Released - December 1971
Genre - Psychedelic Folk
Producer - Ken Scott & David Bowie
Selected Personnel - David Bowie (Vocals/Guitar/Piano/Saxophone); Mick Ronson (Guitar/Mellotron); Rick Wakeman (Piano); Trevor Bolder (Bass/Trumpet); Mick Woodmansey (Drums)
Standout Track - Life On Mars?
After the fey psychedelic folk of Space Oddity and the unhinged hard rock of The Man Who Sold The World, David Bowie was restless. He had experimented with two extremes, and neither had really managed to capture what he was capable of. What The Man Who Sold The World had given him, significantly, was the knowledge that he had a talented group of musicians around him who he knew could work with whatever material he gave them and make it into something musically compelling and fresh and different. Joining guitarist Mick Ronson and drummer Woody Woodmansey for the new album was bassist Trevor Bolder, replacing the outgoing Tony Visconti and thus completing the lineup of the band that would soon be known as the Spiders From Mars. Taking over Visconti's role as producer was Ken Scott, who would similarly come to be a crucial figure in Bowie's world over the next few years. (Visconti himself at this time had given up on Bowie, choosing to champion the far more commercially promising work of Marc Bolan and T. Rex, though he would return to the Bowie stable in a few years to become one of his key collaborators even to this day). But this time, Bowie knew not to rely exclusively on the talents of his sidemen - there were sections of The Man Who Sold The World where he himself was barely noticeable behind Ronson's firebrand solos, and this time the focus would shift squarely back onto Bowie as writer and performer, or, as he tellingly credits himself on the album sleeve, "actor." So it was that Bowie withdrew into the domestic retreat of the new home he shared with his wife Angie to write material for Hunky Dory, which is still heralded by many Bowie fans as one of his crowning achievements.
Although the core lineup behind Hunky Dory is the same as on that earlier album, this couldn't be more different to The Man Who Sold The World. Bowie had been teaching himself piano and composed most of the music on the instrument (although several of the final piano parts on the finished album were performed by future Yes keyboardist Rick Wakeman), and this in itself shifts the focus back onto the stylised mannerisms and psychedelic music hall stylings of his earlier work in the late 60s. The epic instrumental jams of "The Width Of A Circle," for instance, are gone, replaced by short, simple piano-based songs. "Kooks," in particular, sounds like a relic from his more juvenile Antony Newley-inspired work, but this time around Bowie has had time to develop his compositional skills, his voice, his command of the art, and the finished product isn't one of embarrassing childishness but of gleeful nostalgia. The other key change is optimism - the paranoid psychosis of The Man Who Sold The World is gone, replaced mostly by a joie-de-vivre and an innocent vivaciousness that laid the groundworks for his jubilant pleas of "let the children boogie" a year later. This was music whose first intention was to be fun rather than to shock or impress. Bowie himself was in finer voice than ever before at this point, with the moments of trembling and bleating from his earlier work long forgotten. The vocal theatrics and comedy drawl of "Eight Line Poem" show one extreme of his mastery of theatrical performance, while the impassioned cries to heaven of "Life On Mars?" rank among Bowie's finest vocal performances of his career.
The rest of the band handle the material brilliantly, and are carefully kept in a supporting role rather than being allowed to dominate as they were previously. Ronson's guitar is generally tastefully relegated to the sidelines, with the occasional searing dominant line, with "Life On Mars?" again being the best example, while "Queen Bitch" is the only song to be really reliant on Ronson's riffing. Far more significant is Ronson's contribution to the orchestral arrangements, with the lush strings lending a sense of grandeur and scale to proceedings throughout that complements Bowie's sense of overt theatricality perfectly. Then there's the songs themselves - I know multiple people who have at first assumed that Hunky Dory is some sort of best of compilation given the sheer number of Bowie classics on offer. "Changes" is one of his very best pop songs, and also the first time Bowie confronted head-on the idea of shifting one's own identity in order to create a response in an audience, an idea he would soon take on literally in adopting the Ziggy Stardust persona. "Oh! You Pretty Things" is another classic, showcasing once again what would become a Bowie trademark in its jubilant, ascendant chorus, its inherent catchiness drawing attention away from the prophetic, apocalyptic nature of the lyrics, alluding to the coming of the homo superior. "Life On Mars?" has become so adored it's barely worth talking about quite what a phenomenal song it is, one of the most powerful and stirring songs in the Bowie canon. But even beyond the immortal classics, this album is full of incredible material. "Kooks," an unabashedly silly tribute to Bowie's newborn son Zowie (now Duncan Jones, the director of Moon), is childish but infectiously joyous, while "Andy Warhol" is a hazily psychedelic classic paying tribute to the man who had recently become one of Bowie's obsessions and idols after a visit to New York where he discovered the Velvet Underground. Warhol himself, when he eventually met Bowie and heard it, hated the song. "Queen Bitch" does tribute to Lou Reed himself, and is the first Bowie song to anticipate the more aggressive, stomping glam rock style of the Ziggy years to follow, and album closer "The Bewlay Brothers" is perhaps the only true note of pessimism on the album. It's a haunting, chilling, frightened song about mental illness, inspired by Bowie's own stepbrother Terry who at this time was still in the Cane Hill mental institution for schizophrenia, and is one of the most personal songs Bowie ever wrote.
Hunky Dory is generally one of the first Bowie albums newcomers encounter along with The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars, and rightly so - it contains some of his best-loved classics and was also the first true mission statement for the David Bowie that would come to be familiar to the world - this wasn't the man of a year before who was overly reliant on his backing band to finish off his scraps of ideas, this was a fully-formed, alien, theatrical performer in total command of his image and his music and his sense of what he wanted to achieve. Sadly, despite Bowie's sudden spurt of proactive effort to again be seen as a radical new artist in his own right rather than just the leader of a band, Hunky Dory didn't achieve much at a time and was eclipsed by the far greater success of his rival when T. Rex released the first definitive glam rock album, Electric Warrior. Whether the global success to follow for Bowie was in some way indebted to Marc Bolan's work in the field of glam rock is up for debate, but Bowie certainly approached glam rock with a far greater sense of artistry, theatricality and originality than Bolan managed and it wouldn't be long before the crown would have to be passed over, at which point the timeless songs of Hunky Dory finally achieved the recognition they deserved.
Track Listing:
All songs written by David Bowie, except where noted.
1. Changes
2. Oh! You Pretty Things
3. Eight Line Poem
4. Life On Mars?
5. Kooks
6. Quicksand
7. Fill Your Heart (Biff Rose & Paul Williams)
8. Andy Warhol
9. Song For Bob Dylan
10. Queen Bitch
11. The Bewlay Brothers
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