburbia ranked highly because like Low I listen to it A LOT.

However, I listen to ...Hours and Heathen  just as much and more than Ziggy. This is a very personal list as you can see.

This year I have been listening to Diamond Dogs many times and have actually applied myself to multiple listens of Young Americans and Heroes.

Listening to Bowie's music but the albums as unique art works start to finish always spark my imagination, illuminate new ideas, prompt me to wonder how he composed those lyrics and the music to deliver them.

In a not quite related thought but on writing, I have said many times, any progress is progress. I just literally wrote a couple of lines in two chapters as the minimum of today's output. I might not be able to do more later as I am writing a final project due tomorrow, but at least, I did something.

Thanks for tuning in.

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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2601.28 - 10:10

- Days ago: MOM = 3862 days ago & DAD = 517 days ago

- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I post Hey Mom blog entries on special occasions. I post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day, and now I have a second count for Days since my Dad died on August 28, 2024. I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of Mom's death, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of her death and sometimes 13:40 EDT for the time of Dad's death. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.