album #46

young americans (david bowie)

This is a fun album to listen to, and fun to understand as a reference point for where Bowie came from, and where he ended up. Young Americans is 'plastic soul,' as Bowie called it- soul music flattened of all meaning and sung by a priviledged white boy. There's something awkardly parodic about it, like it's not a straightforward celebration of the art form- and nothing about how it's made, just the fact of its existence. It's easy listening, seductive and fun- it's hard to reconcile this sweet, easy Bowie against the dark and surreal journey he undertook just a year later on Station to Station, and deeper into his career with the Berlin trilogy. Though on the other hand, this Bowie makes perfect sense as the precursor to the “Let's Dance” Bowie of the early '80s. Sometimes it seems Bowie can be rightly summarized as, a guy who took any given genre and created an album where he took that genre and turned it on his own warped wordlview. This record feels a little less strange though, it feels a little more straightforward. This is Bowie at his pinnacle of corporate amiability.

“Young Americans” is a funky jewel, one of my mom's favorite songs; “Win” rises with a flutter of brass wings; there's no way really to describe the other songs except to say they sound iconic- they sound like very good examples of '70s soul. They sound like what easy listening funky soul is supposed to sound like, very well constructed and melodic and endearing. They don't stand out, I'm not excited to listen to them, but the sounds are good.

The oddest song on the record is the classic finale, “Fame”- a dark, buzzing, funky, angrily atonal strut. In fact, man, after listening to the rest of the record, this barely makes sense as a track here. If the rest of this album is clouds of amber & pink, “Fame” is a blade of purple. I suppose this is the dark, weird, Bowie edge that I was looking for. Another thing that intrigues me about this record is, John Lennon sang background vocals on this song (and the cover of “Across the Universe,” my least favorite track on the album.) It must be so overwhelming, so strange to be collaborating with somebody who was a global icon when you were a young teen, somebody who was surely a personal hero- but it's a testament to Bowie's confidence that he can pull it off. That's when you really know you've made it- and when you really know that you can make it. When your heroes want to work with you, and you take it in stride.