Mileage. Like I said, I think it comes across as incoherent and - coupled with the muddy sound of the thing - an unpleasant slog. Hey, someone asked why Lodger isn't as well-regarded as its three (really four) predecessors. I think that's why. It feels like experiments for the sake of producing experiments. It seems to me like Bowie had run out of compelling, emotional motivations for producing music, so you got this bloodless Enofied wanking instead. But maybe someday I'll change my mind about the record. It's happened before, it'll happen again I'm sure.
To me, this is what makes Bowie so great. Lodger is perhaps more 'Bowie' than most of his albums if you get my meaning. It's probably my second favourite album of his, "Heroes" being the first.
I don't think it's as commercial as Low or Heroes. Low has a few radio friendly songs on side 1, Heroes has a pan-global mega-collossus title track (even though it was only regarded as such way after its release). I just think it's what sort of music you like - Belew's guitar solo on Boys Keep Swinging (in my mind THE best guitar solo in the whole of music ever) is too screechy for a lot of people - it's too garage rock and DJ is too arty. That's what I think is happening. I don't think it was experimenting for the sake of it - it is perhaps the most experimental of all Bowie's albums until 1.Outside. Carlos Alomar didn't like being told to play random chords on his guitar by Brian Eno, but the whole point was to invoke Planned Accidents to create a musical exploration or journey. That is the whole theme: Fantastic Voyage - Night Flight - Move On - Red Sails. Lodger is less cohesive than Low or Heroes because that's how it is designed to be. As suggested by the front and inner gatefold sleeve it's a series of postcards from around the world: - Africa - Russia - Kyoto - Cyprus - Turkey and the USA (Repetition). It is designed to have different flavours, and that's how it works. living under neon Struggle with a foreign tongue ...Life stands still and stares The hinterland, the hinterland We're gonna sail to the hinterland That's what I think. I rate Lodger as good as anything he's done really, I do think it loses a few points for Red Money - I don't see how it fits in - but that is one of the more conventional tracks, and it's repeating the reggae beat of Yassassin where it works better., however the best tracks are so good that it doesn't matter if there's a couple of clunkers. If Move On can't get to your heart there's no hope. Somewhere, someone's calling me And when the chips are down I'm just a travelling man Maybe it's just a trick of the mind, but Somewhere there's a morning sky Bluer than her eyes Somewhere there's an ocean Innocent and wild
Lodger is great. It's kind of like the "Revolver" of Bowie. A bunch of experimental tracks where every song is going into different direction so they don't flow particularly well as an album. Songs are good though and everybody has their own favorites. I love African Night Flight, Boys Keep Swinging (live renditions are terrible though), Repetition and DJ.
It was an early Bowie purchase for me so it holds a big place in my heart. Flawed, sure...but so are most Bowie albums.
It's a real shame the album was never toured. I think about half was never played live in the 25 years after of Bowie as a semi-regular live act. Not sure how that compares with the bulkier Scary Monsters which I don't think had a dedicated tour either?
^^ There may have been plans for a tour (possibly with G.E. Smith on guitar?) but Bowie got busy with The Elephant Man performances, and then Lennon's assassination presumably gave him cause to slow things down for a couple of years. I had a second listen to be sure, and in Adobe Audition I tried getting them to match better by narrowing the second sample significantly to approximate the first's stereo image. This was after I also took off about 4dB of shelf EQ above 12kHz in the second sample. There's definitely more stereo information on the second sample, but I wouldn't say that makes it inherently superior, just more to my liking. Your point about the tape-generation issue could be contributing to the "smoothness" of the top end and the loss of stereo wideness, or it could be a mastering choice. I'll take the wider one every time!
I think we get used to the way things are, and that plays a big part. I've played Lodger hundreds of times, and I know it well. Someone like yourself has likely not played it as much. But when it comes to coherence, Heroes really isn't. We get the first side, which is rock - albeit with very strange lyrics about obscure artists, and the mildly psychopathic Blackout. This mirrors Low, except the songs are longer, more developed. Then side two starts, and it's a strange mish-mash of things - we have a Kraftwerk take-off, instrumentals as we had with Low, but then a pop song stuck at the end to decimate the mood. Really, Heroes isn't coherent musically, imo. Lodger is much more so, where the sound of the record doesn't change throughout - Bowie is in fine voice, and every song has a hook (yes, I have a nice sing-a-long with Yassassin!) I realize you don't enjoy Lodger, and it's likely you never will, but for me it's a special album in Bowie's discography. It's the best way for the trilogy to end - and it marked the path to Scary monsters. I can't answer why you enjoy Low and Heroes, but not Lodger.
