David Bowie – Young Americans

Seriously, this sucks; I have no better words to describe it.

When I got this album, I tried to stick with it for a few listens and decided that R&B Bowie just isn't something worth my while. I thought I could get into after being a big fan of Black Tie White Noise but absolutely wrong was I, BTWN is a cleverly produced and eclectic album, this is Bowie at his most egotistical trying to rake in more dough from an unsuspecting audience. Don't forget Bowie was also heavily into drugs at this time in his life and I think this album was much more a representation of a bad idea on a whim taking form. People on drugs may think they've got a great idea when they're high, but true this that just isn't the case.

Sure, some of the Diamond Dogs material was steering towards this style, and the succeeding Station To Station was pretty dancey though brilliant, but this simply isn't Bowie. The music is a clear attempt to mimick things that people have already done and been doing, so nothing new there, and the lyrics are BORING; uninsipired, narrow-minded, and awful.

Don't forget that Bowie was also trying to leech off of the Beatles, with his dull cover of Across the Universe, a recording which unintentially inspired the making of Fame, where Lennon was in the studio at the time. Hey guess what everybody? Even though Lennon didn't write anything of Fame except for coming up with the word Fame (wow, clever) and singing said word in the song, THAT'S IT! And he was given co-writing credit to further promote the song, which is no where near Bowie's best singles.

The only song I can say I actually do like would be Win, a decent, somewhat atmospheric ballad-type, but really it's the only song that doesn't fiercely get on my nerves.

I did get this rykodisc version, along with other releases featuring this album's outtakes, to hopefully find something of value that just didn't get onto the album (most of Bowie's outtakes are as good as the album pieces) but I ended up hearing exactly the same dull crap as on the album, though worse because much less production/effort went into even those.

I rate this album 1/5 for: bad songwriting; pathetic attempts to promote album through someone else (lennon); lack of any true inspiration; the ugliest album cover ever (I'm sorry but that photo is just hideous, he looks like a clown; sure, the cover might not really merit for the best reason, but why not? I can't stand anything else about it so I might as well be honest).

And just because this album is by now a 'classic' doesn't mean it can't as well be considered a classic failure.