ALADDIN SANE
| David Bowie
ALADDIN SANE
Aladdin Sane is the sixth studio album by English musician David Bowie, released by RCA Records on 13 April 1973. The follow-up to his breakthrough The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, it was the first album he wrote and released from a position of stardom. NME editors Roy Carr and Charles Shaar Murray called the album "oddly unsatisfying, considerably less than the sum of the parts", while Bowie encyclopedist Nicholas Pegg describes it as "one of the most urgent, compelling and essential" of his releases. The Rolling Stone review by Ben Gerson pronounced it "less manic than The Man Who Sold The World, and less intimate than Hunky Dory, with none of its attacks of self-doubt. The album cover featuring a lightning bolt across his face is regarded as one of Bowie's most iconic images. - WIKIPEDIA
Critic Reviews
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RollingStone
1973 - Although a good portion of the songs on Aladdin Sane are hard rock & roll, a closer inspection reveals them to be advertisements for their own obsolescence — vignettes in which the baton is being passed on to a newer sensibility.
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BBC
2002 - Aladdin Sane is one of the finest forty-five minutes in rock.
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Classic Rock Review
Many have compared the approach of this album with that of Bowie’s 1970 third album, The Man Who Sold the World, which had a heavier-than-typical rock sound, marking a departure from Bowie’s previous predominant folk rock style.
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ALL MUSIC
A lighter affair than Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane is actually a stranger album than its predecessor, buoyed by bizarre lounge-jazz flourishes from pianist Mick Garson and a handful of winding, vaguely experimental songs.
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CLASH
2009 - Recorded in London and New York in 1973 to a backdrop of infidelity and egotism, ‘Aladdin Sane’ saw Bowie break from musical convention and transcend Glam Rock, the movement he had spawned.
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sputnik music
Conclusively, Aladdin Sane takes the glam foundations and lyrical concepts laid down by last years effort and builds upon them to include slight avant-garde leanings (such as the irregularity of the gorgeously odd ‘Time’), and rougher rock tracks - rougher in comparison with Ziggy’s polished, sparkly glam-rock, anyway.
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Alt Rock Chick
Bowie was never a rocker in the purist sense of the word; he played in many genres, imbuing those genres with his own unique perspectives and sense of style. But whenever he found himself in a rocking mood, that man could kick some serious ass!
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TREBLE
For the cracked actors and unlucky Buddys trying to get lucky, this is the album that knows you and will be there for you.
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Robert Christgau
this is more interesting thematically than Ziggy Stardust, and it's also better rock and roll.
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Don Ignacio
Though there's not really much use in comparing this album to Ziggy Stardust. They're very different records. Ziggy Stardust was much more of a pop album, and Aladdin Sane is more rock 'n' roll. And lemme just tell you that Bowie has never rocked this harder.
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Mark Prindle
It's theatrical! Like the last album, but more glam. Mick Ronson rocks it to and fro! There's still some piano and 50sish teen lust, as well as Andrew Lloyd Weber- style "emotions represented by overblown fakery" but more so, there's just crunchy glam guitar.
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Only Solitaire
Quite a good collection of decadent tunes - but one fails to see the purpose of this album, even if there is one.
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Adrian Denning
It's still a more than fine album, though. There isn't really a single really weak song present out of the nine originals and one cover that 'Alladin Sane' presents us with.
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APHORISTIC ALBUM REVIEWS
Aladdin Sane is a step down after the twin peaks of Hunky Dory and Ziggy Stardust; although it’s still very good, it fails to break much new ground, something of an anomaly for a 1970s’ David Bowie album.
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John McFerrin Record Reviews
Ultimately, rating this one is kind of a major pain (I went back and forth between an A and a B about half a dozen times). Is it clearly a good album? Yeah. Should any Bowie fan have this? Yeah. Should any general fan of rock music have this? ... ... Probably, yeah. Do I feel any impact from this album once I'm done with it, apart from a couple of songs? Not really.
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Words About Music
Aladdin Sane is of another time and another planet, the cord of Bowie’s art ties the two together unmistakeably, linking the wild alien boy with the lightning-bolt makeup to the current pensive wizard with the faintly sad eyes.
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