I'd prefer to watch B movies; just not necessarily in the Roger Corman sense of "B-movie-as-genre." I like good quality films, but not perfect films. I like the sense of room to grow when consuming my art, the idea I can see or hear where the talent had a misstep and needed refinement. It's not that I don't like work like The Godfather - an A film if there ever was one, but watching it never gave me the sense that my novice eye could pick anything out of it that needed work. I was only there to be in awe of its grandeur. The same goes for music. I like the imperfect here too. I like Magical Mystery Tour almost more than I like Abbey Road in a sense because I can hear its many kinks, and those kinks are endearing.
It is the perfect, imperfect album.
Another perfect, imperfect album is David Bowie's Diamond Dogs, 1974's less than immediate recording that started off as a concept album based on George Orwell's 1984. When Bowie couldn't convince the Orwell widow to grant him the necessary permission, his opus, in essence, fractured in his hands. Fresh out of his Ziggy incarnation, ambitious rock idea dashed, Bowie turned back in on what he'd always counted on: paranoid, fringe riding nightmares to pepper his songwriting. It isn't filled with the splendor of its predecessor Ziggy Stardust and it certainly can't claim any of Station to Station's refined timing.
In the middle of the Bowie catalog is Diamond Dogs, seemingly without anchor.
Of course, an imperfect Bowie album still has more credibility than most people's crowning achievement. This isn't Tin Machine after all. There are fantastic songs, from title song "Diamond Dogs" to the sexiest song in his repertoire, "Rebel Rebel" a hip-shaker to beat the band. Less notable are "Rock 'n' Roll With Me", "Chant of the Ever Circling Skeletal Family" and a space rock suggestion of what the great concept might have been, "1984." Bowie sprinkles the great songs around though. There are some scurvy dogs amid the diamonds. "Future Legend" feels like a flaccid attempt at drawing on the Rosetti legacy of goblin evocation, and the ballad-esque "Sweet Thing" and its reprise drag the album down.
Diamond Dogs is filled with peaks, but its valleys cannot be ignored. For most artists this would be the nadir of their most creative period; in Bowie's line, this is one from among the oddities. It's wonderful and awful, imperfect, and undoubtedly the work of an artistic enigma from beginning to end. I count it among my favorites because my qualifications are different. Someone seeking a more polished brand of Bowie might shy away from this.
BONUS DISC:
Again, more hit and miss, because of the source material. "1984/Dodo" is a more blues influenced rendition than the original "1984", and Bowie nicely offers its addendum on its own. "Dodo" is a twisted, post-modern Motown, snaky more than soulful. The Springsteen cover "Growin' Up" understandably didn't end up in the mix but its one of the best songs on either disc. Sure it has a 2003 mix and US single version of "Rebel Rebel" and an alternate "Diamond Dogs" but what would have made this disc a real coup is more than one song touching on the initial concept. EMI has chosen to accentuate the stronger, more recognizable songs at the expense of the album's curiosity. For Bowie adorers, this is a nice addition, but again, it is a hard point to access one of the truly great songwriters of the rock era. |