#40: David Bowie - Space Oddity

Ignore, if you can, the frightful hairdo David Bowie is sporting on the cover of Space Oddity. At least it's not as terrifying as the cover of his self-titled debut, but it's still shocking in its unpleasantness. While Space Oddity shows up on most Bowie discographies as the album that bridges the gap between Hunky Dory and Ziggy Stardust, it was actually his second record (initially titled Man of Words/Man of Music), and was released just before The Man Who Sold the World.

For an artist who has famously mutated so much during his career, it must have been particularly difficult to pick a starting point from which to spiral out. The sound that would later gain him fame is present in a slightly less polished form here, and his knack for driving songs home with huge melodies and choruses hadn't yet developed fully, but regardless, it's a good record.

The only song from the album that's stuck around is the title track, often erroneously referred to as "Ground Control to Major Tom." That's sort of a shame, since there's a good amount of compelling material here, from the back porch hoedown of "Unwashed and Somewhat Slightly Dazed" to the Spanish-flavored guitar that weaves in and out of "God Knows I'm Good." "Wild Boy from Freecloud" sounds like the show-stopper for some unwritten musical, complete with epic strings and harp, and the off-kilter instrumentation of "Memory of a Free Festival" makes the song sound startlingly modern. I could see some indie band that I don't care about making a whole career around the sound of that track. That said, the inclusion of an aborted take for "(Don't Sit Down)" is useless, and the couplet "Planet Earth is blue/And there's nothing I can do" makes me wince.

So while Space Oddity doesn't have much cohesion in style or many tracks that stand out to the non-historically-minded, it's pretty enjoyable, and surprisingly well put together for being so early in his career. This won't be one I pull off my shelf the most, but I think it's going to have the most for me to discover over time. We'll see if I give it more of a chance.

"Space Oddity" live