6 Degrees of Separation, Part 4

Today is the halfway point of our current 6 Degrees series, connecting albums from The List. And, again, because we’re doing a bit of a Prince-theme, we’ll be picking out some fun Prince-connections in/below the set.

Okay, carrying on from where we left off last time…

6 Degrees of Separation: Bruce Dickinson to Explosions In The Sky

Bruce Dickinson – The Chemical Wedding (list number 509)
>> As noted in our feature on Tagaq’s album (which ended Part 3), she’s keen to someday cover Iron Maiden, whose frontman is Bruce Dickinson. Dickinson’s solo album contains both lyrics and artwork by the 18th/19th century English poet and painter William Blake…

Prince – For You (623)
…who the writer John Higgs delightfully compares at length to Prince in his piece in The Quietus called “Visionaries Across Time: The Shared Magic of Prince & William Blake“. …

Iggy And The Stooges – Raw Power (814)
…William Blake also pops up in Jim Jarmusch’s 1995 film Dead Man, as the main character, also named William Blake, may or may not be the reincarnation of the English poet. Dead Man features a cameo by Iggy Pop, who is regarded as the “godfather of punk”. …

Minor Threat – Minor Threat (609)
…And, if anyone could similarly be called the “godfather of hardcore” (or could command as much devotion from Henry Rollins), that would be Ian MacKaye, of Minor Threat and…

Fugazi – Repeater (422)
…Fugazi, whose tour for The Argument album featured the post-rock greats…

Explosions In The Sky – Those Who Tell The Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell The Truth Shall Live Forever (73)
Explosions In The Sky. <<

Prince 6(ish)

This group of artists are a bit far removed from The Purple One, so the connections are tough for this set. Let me know in the comments if you know of any other connections!

• Iron Maiden and Prince both had a rigorous release schedule in the 80s and early 90s, with both releasing an album (and a hit album, at that) nearly every year. E.g., Iron Maiden’s 1st self-titled album came out the same year as Prince’s Dirty Mind (1980), as did Killers and Controversy (1981), The Number of the Beast and 1999 (1982), Powerslave and Purple Rain (1984), etc. (Prince didn’t have an 1983 album to match Maiden’s Piece of Mind, likely due to working on the Purple Rain film/album.) ((I feel like there should be an accompanying string of surveys on Mastodon asking people to pick their favorites from the above pairs…))
• The Swedish author and professor Per Nilsen has written music biographies on Prince as well as Iggy Pop and the Stooges (and David Bowie).
• While there’s no direct connection between Minor Threat and Prince, I found this Flavorwire article interesting that links the American hardcore scene with Prince by way of fellow-Minneapolis band Hüsker Dü (who is on The List, and who was signed to SST Records, the label of Greg Ginn of Black Flag, who Henry Rollins, Ian MacKaye’s bff, was the vocalist of from 1981 to 1985). Essentially, the author argues that location tied Prince and Hüsker Dü (as well as The Replacements) together just like Seattle, Detroit, and Memphis did for the bands that came from those cities:
  
  • “Trying to separate the success of Prince and The Revolution from the impact the music of The Replacements and Hüsker Dü would go on to have smacks of punk rock elitism, and is almost like somebody saying that Nirvana shouldn’t count as part of the now-legendary Seattle scene simply because they got too big… Prince…and his lasting impact on his hometown’s music scene are just as vital as the influence attributed to a couple of punk bands he has probably never even listened to.”

  
  

• Fugazi’s Repeater came out the same year as Prince’s Graffiti Bridge (1990).
• Explosions In The Sky’s Those Who Tell the Truth… came out just a couple months before Prince’s Rainbow Children (2001), just a week prior to 9/11. Explosions In The Sky had some hub-bub around their album since the artwork had an airplane with the caption “This plane will crash tomorrow”, including one of the band members being detained by airport security. I wonder if the reception of Prince’s album would’ve been different if it wasn’t released during this time, as it seems that Rainbow Children is one of those that gets missed. ((Indeed, it should be on The List – I would add it myself, but I’ve cut myself off – somebody else want to submit it???))
• Prince died on Iggy Pop’s 69th birthday.

