Station to Station
Encyclopedia
Station to Station is the tenth studio album by English musician David Bowie
, released by RCA Records
in 1976. Commonly regarded as one of his most significant works, Station to Station is also notable as the vehicle for Bowie's last great 'character', The Thin White Duke
. The album was recorded after he completed shooting Nicolas Roeg
's The Man Who Fell to Earth
, and the cover featured a still from the movie. During the sessions Bowie was heavily dependent on drugs, especially cocaine
, and recalls almost nothing of the production.
Musically, Station to Station was a transitional album for Bowie, developing the funk and soul music
of his previous release, Young Americans
, while presenting a new direction towards synthesisers and motorik
rhythms that was influenced by German electronic
bands such as Kraftwerk
and Neu!
. This trend would culminate in some of his most acclaimed work, the so-called Berlin Trilogy
, recorded with Brian Eno
in 1977–79. Bowie himself has said that Station to Station was "a plea to come back to Europe for me". The album’s lyrics, meanwhile, reflected his preoccupations with Nietzsche
, Aleister Crowley
, mythology
and religion.
With its blend of funk and Krautrock
, romantic balladry and occultism, Station to Station has been described as "simultaneously one of Bowie's most accessible albums and his most impenetrable". Featuring the single "Golden Years
", it made the Top 5 in both the UK and US charts. In 2003, the album was ranked number 323 on Rolling Stone
magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time
.
habit and subsisting on a diet of peppers
and milk, spent much of 1975–76 "in a state of psychic terror". Stories—mostly from one interview, pieces of which found their way into Playboy
and Rolling Stone
—circulated of the singer living in a house full of ancient-Egyptian artefacts, burning black candles, seeing bodies fall past his window, having his semen
stolen by witches, receiving secret messages from The Rolling Stones
, and living in morbid fear of fellow Aleister Crowley
aficionado Jimmy Page
. Bowie would later say of L.A., "The fucking place should be wiped off the face of the earth".
It was on the set of his first major film, The Man Who Fell to Earth
, that Bowie began writing a pseudo-autobiography called The Return of the Thin White Duke. He was also composing music on the understanding that he was to provide the picture's soundtrack, though this would not come to fruition (at Bowie's recommendation, John Phillips
of the Mamas and the Papas would write and produce all the original music for the film instead). Director Nicolas Roeg
warned the star that the part of Thomas Jerome Newton would likely remain with him for some time after production completed. With Roeg's agreement, Bowie developed his own look for the film, and this carried through to his public image and onto two album covers over the next twelve months, as did Newton's air of fragility and aloofness.
The Thin White Duke
became the mouthpiece for Station to Station and, as often as not during the next six months, for Bowie himself. Impeccably dressed in white shirt, black trousers and waistcoat, The Duke was a hollow man who sang songs of romance with an agonised intensity, yet felt nothing—"ice masquerading as fire". The persona has been described as "a mad aristocrat", "an amoral zombie", and "an emotionless Aryan
superman". For Bowie himself, The Duke was "a nasty character indeed".
, Los Angeles. In 1981, NME
editors Roy Carr
and Charles Shaar Murray
surmised that it was cut—"in 10 days of feverish activity"—when Bowie decided that there was no hope of his producing a soundtrack for The Man Who Fell to Earth. More recent authorship contends that the album was recorded over a couple of months, in October–November 1975, and was in the can before Bowie began his abortive sessions on the soundtrack.
At various times to be titled The Return of The Thin White Duke, or Golden Years, Station to Station was co-produced by Harry Maslin, Bowie's associate for "Fame
" and "Across the Universe
" on Young Americans
. Tony Visconti
, who after a three-year absence had recently returned to the Bowie fold mixing Diamond Dogs
and co-producing David Live
and Young Americans, was not involved due to competing schedules. However, the recording did cement the band line-up that would see Bowie through the rest of the decade, with bassist George Murray
joining Young Americans drummer Dennis Davis
and rhythm guitarist Carlos Alomar
.
The recording process developed with this team set the pattern for Bowie's albums up to and including Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)
in 1980: backing tracks laid down by Murray, Davis and Alomar; saxophone, keyboard and lead guitar overdubs (here by Bowie, Roy Bittan
and Earl Slick
, respectively); lead vocals; and finally various production tricks to complete the song. According to Bowie, "I got some quite extraordinary things out of Earl Slick. I think it captured his imagination to make noises on guitar, and textures, rather than playing the right notes." Alomar recalled, "It was one of the most glorious albums that I've ever done ... We experimented so much on it". Harry Maslin added, "I loved those sessions because we were totally open and experimental in our approach".
