And so here we are again, look you see. By my reckoning this is edition or if you like episode 17 of Random Bowie, although including this one there's only been 16 "officially recognised" solo Bowie albums done. In this instance it's Young Americans that's the topic; the ninth or if you like 9th solo studio album off of David Bowie as per the commonly agreed methodology of counting such.
Some fantastic facts to start off with? No. Instead, then, two wonderful bits of "trivia", or urban legend, or myths, that have always floated around inside this head of mine. Let me record them here for posterity, or if you like so should anything occur to me and this blog survive, well then my worthwhile knowledge is saved. These are stories which have probably / possibly been widely circled in Bowie fan, erm, circles, so apologies if there is nothing new.
First off, the titular track, Young Americans. Legend has it that Bowie felt he had "nailed" contemporary 'Americana' in terms of folksy bluesy storytelling rock. And so he proudly played it to, depending on which variation you believe, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan or Neil Young, expecting praise. Instead he was laughed at by whichever and told it was awful. Reports of the "I know someone who was there and saw it, swear down, no word of a lie" variety state Bowie ran away in tears, locking himself in a room for hours.
How plausible is the above? Oddly, partially. We do, after all, know that he went off in a sulk and shaved his eyebrows off purely to have a go at Ian Hunter when Mott The Hoople rejected the chance to record Drive-In Saturday. Also, if it was the Springsteen variation what was true, that would go some way to explaining why exactly the two superb Bruce covers Bowie recorded - Growin' Up and It's Hard To Be A Saint In The City - remained unreleased until the 1990s.
Secondly, when looking for musicians to record this album David Bowie supposedly "discovered" Luther Vandross as a homeless busker, and was so impressed with him he put him on the album and then all of a sudden Luther became a star. No, not quite. True, this was the first big break the wonderful Luther got, but at that stage he was not quite so destitute as the legend says, and solo fame in his own right only came a fair few years after providing backing vocals here.
A look at the album itself, you say? OK, why not, with that trivia done. If you know nothing else of this record then you perhaps might have heard of it spoken as the "David Bowie plastic soul album". That's how he referred to it, pretty much as a constant. All this and yet the two best known songs from the album, the singles Young Americans and Fame, are more rock and funk respectively than they are flat out soul, plastic or otherwise.
Motivation for the album? Producer Tony Visconti is quoted, presumably at the time for one is not allowed to speak such honesty in this day and age, as saying of it "every British musician has a hidden desire to be black.". This, of the time, was true. When British musicians of the 60s and 70s made it big enough to go to America, they did so not so much to sell records as to go and pay homage to the Blues, Soul and (proper use of the term not the modern variant) R n B artists who had inspired them in the first place. The most visible or pronounced examples of this would be The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin, but the same rang true for Bowie.
Quite a few people, and I don't think it's as a consequence of the above, don't like this album. Or, at the least, consider it the "weak link" in Bowie's otherwise formidable 70s musical output. To be honest, it was perhaps the album I'd played the least in my time, as in my petulant youth I tended to find it "a bit boring". Having given it a spin several times in advance of writing this, well, lo and behold older me appreciates it some, and it's nowhere near as bad as I had thought.
Would it be fair to consider Young Americans something of a "transitional" album? It is a rather peculiar, catching audiences at the time by surprise turn on the road that went from the character driven Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane, not to mention the nightmarish, 1984 (mostly) inspired Diamond Dogs towards the brave, the bold and the audacious era which delivered Station To Station and Low. Mostly, I think, I would say that Tony Visconti was on the money, really. Bowie just found himself in a position where he could make the music he wanted with the musicians he wished to assemble (with, among others, Carlos Alomar pretty much staying with him from here to the end), singing whatever his heart so felt to as it was likely to sell and find an audience no matter what.
So, the music. As mentioned this record gets called "plastic soul", mostly because that's what Bowie called it. For a soul album made of any material however, it sure lacks a dominant soul element. Perhaps it is just me, but of the 8 songs which comprise the album, only 2 - Win and Right are of a predominant soul sound. Even then, both lurch towards elements of jazz. But then again, every form of music was ultimately inspired or influenced by all other forms.
In terms of the above, Win is a track I don't like so much - bit too repetitive (dare I say monotonous) and sounds like it goes on for hours. David disagreed, somewhat. He included this track on that I Select set, where he was invited (and paid, you would hope) to put together his own "best of".
For an album routinely overlooked, dismissed or not held up as one of his best, well, it contains two track that one would have to call huge and significant staples of Bowie's career. They would be the titular track, or if you like Young Americans, with which the album starts, and Fame, which closes the album.
