7 - Diamond Dogs

Like all good method actors, Bowie found out that becoming the character drains you of your actual real-life personality. It's time to not be Ziggy anymore, but the nose candy isn't just an extravagant indulgence anymore either. Welp, time to fire the Spiders, set Orwell's 1984 to music and call it Diamond Dogs (i'm skipping Pin Ups because it's a cover album).

Orwell's estate wouldn't let him actually stage it as a musical, so he just reverted to his own post-apocalyptic version of everything. Thank goodness for the paranoia and anorexia of cocaine addiction, gives it that realistic touch you can't get anywhere else.

Everyone points out that this is his last glam rock album, but remember he's just moving with the trends and putting his stamp on it. But, like he's been doing all along, he's imagining a world in the near future that he doesn't want to be a part of and then going a different direction. Right now he's still in his Rolling Stones phase and he's about to go Soul while everybody else goes punk.

But i'm getting ahead again. This is more great, now super trashy, rock and roll. Some say that's cause Bowie isn't as good a lead guitarist as Mick Ronson. I disagree, it's 'cause he's coked to the gills and he's watching himself be the rockstar casualty he started scripting 7 years ago. This is the part of the movie where he hits rock bottom so that he can vanish for a while and "recover."

I'm not making that up, by the way, it's track 7, Rock 'n' Roll With Me.

Now more than ever, he's very clearly writing these songs and singing them at himself, then living them out. I love this album, but we've reached the second sticking point in my familiarity with Bowie. The next few albums are uncharted territory for me, and i really don't know what to expect. I do know they lead to the 90s Bowie that i didn't much care for as a teenager. Guess we'll see how that plays out.

8 - Young Americans

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