Bowie himself remembers almost nothing of the album's production, not even the studio, later admitting, "I know it was in LA because I've read it was". The singer was not alone in his use of cocaine during the sessions, Carlos Alomar commenting, "if there's a line of coke which is going to keep you awake till 8 a.m. so that you can do your guitar part, you do the line of coke ... the coke use is driven by the inspiration." Like Bowie, Earl Slick had somewhat vague memories of the recording: "That album's a little fuzzy—for the obvious reasons! We were in the studio and it was nuts—a lot of hours, a lot of late nights."
The sleeve front cover used a black and white still from The Man Who Fell to Earth
, in which Bowie, as the character Thomas Jerome Newton, steps into the space capsule that will return him to his home planet. Bowie had insisted on the cropped black and white image as he felt that in the original coloured full size image the sky looked artificial. When Rykodisc
reissued Bowie's catalogue in the early 1990s the colour version was used. The back cover showed Bowie sketching with chalk—something he had been doing on the set of the film.
, author of The Complete David Bowie, called it a "precise halfway point on the journey from Young Americans
to Low", while for Roy Carr
and Charles Shaar Murray
, it "effectively divides the '70's for David Bowie. It ties off the era of Ziggy Stardust
and plastic soul, and introduces the first taste of the new music that was to follow with 'Low'."
In terms of Bowie's own output, Station to Stations Euro-centric flavour had its musical antecedents in tracks like "Aladdin Sane 1913-1938-197?
" and "Time
" (1973), while its funk
/disco
elements were a development of the soul
/R&B
sound of Young Americans (1975). More recently Bowie had begun to soak up the influence of German motorik
and electronic music
by bands like Neu!
, Can
and Kraftwerk
. Thematically the album revisited concepts dealt with in songs such as "The Supermen
" from The Man Who Sold the World (1970) and "Quicksand
" from Hunky Dory
(1971): Nietzsche's
'Overman'
, the occult
ism of Aleister Crowley
, Nazi
fascination with Grail
mythology, and the Kabbalah
. Pegg considered the album's theme to be a clash of "occultism and Christianity".
The musical style of "Golden Years
", the first track recorded for the album, built on the funk and soul of Young Americans but with a harsher, grinding edge. It has been described as carrying with it "an air of regret for missed opportunities and past pleasures". Bowie said that it was written for—and rejected by—Elvis Presley
, while Bowie's wife at the time Angie
claimed it was penned for her. Though a Top 10 single on both sides of the Atlantic, it was rarely performed live on the subsequent Station to Station tour. "Stay
" was another riff-driven funk piece, "recorded very much in our cocaine frenzy", according to Alomar. Its lyrics have been variously interpreted as reflecting on "the uncertainty of sexual conquest", and as an example of "the Duke's spurious romanticism".
The Christian element of the album was most obvious in the hymn-like "Word on a Wing", though for some commentators religion, like love, was simply another way for the Duke to "test his numbness". Bowie himself has claimed that in this song, at least, "the passion is genuine". When performing it live in 1999, the singer described it as coming from "the darkest days of my life ... I'm sure that it was a call for help". The closing ballad, "Wild Is the Wind
", was the album's sole cover, and has been praised as one of the finest vocal performances of Bowie's career. Bowie was inspired to record the song after he met singer/pianist/songwriter Nina Simone
, who sang it on the album Wild Is the Wind
(1966).
The spectre of The Man Who Fell to Earths Thomas Jerome Newton sprawled in front of dozens of television monitors is said to have partly inspired the album's most upbeat track, "TVC15". Supposedly also about Iggy Pop
's girlfriend being eaten by a TV set, it has been called "incongruously jolly" and "the most oblique tribute to The Yardbirds
imaginable".
The title track has been described as heralding "a new era of experimentalism" for Bowie. "Station to Station
" was in two parts: a slow, portentous piano-driven march, introduced by the sound of an approaching train juxtaposed with Earl Slick's agitated guitar feedback
, followed by an up-tempo rock/blues section. In 1999 Bowie told UNCUT
magazine, "Since Station To Station the hybridization of R&B and electronics had been a goal of mine". Despite the noise of a train in the opening moments, Bowie claims that the title refers not so much to railway stations as to the Stations of the Cross
, while the line "From Kether
to Malkuth" relates to mystical places in the Kabbalah
, mixing Christian and Jewish allusions. Fixation with the occult was further evident in such phrases as "white stains
", the name of a book of poetry by Aleister Crowley. The lyrics also gave notice of Bowie's recent drug use ("It's not the side effects of the cocaine / I'm thinking that it must be love"). With its Krautrock
influence, it was the album's clearest foretaste of Bowie's subsequent 'Berlin Trilogy
'.
Speaking to Creem
magazine in 1977, Bowie proclaimed that Station to Station was "devoid of spirit ... Even the love songs are detached, but I think it's fascinating."
, resulting in the film clip seen on music video programmes. It made number 8 in the UK and number 10 in the US (where it charted for 16 weeks) but, like "Rebel Rebel
"'s relationship to Diamond Dogs
(1974), was a somewhat unrepresentative teaser for the album to come.