Tune in on Wednesday for Part 5, to see how we get from Explosions in the Sky to Rainbow! And in the meantime, tomorrow we will have a regular spotlight that provides a bit of a spoiler to Part 5…

#1001OtherAlbums #6DegreesOfSeparation #BruceDickinson #ExplosionsInTheSky #Fugazi #HuskerDu #IanMacKaye #IggyPop #IronMaiden #MinorThreat #PerNilsen #Prince #Tagaq #TheStooges #WilliamBlake

1001 Other Albums

2024-04-13 16:19:51

6 Degrees of Separation, Part 3

Today is Part 3 (of 8) of our 6 Degrees game with The List. And, again, because we’re doing a bit of a Prince-theme, we’ll be picking out some fun Prince-connections below the set.

Okay, carrying on from where we left off last time…

---

6 Degrees of Separation: Led Zeppelin to Tagaq

Led Zeppelin – Untitled (or “Led Zeppelin IV“) (list number 780)
>> R.E.M.’s Automatic for the People was arranged by John Paul Jones, the bass player of Led Zeppelin. Led Zeppelin’s fourth album features guest vocals from Sandy Denny (on the track “The Battle of Evermore”), who was in…

Fairport Convention – Liege & Lief (485)
…Fairport Convention, whose Liege & Lief album was produced by Joe Boyd, who also produced a number of albums by Nico, who was in/on…

The Velvet Underground & Nico – The Velvet Underground & Nico (834)
…this album with The Velvet Underground. Lou Reed of The Velvet Underground would later become a close friend of Anohni of…

Anohni and The Johnsons – My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross (969)
…Anohni and the Johnsons, and the song “Sliver of Ice” on this album was based on a conversation Anohni had with Reed during the final months before he left us. Anohni is also friends (and has collaborated with, e.g., here)…

Björk – Debut (760)
…Björk (see their amazing chat about My Back…, “Sliver of Ice”, and other topics here). Björk has also collaborated with (and produced the first album by)…

Tagaq – Auk / Blood(2)
Tanya Tagaq. <<

---

Prince 6

Here are some fun connections the above artists have to The Purple One:

• Prince was apparently a huge Led Zeppelin fan. Watch him absolutely shredding it while covering Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” here.
• Like The Velvet Underground and their song “Jesus“, Prince had a straight-up gospel song (“The Cross“, among various other songs with religious lyrics) that stood out as being quite, umm, different from the content of his other songs.
• Lou Reed’s final Spotify playlist had Prince’s song “Kiss” on it (on Part 1; see also Part 2).
• Producer/engineer/musician Mark Plati worked with both Prince (Graffiti Bridge) and Lou Reed (as well as David Bowie – who was in Part 1 of our 6 Degrees series – on Earthling).
• In a 1997 Mojo interview, Prince mentioned that he dug some of Björk’s work: “I crave great musicianship, and I don’t care who provides it. I’ve got no problems saying I dig D’Angelo. Or some of the things that Bjork does, the Cocteau Twins. Musicians, we’re family.”
• The 2007 compilation A Tribute to Joni Mitchell features both Prince (covering “A Case of You”) and (covering “The Boho Dance”) (as well as Sufjan Stevens and k.d. lang, who are both also on The List, as is Joni).

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Tune in on Monday for Part 4, to see how we get from Tagaq to Explosions in the Sky!

#1001OtherAlbums #6DegreesOfSeparation #Anohni #AnohniAndTheJohnsons #Björk #DavidBowie #FairportConvention #JoeBoyd #JohnPaulJones #JoniMitchell #LedZeppelin #LouReed #MarkPlati #Nico #Prince #REM #SandyDenny #Tagaq #TheVelvetUnderground #VelvetUnderground

ANOHNI and Björk Talk Soul Music, Lou Reed, and Climate Collapse

"To fall into despair or blame or denial isn’t productive," says ANOHNI, who got on Zoom to talk about her new album with Björk.

^{Jake Nevins (Interview Magazine)}

David Bowie – Low (1977, UK)

[This guest post was written by Brook Ellingwood (aka @theotherbrook) about number 537 on The List, to coincide with its spot in our #BowieADay listening schedule.^[1] The album was submitted by buffyleigh.]

On first listen David Bowie’s 1977 album Low can seem a cold and sterile affair. Getting to its heart takes some effort and, apparently, at least a thousand words or so.

The influence of minimalist and electronic German bands like Neu!, Kraftwerk, and Tangerine Dream is all over the record, making it not just stark but also a stark departure from the sound of his last single, the danceable funky “Golden Years.” But the title track of the album that song came from, Station to Station, was the first clear movement in the direction of Low and the two following albums that have in retrospect been dubbed Bowie’s “Berlin Trilogy.”

