Top Five: David Bowie’s Best Records
2024’s comprehensive Rock ’N’ Roll Star! 5CD box set features a deep dive into David Bowie’s legendary The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars and is a great reason to celebrate a highly influential artist. Nearly eight years after his death, Bowie is still as important as ever and it’s easy to spot devotees across the full spectrum of music.
David Bowie may have borrowed from others (who hasn’t?) to create his unique synthesis of glam, rock and pop, but ultimately his chameleon-like style was wholly his own. The London native, born David Jones but forced to change his name because original Monkees member Davey Jones beat him to fame with that moniker, combined the androgynous spirit of Lou Reed, the pre-punk energy of Iggy Pop and the showmanship of Alice Cooper to forge his own musical fashion. The conventional wisdom is that Bowie made his best music in the seventies, but he reached peak popularity in the eighties and made great records right up until Blackstar, a powerful examination of mortality released the same month he died.
Bowie’s ability to shape-shift has inspired countless acts that followed, so picking five best records is no easy feat. Fans will have their own passion for which record touched them the most. While you can’t really go wrong anywhere in his catalog, here are the five Bowie albums that resonate the most with me, in chronological order (not including live albums, an entire sub-genre of the Bowie discography):
Hunky Dory (released December 1971)
Bowie’s first big hit in the UK, “Space Oddity,” came in 1969; it failed to land in the U.S. that year and only became a hit here upon its re-release in 1973. Bowie struggled to replicate his UK notoriety elsewhere before Hunky Dory was released at the end of 1971. His most focused effort to date, every song displays the pop sensibility that would find him a global audience. Hunky Dory’s leadoff track, “Changes,” quickly became an FM radio staple in the states, but the ensuing decades have burnished the popularity (and stream counts) of many other tracks. The anthemic “Life on Mars?” piano ballad is now one of his most favored and oft-covered songs, while the Velvet Underground-inspired “Queen Bitch,” the theatrical “Oh! You Pretty Things” and the breezy pop of “Kooks” each get better with age. Hunky Dory is a great place to start because it’s also the first time Bowie started to achieve stardom on both sides of the pond.
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars (released June 1972)
Bowie wasn’t nearly the first musician to pen a rock opera, but when he did he leveraged his androgynous, other worldly appearance for maximum effect. Aided by guitarist Mick Ronson, the album navigates a path through apocalypse-themed balladry (“Five Years,” “Rock and Roll Suicide”), pop (“Starman,” ”Star”) and rock (“Hang On to Yourself,” “Moonage Daydream”) while telling the story of a band that flames out as quickly as it flares up. Arguably Bowie’s finest work, this is a breathless romp that never gets old and flies by without a single weak moment. Artists have been paying tribute ever since to its Sgt. Pepper-like adoption of a new persona.
Station to Station (released January 1976)
Bowie first hit the top of the charts in the U.S. with “Fame” from Young Americans, his 1975 “plastic soul” album recorded largely in Philadelphia in late 1974. But it was that LP’s follow-up, the cocaine-drenched Station to Station, that revealed surprising new depths and variety. The ten-minute-long title track leads off with a train whistle blow that dissolves into a funky, mechanical march before ultimately resolving into an frenzied, extended guitar-driven coda. Elsewhere, “Golden Years” and “Stay” build on the R&B of Young Americans but add more heart and energy without the plastic, while “TVC 15” prophesizes interactive media alongside an infectious, anthemic chorus. The album closes with a breathtaking cover of “Wild is the Wind,” the ballad first popularized by Johnny Mathis and Nina Simone in the fifties (Fun fact: Bowie was a huge fan of Simone and the two became close friends).
Low (released January 1977)
Bowie’s Berlin Trilogy, helmed by producer Tony Visconti and featuring the cutting edge synthesizer effects and production style of Brian Eno, starts here. The first side is bookended by short, instrumental tracks that surround five songs of catchy synth-pop weirdness, while the second presents four tracks of atmospheric music. Bowie was hardly the first musician to travel down this path, but he was by far the most popular musician to expose his audience to the ambient genre and it was a radical departure from expectations. Low is forward-thinking enough to make it the most influential of his many records. The title track of its successor, Heroes, might be the most popular song to emerge from the Berlin Trilogy, but Low is where Bowie took his musical expansion to a new level and inspired punks, new wavers and ambient soundscapers to step out of their comfort zones.
Blackstar (released January 2016)
Bowie’s death from liver cancer powerfully coincided almost to the exact day with the release of his final album. Blackstar is a haunting, jazz-tinged effort that radiates the self-examination terminal illness forces (the title track, “Lazarus”), rues the passing of time (“Girl Love Me”) and concludes mournfully with “I Can’t Give Everything Away.” By making some of his best and most meaningful music while struggling through his final days, Bowie proved his art was timeless, evocative and capable of simultaneously inspiring sadness, hope and gratitude for a life well-lived.
Whenever I walk into Paradise Found or any other record shop, I always make a beeline for the “Just Arrived Used LPs” section. At our Boulder store it’s near the back, where Jon Martinez, our seasoned record buyer and man with the most vinyl knowledge in Colorado, works. We buy a lot of vinyl, and everything but the pricier collectible and bargain bin material passes through the Just Arrived Used LP bins. Experienced shoppers know the best stuff often never makes it out of these racks before being grabbed. We pride ourselves on having new, sealed copies of the latest releases, but buying out of the just arrived bins is a great way to discover new (and old) music, pounce on rare stuff, and sometimes save a little on more recent releases. We also segment these bins by genre so that you don’t have to search through Folk if you’re strictly looking for Jazz. Albums that haven’t sold out of these bins ultimately get moved to the specific artist’s section in the alphabetical bins. If it takes more than thirty seconds for me to get from the front door to the just arrived bins, I’ve probably slipped and fallen on the way in my urgency to get there before someone else does.
No, I’m not referring to the Pink Floyd album (although any fan of that band will tell you it’s essential), I’m talking about the wall to the left of the cash register in our Boulder store where we put the very rare, expensive items. We display some of our pricier vinyl along our east side, but those tend to be sealed box sets and recent UHQR releases (e.g. the recently reissued Steely Dan series of multi-album, 45 rpm pressings that sell new for $175 to hardcore audiophiles). While you may find audiophile material on the wall, you’re more likely to see extremely hard-to-find releases that make collectors salivate. 
One aspect common to the vinyl resurgence of the past decade has been the proliferation of 180 and 200 gram pressings. But what does that actually mean? Back in the days before CDs, albums rarely mentioned their weight; indeed, most albums were 140 grams or less. That said, there are some specific advantages to heavier vinyl.