Originally planned to be titled "the White Duke" in a continuation of Bowie's character pieces such as Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane. However, in the midst of Bowie's personal (relationship breakup, battle with drugs) and musical uncertainty, he cast aside all of that to just deliver a "soul record, devoid of soul".
I’m not really one for choosing favourites, but this would sit fairly high in my ranking of Bowie albums. In some ways it’s neither fish nor fowl, having touches of his glam pop sound, his recent dalliance with danceable soul, and even hints of future directions, all with its own internal musical logic. Bowie breaks further away from the 3 minute pop/rock song formula in places to explore longer-form songs.
The title track, starts musically with the glam swagger of some of Bowie’s Aladdin Sane or Ziggy Stardust tracks (or Marc Bolan, of whom he was a fan) but the vocal melody has a much looser ‘jazz’ feel, weaving in and out of the grinding riffs.
“Golden Years” picks up on the funk/soul flavour of his previous ‘Young Americans’ album. It’s a brilliant song, a successful single… and yet not (IMO) even the best thing on here.
“TVC15” hints a little at the coming Berlin trilogy while still sounding a bit brit-poppy... a foot each in the past and the future.
"Word on a wing" has lyricism to its melody and Bowie’s delivery that is hard to quantify. The whole thing rounds off with 'Wild is the Wind' a vulnerable sounding Bowie vocal over a song that almost sounds like it could be an old Nancy Sinatra pop track.
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