Hunky Dory review

The fourth album by David Bowie. This is regarded as one of his best works and contains several of his most well-known songs, so this should be pretty epic.

Tracks:

1. Changes: 9/10 this song proves a fascinating take on a familiar theme and is enhanced by Bowie's trademark hybrid of alien-weirdness and human poetry.

2. Oh! You Pretty Things: 8/10 I'm not sure if this is about an alien invasion or growing up. Either way, it makes the grade.

3. Eight Line Poem: 7/10 just a random short poem about a cactus basically. Intriguing and well-written, if rather pointless.

4. Life on Mars?: 10/10 the question of extraterrestrial life, especially concerning martians, has been asked many times. However, if it's ever been asked in as a brilliantly entertaining and enthralling a way as this surrealist masterpiece asks it, I'll eat a guitar.

5. Kooks: 5/10 there's a difference between being weird and being about something and being weird and not being about anything much. This song falls firmly into the latter category although the instrumental is perfectly nice.

6. Quicksand: 8/10 essentially just loads of bizarre imagery. It's great bizarre imagery though.  

7. Fill Your Heart: 9/10 a pretty awesome song that shouldn't be forgotten when considering this album.

8. Andy Warhol: 9/10 as fascinating and delightfully strange as ever.

9. Song For Bob Dylan: 9/10 whether this is a tribute or a criticism of Bob Dylan is never entirely clear, but it's still brilliant.

10. Queen Bitch: 9/10 this song, which is a tribute to The Velvet Underground, may be hard to get but it's so good it actually surpasses many Velvet Underground songs.

11. The Bewlay Brothers: 8/10 an overlong but highly enjoyable song which closes the album in style.

Best song: Life on Mars?
Worst song: Kooks

Summary: Hunky Dory is easily the best Bowie album I've heard. Most of the songs are so layered, mad and entertaining they could easily be sci-fi short stories. Bowie's guitar playing and writing is at a stratospheric peak here. Occasionally the songs are weird but they're weird in the best possible way and the entire album is so delightfully unconventional and alien, yet so ridiculously fun. This album alone proves Pink Floyd don't have the monopoly of brilliant weird music, and I'll be impressed if Bowie has ever topped this.


Final rating: 10/10