To me Lodger has a decidedly Eno influence throughout... the way he sings "Like a nervous disease" in Red Money is very Eno, the Yassasin chorus is very Eno, "Asanti habari habari habari, Asanti nabana nabana nabana" in African Night Flight (you can hear him singing), very Eno... not to mention the general vibe of the music throughout. I wonder if folks who don't dig Lodger also are indifferent to the first 4 Eno solo albums as well... (not saying they are, just a ponderous question). The other albums have this influence as well obviously, but it seems to stick out to me a bit more on Lodger.
AND the expanded version of the Sound +Vision box set If the 7" of JIODA (released on a single years after being recorded) can be included on Recall 2 then how come the Perth Art Decade - recently issued on a B-side - isn't on box 3? Also, they included promo edits on box 1 so IIRC they should have included the Bowpromo trax too. And things like the Live B-side version of Life On Mars from the anniversary pic disc
When I was 12 my dad and I saw the display for Lodger in the window of a record store, we both enjoyed it... it was a life sized cut out of Bowie from the cover, upside down in the window with the tiles behind it... totally a 3D recreation of the photo shoot... the store was closed or he may have bought it. The following year my dad got me a bunch of albums for X-Mas, included was Lodger and the 3 month old Scary Monsters (along with Double Fantasy and B-52's Wild Planet). So yeah same boat for me, thanks dad!
But I already mentioned in the same post that you quoted that JIODA 7" wasn't issued in the same time frame as box 2. And Velvet Goldmine wasn't issued in the same time frame as box 1 but its on there. What a mess
Velvet was b-side of re-released Space Oddity in '75 but recorded in 71/72, so should be in box 1, IMO. Same scenario, different years with JIOD. Life On Mars? [Live] was never a b-side until recently and Bowpromo does not fit either due to its content, IMO.
Red Money is one of my favorite tracks from Lodger I just don't get the hate for it here. I give Lodger a 10. I adore everything from 69 to 80 accept some of Young Americans and David Live so what do I know.
I listened to Lodger today once again and I'm slowly changing my opinion.. Move On is not that bad and I'm starting to like Yassassin
I think of Lodger as Bowie's Here Come the Warm Jets, another wildly experimental album of massive mood swings and frequent extreme abrasiveness that is also, secretly, a brilliant pop album. There are very few albums like Here Come the Warm Jets, so I cherish every one I find.
I think you're being disingenuous here. 'John, I'm Only Dancing (Again)' was released four years later, as part of the same record contract. Just as 'Velvet Goldmine' was first released four years after it was recorded. I've never heard anybody crying foul over the inclusion of that track on the first Re:Call disc. The live 'Art Decade' was released nearly forty years later, several record contracts removed from whatever Bowie was doing in the late seventies. There's no comparison whatsoever. And the Re: Call discs were conceived as, and have so far been, strictly singles-only. BOWPROMO was an album, as was Glastonbury Fayre. There have been some minor, legitimate omissions (and I'd say the missing 'Cat People's from the new set are the biggest to date), but the ones you're complaining about simply don't fall within the remit of the series.
Erm, using your criteria, Nassau 76 was released more than forty years and several record contacts later than what Bowie was doing in the mid 70s. Likewise the 2010's Maslin mix of STS uses sounds not even available in the 70s. Both of these have been included on box 2
Were either of those part of the Re: Call singles collections, which is what we were actually talking about? No.
I'm talking about box set omissions, generally. I have no idea what you're talking about. It's ridiculous to say it's OK to include material first released decades after the rest of the stuff, but only if it's not on the Recalls
as i mentioned previously the anniversary discs shouldn't really be considered for these retrospective sets as they are part of the same reissue campaign and all tracks will eventually show up on "bigger" projects. Art Decade is presumably a teaser for a forthcoming live album, a la Cracked Actor. they only included promo edits of singles. i agree after they threw The Gouster into box 2 that Bowpromo should have been in box 1 but considering how they screwed it up, i'm glad they didn't. also, they "need" oddities like this to rake in more cash as standalones. in the case of The Gouster they stuck it in the box because without it the box didn't have enough sales potential (just my opinion, but i'm using my cynicism to understand such cynical marketing). same scenario as Art Decade, 'though this track had already been issued by Ryko. but i agree with your "what a mess" summary. i'll be glad when these boxes are done and hope i'm still here if and when another label attempts to do it right.
i've stated before that the remix albums and revised live albums have no place in these sets and are only included as box bait for completists and those with partial collections. but the Re:Call sets at least have some kind of logic and whilst incomplete they are about as consistent as can be hoped for given the generally hazy "concept" behind the boxes. however, i disagree that cash grab singles of the past few years should be included, for the same reason i don't think we should see any single material that includes later production/mixing years after the initial release (e.g. Fame '90, S+V '91, Bollywood mixes of Let's Dance, Danny Saber's Magic Dance etc). which of course only adds to the questionable decision to include remixed albums... on paper at least the Re:Call sets are doing the right thing regarding the integrity of the box sets. in reality they fall a bit short while the remixed albums undermine the whole project IMO. they, along with non-single period rarities, should have been saved for individual album deluxe editions.
