105. Golden Years

David Bowie: Station To Station (RCA Victor, 1976);
composed by David Bowie

This single – and this band - is the only fit object for the term “love muscle.” After the advent of Carlos Alomar (and a John Lennon visitation) produced “Fame,” this sequel is the first Bowie track with the Alomar-George Murray-Dennis Davis rhythm section as its foundation and substance. The lyric is another cautionary litany about fame, but Bowie’s vocal gives itself up so completely to the groove that it projects a wholly different kind of hologram than the pale coke freak he presented at the time. Alomar has been candid that Bowie hired him because he wanted to get the most then-current currents of Black American music into his sound, and Alomar was perfectly happy to do that for him as long as the money was correct. But I still think it was more than the money; after Station, this group with various guest weirdos did Low, Heroes, Stage, Lodger, and Scary Monsters – all over the place stylistically but with a bottom like death throughout. As excited as I was to hear that Nile Rodgers was coming in for Let’s Dance, what resulted (and sold kajillions) did very little for me after that end-of-decade streak. Bowie had his own Chic.

Note: Secular essays about individual songs, each one exactly 200 words long, appearing one per day (on average) until Donald goes away.