Should that myth or urban legend at the start of this post be true of the song Young Americans, well then maybe which celebrated American rocker what said it was either short sighted or jealous. Whilst the song is not one of my favourites, the genius (sorry, Charlie Watts) or brilliance is undeniable. A free flowing, linear storytelling narrative, it is, to be sure. Telling a complete story with some depth in the space of a pop or rock song is an art. You need to say a lot with as few words as possible. Here Bowie gives us "She took his ring, took his babies, it took him minutes, took her nowhere, Heaven knows, she'd have taken anything", giving you the entire story of a young relationship of default rather than design in less words that I need to use to describe it.
As for Fame, well, I used to feel the same about it as I felt of Win. Having said that, now that I have played it a few times ahead of writing this, I've found myself humming and singing it at random. The term is "earworming", or similar, isn't it? Anyway, yes. Fame is less plastic soul, more outrageous, catchy funk. A good many musicians - they know who they are - have borrowed from the hypnotic rhythm of this tune, with James Brown never hiding how much he loved it. When James Brown is giving you praise you, I guess, know you've done OK for a skinny pale white boy out of London.
Since we are on Fame, a frequently pointed out issue in these "random Bowie" posts is the one thing biographers, obituary writers and other such acolytes get wrong. There is something of a "myth" that it is OK or cool or right to say Bowie "never looked back". Not true. We know, just by going through the music, that at times Bowie was left frustrated that a particular song, every now and then, did not get the audience he felt it should. He would not hesitate to rework or reissue or revamp a song, as we've seen with overlooked 80s tunes like Loving The Alien and Time Will Crawl. So, when it came time to promote the SoundAndVision greatest hits shenanigans of 1990, it was not so much of a surprise to find a remix / reworked version of Fame, Fame 90, was issued.
The video for Fame 90 is well worth a watch. Here is a link for you good people to that there You Tube thing. Once I knew a lady that looked exactly like the lady in this video. No, alas, not intimately. Indeed I did not ask if it was her; my life has been better for, oh, 28 years, in just assuming that it was her.
No, Fame has never been much of a favourite of mine as mentioned. I suspect maybe some of that was the fact that it featured no less than John Lennon. To my mind, the coming together of Bowie and Lennon should have been instantly mindblowing, and when it wasn't instantly this I was left disappointed. It has grown on me, though.
Lennon also appears on Across The Universe, the album's one cover song and originally of course by The Beatles. You might want to let that sink in. To the best of my knowledge, in the 70s Lennon barely acknowledged The Beatles (Instant Karma and Come Together were done at one concert and that was it), much like the "other three". To me it seems strange that not as much fuss has been made of Lennon appearing on a Beatles cover that perhaps should. Maybe that's because not too many people like it, but I do.
Indeed, I do wonder. Yes, as my regular non-just-random-Bowie readers will know, I am a huge fan of Harry Nilsson. Lennon and Nilsson were mates. Not got any clue if Harry popped into the studio, or if David and John went out on the lash with him during recording sessions. It would be ace if they did.
Otherwise, I really love the guitar on Can You Hear Me, man. I am not convinced the rest of the song is as good as the guitar part, but still, worth it for that.
Yes, I have the fancy, early 90s re-issue of Young Americans with bonus tracks. Of the three, the most curious is John, I'm Only Dancing Again. This was recorded in 1974, around the time of Young Americans, but not released until 1979. Which is weird, if you have heard it. Basically the song is solid, up front and awesome disco, all made a couple of years before disco went mainstream thanks to the Bee Gees and Saturday Night Fever. And yet it only got released in 1979, as I said. So, basically, Bowie could have pre-empted the hugeness of disco a couple of years before it happened, instead he released it a couple of years after, when as far as most were concerned disco had had its day and was gone.
So, does Young Americans have a requirement to be in the collection of you, if you are the more casual, just coming to Bowie sort of appreciator? Difficult to say. It's not a bad album, but not essential. Should you have any of the "greatest hits" sets, then its likely you have Fame and Young Americans. The other six (nine if you include the bonus tracks) are OK to good, but you can get on with your life if you don't have them.
This album perhaps belongs to a time we no longer have. Once, we here in England, indeed the UK, had all of four channels to watch on the tele, and if we were lucky a VHS or a Beta video, with a couple of tapes. Should nothing across those appeal, one would switch the stereo on and spend the evening listening to vibes, rather than having music just as background wallpaper. Young Americans is an album which suited such occasions.
Until the next edition or if you like episode, then,
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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