"TVC15" was released in edited form as the second single in May 1976, making number 33 in the UK and number 64 stateside. "Stay", also shortened and appearing the same month, was issued as a companion 45 to RCA's Changesonebowie
greatest hits collection, though it did not appear on the compilation (Changesonebowie was itself packaged as a uniform edition to Station to Station, featuring a black-and-white cover and similar lettering). In November 1981, as Bowie's relationship with RCA was winding down, "Wild Is the Wind" was issued as a single to push the Changestwobowie
compilation. Backed with "Word on a Wing" and accompanied by a video shot especially for the release, it made number 24 in the UK and charted for 10 weeks.
Another song purportedly recorded during the album sessions at Cherokee Studios, a cover of Bruce Springsteen
's "It's Hard to Be a Saint in the City", went unreleased at the time but was issued in 1990 on the Sound and Vision box set. According to Nicholas Pegg, however, the Cherokee work most likely consisted of overdubs to a track originally cut at Sigma Sound Studios
during Young Americans.
considered that Bowie had "found his musical niche" following songs like "Fame
" and "Golden Years" but that "the 10-minute title cut drags". NME
called it "one of the most significant albums released in the last five years". Both found the meaning of the lyrics difficult to fathom. In his consumer guide for The Village Voice
, critic Robert Christgau
gave the album an A rating, indicating "a great record both of whose sides offer enduring pleasure and surprise. You should own it". Christgau wrote that Bowie "can merge Lou Reed
, disco, and Huey Smith" and found the album a progression from his previous albums, stating "Miraculously, Bowie's attraction to black music has matured; even more miraculously, the new relationship seems to have left his hard-and-heavy side untouched".
Rolling Stone
writer Teri Moris applauded the album's 'rockier' moments but discerned a move away from the genre, finding it "the thoughtfully professional effort of a style-conscious artist whose ability to write and perform demanding rock & roll exists comfortably alongside his fascination for diverse forms ... while there's little doubt about his skill, one wonders how long he'll continue wrestling with rock at all." Circus
, noting that Bowie was "never one to maintain continuity in his work or in his life", declared that Station to Station "offers cryptic, expressionistic glimpses that let us feel the contours and palpitations of the masquer's soul but never fully reveal his face." The review also found various allusions to earlier Bowie efforts, such as the "density" of The Man Who Sold the World, the "pop feel" of Hunky Dory
, the "dissonance and angst" of Aladdin Sane
, the "compelling percussion" of Young Americans
, and the "youthful mysticism" of "Wild Eyed Boy from Freecloud
", concluding that "it shows Bowie pulling out on the most challenging leg of his winding journey".
Station to Station was, and remains, Bowie's highest-charting album in the US, reaching number 3 and remaining for 32 weeks. It was certified gold
by the RIAA
on 26 February 1976. In the UK, it charted for 17 weeks, peaking at number 5, the last time one of his studio albums placed lower in his home country than in America.
as his collaborator. Bowie expected to be wholly responsible for the film's music but found that "when I’d finished five or six pieces, I was then told that if I would care to submit my music along with some other people's... and I just said "Shit, you're not getting any of it". I was so furious, I’d put so much work into it." However Harry Maslin contended that Bowie was "burned out" and couldn't complete the work in any case. The singer eventually collapsed, admitting later, "There were pieces of me laying all over the floor". In the event, only one instrumental composed for the soundtrack saw the light of day, evolving into "Subterraneans
" on his next studio album, Low.
After abandoning the soundtrack album, Bowie went on tour in support of Station to Station
, commencing 2 February 1976 and completing on 18 May 1976. Kraftwerk
's "Radioactivity
" was employed as an overture to the shows, accompanying footage from Luis Buñuel
's and Salvador Dali
's surrealist
film Un Chien Andalou
. The staging featured Bowie, dressed in The Duke's habitual black waistcoat and trousers, a pack of Gitanes
placed ostentatiously in his pocket, moving stiffly among "curtains of white light", an effect that spawned the nickname 'the White Light Tour'. In 1989 Bowie reflected, "I wanted to go back to a kind of Expressionist German-film
look ... and the lighting of, say, Fritz Lang
or Pabst
. A black-and-white movies look, but with an intensity that was sort of aggressive. I think for me, personally, theatrically, that was the most successful tour I’ve ever done." The Station to Station tour was the source of one of the artist's best-known bootlegs
, culled from an FM radio broadcast
of his 23 March 1976 concert at Nassau Coliseum
.
