David Bowie on his most difficult album: “It was a relief it did so well”
Not every album is meant to be a walk in the park. When things are going well in the studio, it seems like any idea can work, but the minute everyone isn’t on the same page, most artists would rather have their teeth extracted one by one before actually attempting to write a song from scratch. Although David Bowie was never the kind of artist who knew the definition of slowing down, he admitted that Diamond Dogs did have a much more painful birth than his other classic albums.
Coming from Bowie, though, he had already proven that he would be one of the biggest rock stars of his generation. No one comes up with a genre like glam rock from the ground up by accident, and his various projects like Hunky Dory and Ziggy Stardust gave fans a look at the more androgynous side of rock and roll.
Despite Bowie intentionally moving away from his first persona for the album Aladdin Sane, there was always a sense that he needed to go bigger. Although the covers album Pin Ups tends to feel like a step backwards half the time, hearing Bowie take on a topic like George Orwell’s 1984 sounds absolutely amazing.
That is if we had heard it. While most of the songs that Bowie had cut for this supposed concept album were finished, like ‘1984’ and ‘Big Brother’, he had to scrap his idea when Orwell’s estate insisted he not use the property. Instead, Diamond Dogs was born, which feels like two halves of two great albums living together.
Even though this album has some great elements, there are occasionally songs that feel like Bowie is on autopilot. While it would be a crime to call works like ‘Rebel Rebel’ or the title track subpar, they usually sound like Bowie going through the motions, especially since he doesn’t have Mick Ronson on the album that much.
Looking back on the album, Bowie was shocked that it ended up getting as much of a push considering the labour he put into it, telling Rolling Stone, “It was not a concept album. It was a collection of songs. It was my most difficult album. It was a relief that it did so well.” For an album that is stockpiled with hits, it almost comes off as funny how apprehensive Bowie was about it.
Even though he didn’t have his best glam rock musicians by his side, Bowie’s capabilities as a guitarist come across very well, and his ear for arranging is still immaculate. Regardless of how many drugs were in his system during the making of the record, the fact that someone at half capacity could still make the suite of ‘Sweet Thing’, ‘Candidate’, and then a reprise of ‘Sweet Thing’ is a work of mad genius.
Bowie straddling new sounds alongside his glam roots wasn’t an accident. In the next few months, he would be taking even more risks on Young Americans before shedding his skin altogether to turn himself into a krautrock cyborg on Station to Station. The key to every great Bowie was always not knowing what was coming next, and hearing different styles clashing in on one another across Diamond Dogs is probably more emblematic of where his head was during the recording.