Despite that label, nearly all the instruments on Low were actually recorded at France’s Château d’Hérouville, forever memorialized in the title of Elton John’s album Honky Château. Fearing for his physical and mental health Bowie decamped for Europe, leaving the cocaine-fueled life he was leading in Los Angeles along with the “would-be romantic with absolutely no emotion” Thin White Duke persona he’d adopted. He reached out to Iggy Pop with an offer both to produce an album for him and to give him a similar chance to escape the environment driving his own addictions.

The Idiot, Pop’s first album without the Stooges, features him singing his lyrics over backing tracks on which Bowie is moving even farther towards the German bands’ sounds. It’s the music of two friends in recovery intentionally shedding their old skins. The music of German artists declaring freedom from their nation’s recent history fit the mood. (Given that some of what Bowie was shedding was a perceived fascistic side to the Thin White Duke may further explain the attraction.)

Maybe what’s most “Berlin” about Low isn’t the music that influenced it, or that recording finished there. The album evokes a feeling of disconnectedness one imagines was familiar in a city cut in two by a wall, the western half surrounded by antagonistic authoritarianism while retaining the freedoms of another Germany some 200 kilometers away. When Bowie arrived in Berlin he fell in love with the city.

I feel that its coldness makes Low second only to Bowie’s wrenching Blackstar swan song as his most emotionally honest record. Side One is bracketed by two instrumentals; “Speed of Life,” the most propulsive piece on the album which can be interpreted as his coke years put to music, and “A New Career in a New Town” with its minor key piano figure and harmonica (the first time Bowie had played it on a recording since 1972’s “The Jean Genie) openly declaring his decision to make a break and start over.

Between those instrumentals, the lyrics of five vocal songs are snapshots of a life out of control. “Baby, I’ve been / Breaking glass in your room again…” “I’m always crashing in the same car…” “Please be mine / Share my life /Stay with me / Be my wife…”

Having put his past on Side One, Bowie felt free to make Side Two his present. Brian Eno joined him to collaborate on those four songs, pushing the band Bowie had assembled into entirely new territory. It’s tempting to think of the side as instrumental but Bowie does sing on three of the songs. It’s just that the singing is devoid of discernible lyrics, his voice becoming another atmospheric instrument wordlessly describing both a certain kind of Cold War European bleakness and his own emotional condition.

There was no certainty that RCA would even release the album when they heard it. The label’s first reaction was to tell him to go back to the studio and make something more like Young Americans.

When he refused their second reaction was to postpone its release, dumping it on the market in the post-Christmas doldrums without any significant promotion. Bowie himself seemed to treat it more as something he’d done for personal instead of business reasons and declined to perform in support of it. Instead he went on tour as Iggy’s keyboard player.

Even perceptive and forward-looking critics were initially perplexed by Low. But as the next two Berlin Trilogy albums, Heroes and Lodger, expanded and contextualized this new direction they began to reassess their earlier reviews. Now it’s not unusual to see the album declared as perhaps Bowie’s best, and boldest, work.

Leaving behind the characters he’d been filtering his work through is what gives Low its sense of icy intimacy. And if the album is a personal one for Bowie, my own attachment to it is personal as well.

At 12 or 13, I was interested in knowing more Bowie than I’d heard on the radio but didn’t have much in the way of expendable income. So I bought the only album of his I found in the closeout bin. Low wasn’t just my first Bowie album, it was one of the first three or four albums I owned period, and listening to it over and over on my jerry-rigged bedroom stereo probably did something permanent to my synapses. Before long, he would return to a poppier style with the release of Scary Monsters and I’d learn his discography much more completely, but I’d never give up my experience of Low as an entry point.

Bowie was never shy to put theatrical emotions into his singing but these songs, even the wordless ones, are largely sung in a flat affect stripped of pathos and lacking showy vocal runs. Along with the startlingly different sound producer Tony Visconti found on the album by running drums through an Eventide harmonizer, that vocal style was to become a major influence on post-punk acts a few years later. Joy Division even first performed under the name Warsaw, taken from Side Two, track one, “Warszawa” the Polish name for the city.