Bowie drew criticism during the tour for his alleged pro-fascist views. In a 1974 interview he had declared, "Adolf Hitler
was one of the first rock stars ... quite as good as Jagger
... He staged a country", but managed to avoid condemnation. On the Station to Station tour, however, a series of incidents attracted publicity, starting in April 1976 with his detention by customs
in Eastern Europe for possession of Nazi
memorabilia. The same month he was quoted in Stockholm
as saying that "Britain could benefit from a Fascist leader". Bowie would blame his addictions and the persona of The Thin White Duke for his lapses in judgment. The controversy culminated on 2 May 1976, shortly before the tour completed, in the so-called 'Victoria Station incident' in London, when Bowie arrived in an open-top Mercedes
convertible
and apparently gave a Nazi salute to the crowd that was captured on film and published in NME
. Bowie claimed that the photographer simply caught him in mid-wave, a contention backed by a young Gary Numan
who was among the throng that day: "Think about it. If a photographer takes a whole motor-driven film of someone doing a wave, you will get a Nazi salute at the end of each arm-sweep. All you need is some dickhead at a music paper or whatever to make an issue out it ..." The stigma remained, however, to the extent that the lines "To be insulted by these fascists/It's so degrading" from Scary Monsters
opening track "It's No Game
", four years later, were interpreted as an attempt to bury the incident once and for all.
'. Bowie himself has said of the album, "As far as the music goes, Low and its siblings were a direct follow-on from the title track", while Brian Eno
opined that Low was "very much a continuation from Station to Station". It has also been described as "enormously influential on post-punk
". Roy Carr
and Charles Shaar Murray
wrote in 1981, "If Low was Gary Numan
's Bowie's album, then Station to Station was Magazine's
." However, Stylus
declared in 2004 that "just as few had anticipated Bowie’s approach, few copied it ... for the most part this is an orphaned, abandoned style".
More than twenty years after its release, Bowie considered both Station to Station and Low "great, damn good" albums, but due to his disconnected state during its recording, listened to Station to Station "as a piece of work by an entirely different person". He elaborated:
In 1999, music biographer David Buckley described Station to Station as a "masterpiece of invention" that "some critics would argue, perhaps unfashionably, is his finest record". The same year, Eno called it "one of the great records of all time". In 2003, the album was ranked number 323 on Rolling Stone
magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time
. A year later, The Observer
ranked the album number 80 on its list of the 100 greatest British albums.
except where noted.
Side one
Side two
with the original black-and-white
cover art, the second in 1991 by Rykodisc
(containing two bonus tracks), the third in 1999 by EMI
(featuring 24-bit digitally remastered sound and no bonus tracks), and finally in 2007 by EMI Japan replicating the original vinyl artwork.
, Uniondale, New York
.
CD 1: Station to Station 2010 transfer
CD 2 & 3: Live Nassau Coliseum '76
Digital download bonus track
CD 1: Station to Station 2010 transfer
CD 2: Station to Station 1985 CD master
CD 3: Station to Station single edits five track EP
CD 4 & 5: Live Nassau Coliseum '76
DVD
Vinyl 1: Heavyweight 12" vinyl of Station to Station from the original stereo analogue master in replica sleeve
Vinyls 2 & 3: Heavyweight 12" vinyls of Live Nassau Coliseum '76 in gatefold sleeve
David Bowie on Stage 1976 collectibles
1976 Fan Club Folder collectibles
David Bowie
David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
, released by RCA Records
RCA Records
RCA Records is one of the flagship labels of Sony Music Entertainment. The RCA initials stand for Radio Corporation of America , which was the parent corporation from 1929 to 1985 and a partner from 1985 to 1986.RCA's Canadian unit is Sony's oldest label...
in 1976. Commonly regarded as one of his most significant works, Station to Station is also notable as the vehicle for Bowie's last great 'character', The Thin White Duke
The Thin White Duke
The Thin White Duke was David Bowie's 1976 persona and character, primarily identified with his album Station to Station and mentioned by name in the title track, although the 'Duke' persona had been adopted during the Young Americans tour and promotion...
. The album was recorded after he completed shooting Nicolas Roeg
Nicolas Roeg
Nicolas Jack Roeg, CBE, BSC is an English film director and cinematographer.-Life and career:Roeg was born in London, the son of Mabel Gertrude and Jack Nicolas Roeg...
's The Man Who Fell to Earth
The Man Who Fell to Earth (film)
The Man Who Fell to Earth is a 1976 British science fiction film directed by Nicolas Roeg.The film is based on the 1963 novel of the same name by Walter Tevis, about an extraterrestrial who crash lands on Earth seeking a way to ship water to his planet, which is suffering from a severe drought...
, and the cover featured a still from the movie. During the sessions Bowie was heavily dependent on drugs, especially cocaine
Cocaine
Cocaine is a crystalline tropane alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant. The name comes from "coca" in addition to the alkaloid suffix -ine, forming cocaine. It is a stimulant of the central nervous system, an appetite suppressant, and a topical anesthetic...
, and recalls almost nothing of the production.
