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For Bowie, it’s all just ‘Hunky Dory’
By Andrew Rooney
David Bowie is one of those well-known musicians, about whom not much is generally known.
“David Bowie? He’s married to a model, has a song in ‘Guitar Hero,’ wrote a song that Nirvana covered, has ‘the’ song about space and he randomly appears in ‘Zoolander.’” This is the statement that the average streetwalker would conjure up when speaking of Rock’s Chameleon.
Like his equally-seasoned peers Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Lou Reed and Iggy Pop, Bowie has been around for decades and has been releasing brilliant and brilliantly bad albums throughout his career, much like the aforementioned artists.
Bowie first caught people’s attention with his 1969 single “Space Oddity.” However, it was not until 1972, when Bowie changed rock music forever with “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars” that he truly became known the world over. Since then Bowie has tackled nearly every style of music and is now viewed as one of the most important musicians of the 20th century.
It was, however, the album before “Ziggy” that is arguably Bowie’s greatest accomplishment, 1971’s “Hunky Dory.”
Much in the vein of “Rubber Soul,” “Hunky Dory” was not a groundbreaking album. However, it is track for track Bowie’s greatest effort.
One of Bowie’s most famous compositions begins the record, “Changes,” a song which contains lyrics that appear in the opening of “The Breakfast Club,” and a song that features a saxophone solo by the multi-talented Bowie.
The second half of the album’s opening one-two punch is delivered by “Oh! You Pretty Things,” a song that contains lyrics dealing with the obsolescence of the human race, and another one of Bowie’s best known works.
“Life on Mars,” follows “Eight Line Poem” and is often refered to as Bowie’s single greatest song. “Mars” features Rick Wakeman’s brilliant piano playing and some of Bowie’s most obscure lyrics.
“Song for Bob Dylan,” an obvious tribute to Zimmerman, finds Bowie pleading with Dylan to return to his protest roots. Another one of Bowie’s greatest influences, Andy Warhol, gets his due in the song “Andy Warhol.”
A tribute to Lou Reed and The Velvets, “Queen Bitch,” sees Mick Ronson playing a rather thrashy guitar riff. The album in closed out with “The Bewlay Brothers,” a song which Bowie admits makes absolutley no sense lyrically, although it is still viewed as one of Bowie’s best ballads.
“Hunky Dory” saw Bowie and guitarist/arranger Ronson team up for the second time, and they would work together on the following three Bowie albums. Bowie’s time spent with Ronson is refered to as his “glam period,” and the impact they made on rock music is immense.
The Thin White Duke also made a remarkable triology of albums in the late 1970s that have come to be known as the “Berlin Trilogy.”
Bowie has made few dents in mainstream radio in recent decades; however, his presence will never be lost and his influence is on par with Bob Dylan and Black Sabbath.
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