Member:
Big Hairy Monster!
(Profile)
(All Album Reviews by Big Hairy Monster!)
Date:
7/27/2003
Format:
CD (Album)
David Bowie has always been an artist capable of conjuring images. Be it the glam, art rock, blue-eyed soul, or industrial period, the Chameleon of Rock has always had the power to move your feet, twist your perceptions, and scare the hell out of you.
Arguably, his scariest moments can be found on the brilliant Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) album. This is a dark work of classic proportions, featuring a pair of Bowie's most interesting hits: "Fashion" and "Ashes To Ashes". If you are worried about the prog pedigree of this recording, fear not. It features some of Robert Fripp's best guest work, as well as Carlos Alomar and Pete Townshend. It also features Simon Clark, keyboardist for Be-Bop Deluxe and Peter Gabriel among others, and he does well to capture the spirit of Brian Eno while maintaining his own approach.
The music found here also served as soundtrack to several music videos which (amazingly enough) were at one time staples on the eMptyTV scene. These videos, though possibly matched technologically, have yet to be matched for artistic bravery.
I'll give it to Bowie, it took a lot of sand to do some of the things he did. Although few artists have matched his sense of pop art (excess, experimentalism, creativity, whatever you want to call it), even fewer have been as successful as he has--and rarely since has pop music been as interesting.
In the pop-art culture world of so many Campbell's soup cans, Scary Monsters is a Salvador Dali masterpiece.
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