Musically, Station to Station was a transitional album for Bowie, developing the funk and soul music
Soul music
Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...
of his previous release, Young Americans
Young Americans (album)
Young Americans, released in 1975, shows off David Bowie’s 1970’s shift to his “obsession” with soul music . For this album, Bowie let go of the influences he had drawn from in the past, replacing them with sounds from “local dance halls”, which, at the time, were blaring with “…lush strings,...
, while presenting a new direction towards synthesisers and motorik
Motorik
Motorik is a term coined by music journalists to describe the 4/4 beat often used by "Krautrock" bands such as Neu! and Kraftwerk...
rhythms that was influenced by German electronic
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
bands such as Kraftwerk
Kraftwerk
Kraftwerk is an influential electronic music band from Düsseldorf, Germany. The group was formed by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider in 1970, and was fronted by them until Schneider's departure in 2008...
and Neu!
Neu!
Neu! was a German band formed by Klaus Dinger and Michael Rother after their split from Kraftwerk in the early 1970s...
. This trend would culminate in some of his most acclaimed work, the so-called Berlin Trilogy
Berlin Trilogy
The Berlin Trilogy is a series of David Bowie albums recorded in collaboration with Brian Eno in the 1970s. The three albums are Low, "Heroes" and Lodger....
, recorded with Brian Eno
Brian Eno
Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno , commonly known as Brian Eno or simply as Eno , is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.Eno studied at Colchester Institute art school in Essex,...
in 1977–79. Bowie himself has said that Station to Station was "a plea to come back to Europe for me". The album’s lyrics, meanwhile, reflected his preoccupations with Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...
, Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley , born Edward Alexander Crowley, and also known as both Frater Perdurabo and The Great Beast, was an influential English occultist, astrologer, mystic and ceremonial magician, responsible for founding the religious philosophy of Thelema. He was also successful in various other...
, mythology
Mythology
The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...
and religion.
With its blend of funk and Krautrock
Krautrock
Krautrock is a generic name for the experimental music scenes that appeared in Germany in the late 1960s and gained popularity throughout the 1970s, especially in Britain. The term is a result of the English-speaking world's reception of the music at the time and not a reference to any one...
, romantic balladry and occultism, Station to Station has been described as "simultaneously one of Bowie's most accessible albums and his most impenetrable". Featuring the single "Golden Years
Golden Years (song)
An updated single for "Golden Years" was released in 2011 to coincide with the re-release of Station to Station. 4 new remixes were provided by DJs from radio station KCRW in California.-Track listing:# "Golden Years " - 3:27...
", it made the Top 5 in both the UK and US charts. In 2003, the album was ranked number 323 on Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time
The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
"The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" is the title of a 2003 special issue of American magazine Rolling Stone, and a related book published in 2005.Related news articles:...
.
Background
According to biographer David Buckley, the Los Angeles-based Bowie, fuelled by an "astronomic" cocaineCocaine
Cocaine is a crystalline tropane alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant. The name comes from "coca" in addition to the alkaloid suffix -ine, forming cocaine. It is a stimulant of the central nervous system, an appetite suppressant, and a topical anesthetic...
habit and subsisting on a diet of peppers
Capsicum
Capsicum is a genus of flowering plants in the nightshade family, Solanaceae. Its species are native to the Americas where they have been cultivated for thousands of years, but they are now also cultivated worldwide, used as spices, vegetables, and medicines - and have become are a key element in...
and milk, spent much of 1975–76 "in a state of psychic terror". Stories—mostly from one interview, pieces of which found their way into Playboy
Playboy
Playboy is an American men's magazine that features photographs of nude women as well as journalism and fiction. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. The magazine has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc., with...
and Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
—circulated of the singer living in a house full of ancient-Egyptian artefacts, burning black candles, seeing bodies fall past his window, having his semen
Semen
Semen is an organic fluid, also known as seminal fluid, that may contain spermatozoa. It is secreted by the gonads and other sexual organs of male or hermaphroditic animals and can fertilize female ova...
stolen by witches, receiving secret messages from The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones are an English rock band, formed in London in April 1962 by Brian Jones , Ian Stewart , Mick Jagger , and Keith Richards . Bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts completed the early line-up...
, and living in morbid fear of fellow Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley , born Edward Alexander Crowley, and also known as both Frater Perdurabo and The Great Beast, was an influential English occultist, astrologer, mystic and ceremonial magician, responsible for founding the religious philosophy of Thelema. He was also successful in various other...
aficionado Jimmy Page
Jimmy Page
James Patrick "Jimmy" Page, OBE is an English multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and record producer. He began his career as a studio session guitarist in London and was subsequently a member of The Yardbirds from 1966 to 1968, after which he founded the English rock band Led Zeppelin.Jimmy Page...
. Bowie would later say of L.A., "The fucking place should be wiped off the face of the earth".
It was on the set of his first major film, The Man Who Fell to Earth
The Man Who Fell to Earth (film)
The Man Who Fell to Earth is a 1976 British science fiction film directed by Nicolas Roeg.The film is based on the 1963 novel of the same name by Walter Tevis, about an extraterrestrial who crash lands on Earth seeking a way to ship water to his planet, which is suffering from a severe drought...
