Station to Station

This is my first Bowie album. I expected more. I'm looking forward to hearing Bowie's other albums, but if they are like this one, they will be perfectly fine. My perception of Bowie before this was not "perfectly fine," though. Tracks 4 and 5 were the best. None of the tracks were bad. I'd listen to each one again. I hope I like the other Bowie albums more, but as it stands, this one is respectable.

Its David Bowie, of course its good. GOOD, its not the absolute masterpiece revisionist history has bestowed upon it. Like a lot of 70s albums this has cocaine written all over it, some great bits and pieces and some things that someone should have talked someone else out of.

Station To Station was a great album. I guess if i can compare it to one of Bowie's works the most, it would probably be Aladdin Sane due to it having some more of the heavy guitars that the album had. This album still felt fairly different from that one due to it having a different vibe from it with a softer tone in a lot of the songs (especially Wild Is The Wind). I still enjoyed that softer tone that this album displayed due to a lot of the songs just being generally very nice to listen to. Though when it did get more lively, that's when i enjoyed the album the most. Regardless, this album was enjoyable no matter how it sounded.
Best Song: TVC15
Worst Song: Word on a Wing

Six sings, 36 minutes and track one is ten minutes of that feels like something’s gone wrong. That said station to station in an enjoyable upbeat Bowie track, just not sure it needs to that long.

Rest of the tracks are fine but hardly spectacular. Just a reasonable solid album

So far the generator has given me 55 albums, three of them have been Bowie and the two before this (Heroes and Blackstar) I gave 1/5. I was starting to think it'd purposely set out to prove my previous assumption that I like Bowie was wrong.

I like the title track a lot despite it being a bit repetitive and long. Love the bass and piano on it. I have always really loved Golden Years too with it's funky guitar and handclaps.

By track 3 (Word on a Wing) it's dawning on me that I have either found a Bowie album I like, or I've now just listened to enough Bowie albums that something has clicked. My Dad had a theory that there was a minimum number of olives you have to eat before you start liking them and maybe this is the audio version of that. I did like the first half better than the first though, so baby steps...

In the absence of half stars:

3/5 (and believe me, no one is more surprised than me)

Phenomenal. The mutant stomp of the title track, Stay's frantic, furious funk and the vocal on Wild is the Wind are all highlights amongst highlights. Maybe his best album.

Bowie doing funk is his best era (Young Americans is underrated!!).

Side A - Strong 4, Light 5
Side B - Solid 5

No weak tracks!! Extremely tight record with no filler. Station to Station maybe a little too long...

'It's not the side effects of the cocaine / I'm thinking that it must be love.' Bowie's tightest and most valiant effort, Station to Station is a record that is so addictively confident, dexterously funky, and sweetly theatric that I'm both stunned by its audacity and consoled by its control. We may never know how it was made, since Bowie was so coked up during the recording that he had little to no memory of the studio sessions. What I do know is that Dennis Davis (drums) is an utter genius, w/o whom tracks like 'Golden Years' and 'Stay' would be merely proficient, not the constituents of an all-time release. Concluding w/ 'Wild is the Wind' may've been his homage to Nina, but it no less resumes the brilliance of Mathis, that other queer icon.

Another 70s album, but it's OK, Bowie doesn't feel like 70s to me. I have never actually heard any of these songs before, though. Kinda eclectic sound -- to me there are 50s elements (and apparently Bowie was a big fan of Elvis but never worked with him), 60s elements (at least in the sense that I'm like "oh yeah sure this is Beatlesy in terms of the backing music"), and modern elements (David Bowie still sounds basically like the David Bowie I know from my own era, even though he looks shockingly young at this time (somehow this is still his 10th album; they sure made albums fast back in the day)). Hardly any of that 70s rock here (although to be honest, there's a bit on the beginning of 'Stay', which I could do without!).
Lyrically, lots of religion & despair & girl getting eaten by a TV, which I guess are pretty eternal themes. A 6 song album seems like each song might be 20 minutes long, but they aren't. Good! Apparently he was in his pro-Fascist era during this one (ahead of the times!) but since none of that made it into the album, I continue separating the art from the artist and give it a nice 3.5 rounded up to 4.

Highlight: 'Golden Years'

Lowlight: 'Stay'

Quite the variety of tracks, and one has to acknowledge David Bowie's as a legend. But overall there's no track that really gripped me straight away.

This is an interesting album but I’m not sure it lives up to the hype. Perhaps others love the fact he sounds vulnerable and tired, mournful even at points. He is certainly eschewing his trademark pop sensibilities which gives this an interesting direction, but out of all the Bowie records, this is not one of the more memorable.

I actually enjoy this a little more than other Bowie records. I still don't think that it's something extremely new, but it's better than others.

