Words like “pioneer” and “genius” and “groundbreaking” are thrown around far more than they probably deserve.What is pop music? Is it vapid, unchallenging, artless? Few would make an argument that most pop music is not those things. But can pop be more than that? Can pop music be ambitious? Sophisticated? Enduring? Jeff Lynne and his Electric Light Orchestra make a certainly convincing argument for that stance on their magnum opus, Out of the Blue.
This is the first Bowie record I ever owned, and it’s a wonderful introduction to the pop culture maestro’s catalog. It spends most of its time with his glam rock pioneering Ziggy Stardust era, which is nice, since I don’t have any of those records (The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, Aladdin Sane, and Diamond Dogs).
Space Oddity is not David Bowie’s first album, but it is the first Bowie album anyone cares about.
Its title track, with its tragic astronaut and hand clap coda is still well known, and is still the first song anyone thinks of when they think of Bowie. This album would be notable even if just for its single, but the amazing thing is that the rest of the album doesn’t dwell in its shadow.
I will say it right now: Magical Mystery Tour is my favorite Beatles record.
I will also say that “my favorite” and “the best” are different (the best is yet to come).
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According to the Wikipedia article entitled Albums Considered The Greatest Ever, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (which is the one picture disc I own) is the album most often listed as #1 in “definitive” best ever lists. It also is pointed to as the album that drove Brian Wilson crazy trying to top.
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For a long time, I held the opinion that everything the Beatles did before Sgt. Pepper’s was pretty close to worthless–just mindless pop music. However, after a while, that threshold changed to Revolver, and then to Rubber Soul, until my current state where my music snob has admitted defeat in the face of the Beatles’ early catalogue.
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I got this record from my dad’s collection, which is fitting, since my dad was living in Boston in the 70s, when and where Aerosmith was making a name for themselves as a great local rock band.
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