, that Bowie began writing a pseudo-autobiography called The Return of the Thin White Duke. He was also composing music on the understanding that he was to provide the picture's soundtrack, though this would not come to fruition (at Bowie's recommendation, John Phillips
John Phillips (musician)
John Edmund Andrew Phillips , was an American singer, guitarist, songwriter and promoter . Known as Papa John, Phillips was a member and leader of the singing group The Mamas & the Papas...
of the Mamas and the Papas would write and produce all the original music for the film instead). Director Nicolas Roeg
Nicolas Roeg
Nicolas Jack Roeg, CBE, BSC is an English film director and cinematographer.-Life and career:Roeg was born in London, the son of Mabel Gertrude and Jack Nicolas Roeg...
warned the star that the part of Thomas Jerome Newton would likely remain with him for some time after production completed. With Roeg's agreement, Bowie developed his own look for the film, and this carried through to his public image and onto two album covers over the next twelve months, as did Newton's air of fragility and aloofness.
The Thin White Duke
The Thin White Duke
The Thin White Duke was David Bowie's 1976 persona and character, primarily identified with his album Station to Station and mentioned by name in the title track, although the 'Duke' persona had been adopted during the Young Americans tour and promotion...
became the mouthpiece for Station to Station and, as often as not during the next six months, for Bowie himself. Impeccably dressed in white shirt, black trousers and waistcoat, The Duke was a hollow man who sang songs of romance with an agonised intensity, yet felt nothing—"ice masquerading as fire". The persona has been described as "a mad aristocrat", "an amoral zombie", and "an emotionless Aryan
Aryan race
The Aryan race is a concept historically influential in Western culture in the period of the late 19th century and early 20th century. It derives from the idea that the original speakers of the Indo-European languages and their descendants up to the present day constitute a distinctive race or...
superman". For Bowie himself, The Duke was "a nasty character indeed".
Production
Station to Station was recorded in 1975 at Cherokee StudiosCherokee Studios
Cherokee Studios was a recording facility in Hollywood, founded in 1972 and closed in August 2007 to make way for a new building, after 35 years of operation under the Cherokee name as a well-renowned studio...
, Los Angeles. In 1981, NME
NME
The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...
editors Roy Carr
Roy Carr
Roy Carr is an English music journalist. He joined the New Musical Express in the late 1960s and has edited NME, VOX and Melody Maker magazines...
and Charles Shaar Murray
Charles Shaar Murray
Charles Shaar Murray is an English music journalist. His first experience in journalism came 1970 when he was asked to contribute to the satirical magazine Oz...
surmised that it was cut—"in 10 days of feverish activity"—when Bowie decided that there was no hope of his producing a soundtrack for The Man Who Fell to Earth. More recent authorship contends that the album was recorded over a couple of months, in October–November 1975, and was in the can before Bowie began his abortive sessions on the soundtrack.
At various times to be titled The Return of The Thin White Duke, or Golden Years, Station to Station was co-produced by Harry Maslin, Bowie's associate for "Fame
Fame (David Bowie song)
"Fame" is a song recorded by David Bowie, initially released in 1975. It reached number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 during the week of September 20, 1975.-Song development:...
" and "Across the Universe
Across the Universe
"Across the Universe" is a song by the English group The Beatles. It was written by John Lennon, and credited to Lennon–McCartney. The song first appeared on the various artists charity compilation album No One's Gonna Change Our World in December 1969, and later, in different form, on Let It Be,...
" on Young Americans
Young Americans (album)
Young Americans, released in 1975, shows off David Bowie’s 1970’s shift to his “obsession” with soul music . For this album, Bowie let go of the influences he had drawn from in the past, replacing them with sounds from “local dance halls”, which, at the time, were blaring with “…lush strings,...
. Tony Visconti
Tony Visconti
Anthony Edward Visconti is an American record producer and sometimes a musician or singer.Since the late 1960s, he has worked with an array of performers; his lengthiest involvement with any artist is with David Bowie: intermittently from Bowie's 1969 album Space Oddity to 2003's Reality, Visconti...
