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i would imagine that "low" and "heros" would be really difficult to cover, given the enoproduction that is all over both. more generally, now that i have stopped laughing at spektr's post, which says pretty much all i have to say but much better than i could manage, i still dont understand what the claim at the origin of the thread actually means. try writing pop hooksat all--it aint easy to do--if you manage that, try working a series of hook-based tunes into a cycle anything like the complexity of what bowie manages. put the results up and maybe then we'll see if there is or is not a link between musicianship in general and bowie's songwriting.
you might also think about--say--ziggy stardust in the context of the early 1970s. think about how the record is mixed, that it can be heard in two ways--one that emphasizes the beatles-like voicings on the chords, another that emphasizes the guitar sound that is worked in/through the changes and which takes the whole record to another place. it was a fine piece of glampop--it was alot more than a fine piece of glampop....and for all that, aladdin sane is better (particularly the woozy title track---particularly the piano part in that track, which thoroughly tweaked my brain as a 16 year old, when i first heard it).
i cant listen to much of what i thought was Important Music when i was in high school--bowie, a couple roxy music records, sometimes t rex--that's about it. at the time, i might have thought emerson lake and palmer--or (shudder) even rick wakeman to have been better "musicians" but i now find their stuff to be unlistenable. all this pseudo-19th century classical crap. but they had chops. is that what matters?
btw, you could say the same about nirvana as about the wallflowers.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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