Maybe what Low shows us that David Bowie actually was the alter-ego of David Bowie, a pretend sophisticated pop star persona assumed by an art rocker who every now and then took off the mask and made music as himself.

• Songlink: David Bowie – Low
• Discogs: David Bowie – Low

1. See 1001otheralbums.com/2025/01/07/bowieaday-2025/ ↩︎

#1001OtherAlbums #1970s #ambient #artRock #Bowie #BowieForever #BowieADay #BrianEno #DavidBowie #experimental #IggyPop #ListenToThis #music #musicDiscovery #Musodon #TonyVisconti

1001 Other Albums

2025-01-07 23:35:09

BowieADay 2025

While 1001 Other Albums wasn’t yet around last January, for those who follow my personal Mastodon account, you may have seen that I do a deep dive into David Bowie’s discography this time every year. Ever since Bowie left us in 2016, I’ve focused my listening time each January around his discography, starting on his birthday (January 8, aka “Bowiemas”) through to the anniversary of him leaving us (January 10, aka “Bowienalia”) until the end of the month (or later).

While in previous years I’ve typically crammed in as much Bowie as humanly possible, after a few of you expressed interest in joining me this year (yay!!!), I’ve decided to structure my Bowie vigil a bit more so we can all listen to the same albums together. And, since we learned our lesson after the whirlwind that was #TomWaitsAWeek, we’ve decided to take our time with Bowie, simply listening to one studio album a day in chronological order – a total of 26 albums over 26 days – with the option of listening to any extras on our own. Though we still have a few Bowie albums on The List to spotlight, unlike our Tom Waits week, I won’t be writing all those up to match our listening schedule this time around. However, we do have an excellent guest spotlight on the Low album lined up in time, so look for that next week.

In case anyone else wants to join us, below is our listening schedule (complete with listening links), and we’ll be using the hashtag #BowieADay to toot our thoughts about it as we go through the albums. For any of you wanting some extra credit, I’ve added some suggested bonus listening, as well as other goodies. Note the bonus picks are by no means exhaustive. Aside from all the music videos/interviews/etc. the Internets provides, there’s been a TON of live albums and other previously unreleased stuff put out posthumously that you might want to explore on your own. I also highly recommend perusing Chris O’Leary’s in-depth look into every single Bowie song, as found on his Pushing Ahead of the Dameblog and collected/edited in his two books, Rebel Rebel: All the Songs of David Bowie from ’64 to ’76 and Ashes to Ashes: The Songs of David Bowie, 1976-2016. I’ll be adding more bonus content as we go through the schedule, so feel free to check back later.

Happy listening!

#BowieADay 2025 Listening Schedule

• January 8: David Bowie (1967)
  
  • Bonus: If you want to skip to the end already, grab a tissue and also listen to Blackstar, released OTD. There was also a RSD release last year, Laughing With Liza (Vocalion And Deram Singles 1964-1967+), that has a couple earlier tracks from his time as “Davie Jones with The King Bees”. Also see the I Dig Everything: The 1966 Pye Singles EP, as well as a comp released in 1991 that isn’t on streaming services, Early On (1964-1966).

  
  

• January 9: David Bowie (aka Space Oddity) (1969)
  
  • Bonus: Toy EP (2021) (was posthumously released, though some of us may have already had a bootleg version prior to that…)

  
  

• January 10: The Man Who Sold the World (1970)
  
  • Bonus: Again, perhaps listen to Blackstar, simply because Bowie left us on this day, leaving this album as his final parting gift.

  
  

• January 11: Hunky Dory (1971)
  
  • Bonus: Seu Jorge – The Life Aquatic Studio Sessions(2005)

  
  

• January 12: The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972)
  
  • Bonus: Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars: The Motion Picture film (1979) or soundtrack (1983). The version of “My Death” in the film/soundtrack is an absolute must-hear, in particular.

  
  

• January 13: Aladdin Sane (1973)
  
  • Bonus: Lou Reed – Transformer (1972) (Bowie co-produced); Iggy and the Stooges – Raw Power (1973) (Bowie co-produced/mixed; the linked deluxe edition has both the Bowie mix and the Iggy mix, for direct comparison)

  
  

• January 14: Pin Ups (1973)
  
  • Bonus: If you want to skip ahead a bit, also listen to Low, released OTD.