, who after a three-year absence had recently returned to the Bowie fold mixing Diamond Dogs
Diamond Dogs
Diamond Dogs is a concept album by David Bowie, originally released by RCA Records in 1974. Thematically it was a marriage of the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell and Bowie's own glam-tinged vision of a post-apocalyptic world...
and co-producing David Live
David Live
David Live is David Bowie’s first official live album, originally released by RCA Records in 1974. Recorded on the initial leg of Bowie’s US tour supporting Diamond Dogs in July of that year , it has been cited as one of the best live...
and Young Americans, was not involved due to competing schedules. However, the recording did cement the band line-up that would see Bowie through the rest of the decade, with bassist George Murray
George Murray (musician)
George Murray is an American bass guitarist best known for his work with David Bowie as a part of his regular ensemble , on a number of Bowie's albums released in the 1970s.-Selective Discography:Weldon Irvine...
joining Young Americans drummer Dennis Davis
Dennis Davis
Dennis Davis is an American drummer and session musician best known for his work with David Bowie.He was born and raised in Manhattan, New York City and studied with the late drummers Max Roach and Elvin Jones. He met guitarist Carlos Alomar when they were both playing with Roy Ayers...
and rhythm guitarist Carlos Alomar
Carlos Alomar
Carlos Alomar is an American guitarist, composer and arranger best known for his work with David Bowie, having played on more Bowie albums than any other musician...
.
The recording process developed with this team set the pattern for Bowie's albums up to and including Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)
Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)
Scary Monsters is an album by David Bowie, released in September 1980 by RCA Records. It was Bowie's final studio album for the label and his first following the so-called Berlin Trilogy of Low, "Heroes" and Lodger . Though considered significant in artistic terms, the trilogy had proved less...
in 1980: backing tracks laid down by Murray, Davis and Alomar; saxophone, keyboard and lead guitar overdubs (here by Bowie, Roy Bittan
Roy Bittan
Roy Bittan is an American keyboardist, best known as a member of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, which he joined on August 23, 1974...
and Earl Slick
Earl Slick
Earl Slick is a guitarist best known for his collaborations with David Bowie, Jim Diamond and Robert Smith, although he has also worked with other artists , John Waite, and even released some solo recordings.In the early 1970s, Earl Slick gained his...
, respectively); lead vocals; and finally various production tricks to complete the song. According to Bowie, "I got some quite extraordinary things out of Earl Slick. I think it captured his imagination to make noises on guitar, and textures, rather than playing the right notes." Alomar recalled, "It was one of the most glorious albums that I've ever done ... We experimented so much on it". Harry Maslin added, "I loved those sessions because we were totally open and experimental in our approach".
Bowie himself remembers almost nothing of the album's production, not even the studio, later admitting, "I know it was in LA because I've read it was". The singer was not alone in his use of cocaine during the sessions, Carlos Alomar commenting, "if there's a line of coke which is going to keep you awake till 8 a.m. so that you can do your guitar part, you do the line of coke ... the coke use is driven by the inspiration." Like Bowie, Earl Slick had somewhat vague memories of the recording: "That album's a little fuzzy—for the obvious reasons! We were in the studio and it was nuts—a lot of hours, a lot of late nights."
The sleeve front cover used a black and white still from The Man Who Fell to Earth
The Man Who Fell to Earth (film)
The Man Who Fell to Earth is a 1976 British science fiction film directed by Nicolas Roeg.The film is based on the 1963 novel of the same name by Walter Tevis, about an extraterrestrial who crash lands on Earth seeking a way to ship water to his planet, which is suffering from a severe drought...
, in which Bowie, as the character Thomas Jerome Newton, steps into the space capsule that will return him to his home planet. Bowie had insisted on the cropped black and white image as he felt that in the original coloured full size image the sky looked artificial. When Rykodisc
Rykodisc
Rykodisc Records is an American record label. It is owned by Warner Music Group, operates as a unit of WMG's Independent Label Group and is distributed through Alternative Distribution Alliance.-Company history:...
reissued Bowie's catalogue in the early 1990s the colour version was used. The back cover showed Bowie sketching with chalk—something he had been doing on the set of the film.
Style and themes
Station to Station is often cited as a transitional album in Bowie's career. Nicholas PeggNicholas Pegg
Nicholas Pegg is a British actor, director and writer.A graduate of the University of Exeter, Pegg trained at the Guildford School of Acting. His acting work in the theatre includes productions for Nottingham Playhouse, Scottish Opera, Birmingham Repertory Theatre and the Theatre Royal, Plymouth...
, author of The Complete David Bowie, called it a "precise halfway point on the journey from Young Americans
Young Americans (album)
Young Americans, released in 1975, shows off David Bowie’s 1970’s shift to his “obsession” with soul music . For this album, Bowie let go of the influences he had drawn from in the past, replacing them with sounds from “local dance halls”, which, at the time, were blaring with “…lush strings,...
to Low", while for Roy Carr
Roy Carr
Roy Carr is an English music journalist. He joined the New Musical Express in the late 1960s and has edited NME, VOX and Melody Maker magazines...
and Charles Shaar Murray
Charles Shaar Murray
Charles Shaar Murray is an English music journalist. His first experience in journalism came 1970 when he was asked to contribute to the satirical magazine Oz...
, it "effectively divides the '70's for David Bowie. It ties off the era of Ziggy Stardust
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars is a 1972 concept album by English musician David Bowie, which is loosely based on a story of a rock star named Ziggy Stardust. It peaked at number five in the United Kingdom and number 75 in the United States on the Billboard Music...
and plastic soul, and introduces the first taste of the new music that was to follow with 'Low'."