A good Bowie album … Golden Years is in my top 10 Bowie songs and Wild is the Wind is also great … but not enough in the rest to make it 5 stars.

I’m at a 5.

This is the fifth David Bowie album we’ve gotten, and this is the third time I’ll be giving him a 5; big recovery from starting 0-2 with a 3 and a 4. This is also probably my favorite one we’ve gotten so far. I’d have to relisten to Low or Aladdin Sane to be absolutely certain, but considering those were both 4.5 bumped up to a 5, this one getting it right from the jump should say a lot.

If this is David Bowie’s cocaine album, then he picked the correct direction to go while he was on that shit – this is even more rock/American than Aladdin Sane was. When the guitars are rolling on this one, it feels about as even with a ZZ Top or Thin Lizzy-style band, one driven by just kickass guitar & percussion, and letting everything else build around that. I hesitate to invoke Paul McCartney & Wings, but this got around that point a few times.

For the record, I do recommend listening with headphones in, as opposed to like, stereo speakers or anything, just to get the full depth of the soundscape in your ears. It really does enhance the whole thing. That rings true for any album on the list, but I think it really did wonders here.

Station to Station is a stellar opener – 3 minutes just to get to any vocals, sure, but the sound design and pacing of the whole intro is really well done, so it flies by. The entire stretch before the switch-up halfway in feels like the closest I’ve heard David Bowie to doing a full blown prog rock song, so that was rad. When it does switch up, while the repetition eventually creeps in… man, that’s a really good switch the first time you hear it. The whole energy of the track shifts, and enters a smooth groove that glides the rest of the way. Rather sad lyricism, but a great track.

Golden Years is a bit lyrically confusing to me, but given that it was written for Elvis Presley of all people (I cannot IMAGINE what that room would’ve looked like), you can probably partially ignore them – it’s all in the charisma of the performance, and David Bowie certainly channels his best Elvis Presley for it. Really good pseudo rap flow to the whole thing too, and I thought it was cool as hell.

Word on a Wing is a bit preachy, but I admire the honesty that seems to be present in Bowie’s vocals – the lyricism does eventually start to feel repetitive and tread water, but I think it’s still an enjoyable listen. Probably my weakest track on the album, though. That gets partially remedied by TVC15 – while it ABSOLUTELY suffers from “first minute = whole song” syndrome in a way that would normally make my ears suffer, there’s something fun in the groove of the whole thing that made me just accept it for being what it was, letting loose, and really just enjoying the feel of the track. That’s probably what Bowie was going for, and I’m glad I let myself feel it before giving up on it.

Stay is TVC15 with an even funkier bend, and the entire soundscape is cool as hell, but those last 2 minutes are something really special that I think you can only really feel as a raw first listen one time. I do wish the second verse were better, just for my tastes, but paying attention to the lyrics at that point is like trying to find a rare bug on a roller coaster – ignore them and just enjoy the ride, you know?

Wild Is the Wind is a good closer – I do feel like Bowie tried just a hint too hard to capture the sort of 50s/60s soul/crooner vibe, and the reverb effect on his vocals wasn’t helping out either, but he sounds pretty good regardless, especially on the higher notes in the last 2 minutes. The instrumentation on that, with all the blended guitar & effective drum breaks, really clicked for me.

So, yeah, I have no real flaws – a few lull spots maybe, some occasional preachiness, and maybe a bit of repetition that pulls this down, but I think this is the sort of David Bowie album I’ve been waiting for. It’s his 70s rock / cocaine album, and I think it finds a groove that’s been missing from his other stuff for my ears (which has all still been really good); at 6 tracks, it’s concise with no filler, and it’s an awesome 40 minutes that blinks by once you get lost in that groove. Super easy 5 for me.

Dude it's David Bowie, it's gonna be a 5/5. The guy was a genius. I'm glad to see this album on here and I think it's number five of Bowie for me? Keep them coming, I could have every Bowie album on this list and not be upset. 5/5

Ist David Bowie overrated oder bin ich nur ein Banause?

It was okay, but nothing really that tickled my fancy.

Another Bowie album. Safe to say I wasn't exactly eager to put this one on. Not the worst one of his, but I didn't like it on the whole

It had its moments - I really enjoyed the guitar on Stay! Word On A Wing would have been lovely as an instrumental

But why did he sound like a ghost, wailing over these songs?? Was it the coke? Absolutely terrible, and ruined the songs. The other songs were pleasant enough instrumentally, but it was more like background noise

I've said it before and I'll say it again - would have scored higher with a different singer. Sorry Bowie fans, he's not for me!

2 ⭐️

No notes. More cocaine & peppers maybe.

A good album but really pales in comparison to the other albums in his discography. The disco elements are nice and show his adaptability. 3/5