Disjointed, but hip

Bowie's "DJ" is the stunner on this one. Bowie, as you may recall, was one of the first artists to perform on video, pre-MTV days. Bowie is portrayed as a DJ thrashing about, tearing up his studio. "I've got believers, believing me," rings throughout. "Fantastic Voyage" could be heard playing in Hollywood theaters before movie showings back in 1979. "I Pray Ole" is not on the original album. "Boys Keep Swinging" was popular in L.A., and a remake by Susanna Hoffs was recently produced for a tribute album to Bowie. "Look Back in Anger" is passionate and evokes images of angels and "If God was one of us" video imagery. The incredibly fast-paced "African Night Flight" is a bit unidentifiable for most of us earthlings, but Bowie must have travelled for this one. "Repetition" is a sad account of an abused wife. "Red Sails" has a cool surf-time beat interspersed with Bowiespeak: "fa-fa-fa-fa-fa, fa-fa-far away," and a broken up, "one-two" and then "three-four." Bowie's voice is broken up, and yet, it flows with the melody. Sounded very experimental for circa 1979, and today. Red Sails gives images of a boy sailing and blue skies and we're not sure what happens after that.

Fun and fairly good.

Lodger is far more uplifting than it's precessors Low and "Heroes", and toys with worldly influences instead of with dark and broody instrumentals. Those influences work well, though it's no Graceland. At times the album doesn't sound as inspired as Low and most of "Heroes" does, and it lacks real standout tracks, but as a whole it's a very fun and fairly good album. Worth listening to any day.

Remember the day it came out

A few lps can leave such an impression that the day of it's release can be recalled 25 years later (damn!). Me and Robin listening to the feature spot on the FSU radio station at 2am. Went to the nearest record store the next day to get a copy. There will never be another "African Night Flight"

I read an interview with Tony Visconti that all they could find while recording was white wine. I also read that the Adrian Belew parts were recorded with Adrian arriving at the studio and being directed to a room to set up his epuipment. A light came on when he was set up and a voice said "Play your guitar, Adrian" over a speaker. Music started and he played. After the track, the voice said "That's not good enough. Try again." He never saw anyone throughout the entire session. Even if it's not true, it's a great story.

Thrumblewoom

Not as experimental as "Heroes", his previous album, and not as accessible as the following 'Scary Monsters', 'Lodger' tends to be forgotten nowadays, which is okay; everything is forgotten eventually, might as well get it over with quickly. Only the other day I realised that I had forgotten David Lynch, the film director, who was huge in the early 1990s. Lodger's first side is very weak, and it's a shame that the current version of the CD doesn't have the bonus tracks that came out a while back, but hey. I realise now that I had also forgotten Laura Dern. She's old now. It's easy to see that a bunch of early-80s acts had this album, specifically Gary Numan, Ultravox and the like, although Lodger has very few synths.



Lodger has a slick, early-80s production which thankfully does not extend to synth drums, although there is what sounds like fretless bass on a few tracks. The top standout is 'Look Back in Anger', which is excellent, and was accompanied with an equally-good extended version on the previous release of the album, now gone. The other bonus track was 'I Pray, Ole', a terrible title which was nonetheless a catchy little song. 'Boys Keep Swinging' is the one they play on television, and it's fun but fairly trivial; 'DJ' has oblique lyrics which have nothing to do with dinner jackets at all ("he used to be my boss, and here he is a puppet dancer!" is a good line). 'Repetition' is a throw-back to the paranoid, edgy songs that were on 'Low', specifically 'Breaking Glass'; "I guess the bruises won't show / if she wears long sleeves". 'Red Money' is one of those boring slow songs where you envisage the band nodding their heads and high-fiving in the studio, because musicians love kicking out boring slow jams almost as much as they sicken my stomach.



The first side isn't as good. 'Red Sails' has a nice wispy synth part, but has a terrible 'oriental' melody, whilst both 'African Night Flight' and 'Yassassin' dabble with what would become 'world music' but not very well. 'Fantastic Voyage' sounds like a rewrite of 'Word on a Wing' from 'Station to Station'. 'Move On' is quite good, with what sounds like a backwards vocal solo - there are lots of tricky experimental touches on the album - but it comes and goes, phfft.



That's it, I can stop now.