  
  

• January 15: Diamond Dogs (1974)
  
  • Bonus: David Live (1974)

  
  

• January 16: Young Americans (1975)
  
  • Bonus: Luther Vandross – Never Too Much (1981)

  
  

• January 17: Station to Station (1976)
  
  • Bonus: The Man Who Fell to Earth film (1976); Nina Simone – Wild is the Wind (1966)

  
  

• January 18: Low (1977)
  
  • Bonus: Philip Glass – Symphony No. 1 “Low” (1992); Iggy Pop – The Idiot (1977) (Bowie produced, co-wrote, and performed)

  
  

• January 19: “Heroes” (1977)
  
  • Bonus: Heroes/Helden/Héros EP (1977); Stage (1978); Iggy Pop – Lust for Life (1977) (Bowie co-produced, co-wrote, performed); Philip Glass – Symphony No. 4 “Heroes” (1996; 2007 performance linked)

  
  

• January 20: Lodger (1979)
  
  • Bonus: Philip Glass – Symphony No. 12 “Lodger” (2019)

  
  

• January 21: Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) (1980)
  
  • Bonus: David Bowie in Bertolt Brecht’s Baal EP (1982)

  
  

• January 22: Let’s Dance (1983)
  
  • Bonus: Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence film (1983); The Hunger film (1983)

  
  

• January 23: Tonight (1984)
  
  • Bonus: Not going to lie, Tonight is a bit weak. So, you might want to re-listen to Station to Station again, released OTD. And/or check out the Labyrinth film/soundtrack (1986), or the Bowie tracks on the Absolute Beginners soundtrack (1986).

  
  

• January 24: Never Let Me Down (1987)
  
  • Bonus: If NLMD let you down (a likely situation), perhaps check out Tin Machine today! Tin Machine was a short-lived group with Bowie on vocals, Reeves Gabrels on guitar, Tony Fox Sales on bass and vocals, and Hunt Sales on drums. They put out 2 LPs, and there’s also 2 live albums:
    
    • Tin Machine (1989)
    • Tin Machine II (1991)
    • Tin Machine Live: Oy Vey, Baby (1992)
    • Tin Machine: Live at La Cigale, Paris, 25 June 1989 (2019)

    
    

  
  

• January 25: Black Tie White Noise (1993)
  
  • Bonus: The Walker Brothers – Nite Flights (1978)

  
  

• January 26: The Buddha of Suburbia (1993)
  
  • Bonus: The Buddha of Suburbia TV series (1993)

  
  

• January 27: 1. Outside (The Nathan Adler Diaries: A Hyper Cycle) (1995)
  
  • Bonus: The Leon Suites (1994); NIN/Bowie co-headlining “Dissonance” tour (1995)

  
  

• January 28: EART HL I NG (1997)
  
  • Bonus: TAO Jones Index – Pallas Athena/V2 Schneider (12″ from 1997, also included on the expanded edition of EARTHLING)

  
  

• January 29: ‘hours…’ (1999)
  
  • Bonus: Glastonbury 2000 (2018)

  
  

• January 30: Heathen (2002)
  
  • Bonus: Pixies – Surfer Rosa (1988)

  
  

• January 31: Reality (2003)
  
  • Bonus: A Reality Tour live DVD (2004) or album (2010); The Modern Lovers – s/t (1976)

  
  

• February 1: The Next Day (2013)
  
  • Bonus: The Next Day Extra EP (2013)

  
  

• February 2: ★ (aka Blackstar) (2016)
  
  • Bonus: The musical Lazarus, by Bowie and Irish playwright Enda Walsh, is meant to be a sort of sequel to The Man Who Fell to Earth, featuring the same main character, Thomas Newton, with Bowie songs as the soundtrack. The original cast recording (2016) features stunning performances from Michael C. Hall, Sophia Anne Caruso, Cristin Milioti, and Michael Esper, and includes tracks from the posthumously released No Plan EP (2017).
  • Moar bonus: I would also highly suggest Donny McCaslin – Beyond Now, featuring the same band that’s on Blackstar (McCaslin on sax, Tim Lefebvre on bass, Jason Linder on keys, and Mark Guiliana on drums) and a couple Bowie covers. ALSO, the recent documentary Moonage Daydream (2022) is a positively stunning film that any Bowie fan should see.

  
  

#Bowie #BowieADay #DavidBowie #music #musicDiscovery #Musodon #TomWaitsAWeek

2022 film directed by Brett Morgen

^{Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)}