In terms of Bowie's own output, Station to Stations Euro-centric flavour had its musical antecedents in tracks like "Aladdin Sane 1913-1938-197?
Aladdin Sane (song)
"Aladdin Sane " is a song by David Bowie, the title track from his 1973 album Aladdin Sane. Described by biographer David Buckley as the album's "pivotal" song, it saw Bowie moving into more experimental musical styles following the success of his breakthrough glam rock release The Rise and Fall of...
" and "Time
Time (David Bowie song)
"Time" is a song by David Bowie. Written in New Orleans in November 1972 during the American leg of his first Ziggy Stardust tour, it was released as the opening track on Side Two of the album Aladdin Sane in April 1973...
" (1973), while its funk
Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...
/disco
Disco
Disco is a genre of dance music. Disco acts charted high during the mid-1970s, and the genre's popularity peaked during the late 1970s. It had its roots in clubs that catered to African American, gay, psychedelic, and other communities in New York City and Philadelphia during the late 1960s and...
elements were a development of the soul
Soul music
Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...
/R&B
Rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B, is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a...
sound of Young Americans (1975). More recently Bowie had begun to soak up the influence of German motorik
Motorik
Motorik is a term coined by music journalists to describe the 4/4 beat often used by "Krautrock" bands such as Neu! and Kraftwerk...
and electronic music
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
by bands like Neu!
Neu!
Neu! was a German band formed by Klaus Dinger and Michael Rother after their split from Kraftwerk in the early 1970s...
, Can
Can (band)
Can was an experimental rock band formed in Cologne, West Germany in 1968. Later labeled as one of the first "krautrock" groups, they transcended mainstream influences and incorporated strong minimalist and world music elements into their often psychedelic music.Can constructed their music largely...
and Kraftwerk
Kraftwerk
Kraftwerk is an influential electronic music band from Düsseldorf, Germany. The group was formed by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider in 1970, and was fronted by them until Schneider's departure in 2008...
. Thematically the album revisited concepts dealt with in songs such as "The Supermen
The Supermen
"The Supermen" is a song written by David Bowie in 1970 and released as the closing track on the album The Man Who Sold the World. It was one of a number of pieces on the album inspired by the works of literary figures such as Friedrich Nietzsche and H. P...
" from The Man Who Sold the World (1970) and "Quicksand
Quicksand (David Bowie song)
"Quicksand" is a song written by David Bowie in 1971 for the album Hunky Dory. This ballad features multi-tracked acoustic guitars and a string arrangement by Mick Ronson...
" from Hunky Dory
Hunky Dory
Hunky Dory is the fourth album by English singer-songwriter David Bowie, released by RCA Records in 1971. It was Bowie's first release through RCA, which would be his label for the next decade...
(1971): Nietzsche's
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...
'Overman'
Übermensch
The Übermensch is a concept in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche posited the Übermensch as a goal for humanity to set for itself in his 1883 book Thus Spoke Zarathustra ....
, the occult
Occult
The word occult comes from the Latin word occultus , referring to "knowledge of the hidden". In the medical sense it is used to refer to a structure or process that is hidden, e.g...
ism of Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley , born Edward Alexander Crowley, and also known as both Frater Perdurabo and The Great Beast, was an influential English occultist, astrologer, mystic and ceremonial magician, responsible for founding the religious philosophy of Thelema. He was also successful in various other...
, Nazi
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
fascination with Grail
Holy Grail
The Holy Grail is a sacred object figuring in literature and certain Christian traditions, most often identified with the dish, plate, or cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper and said to possess miraculous powers...
mythology, and the Kabbalah
Kabbalah
Kabbalah/Kabala is a discipline and school of thought concerned with the esoteric aspect of Rabbinic Judaism. It was systematized in 11th-13th century Hachmei Provence and Spain, and again after the Expulsion from Spain, in 16th century Ottoman Palestine...
. Pegg considered the album's theme to be a clash of "occultism and Christianity".
The musical style of "Golden Years
Golden Years (song)
An updated single for "Golden Years" was released in 2011 to coincide with the re-release of Station to Station. 4 new remixes were provided by DJs from radio station KCRW in California.-Track listing:# "Golden Years " - 3:27...
", the first track recorded for the album, built on the funk and soul of Young Americans but with a harsher, grinding edge. It has been described as carrying with it "an air of regret for missed opportunities and past pleasures". Bowie said that it was written for—and rejected by—Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....
, while Bowie's wife at the time Angie
Angela Bowie
Angela Bowie is an American cover girl, model, actress and musician. She is the former wife of English musician David Bowie and mother of film director Duncan Jones.-Early life:...
claimed it was penned for her. Though a Top 10 single on both sides of the Atlantic, it was rarely performed live on the subsequent Station to Station tour. "Stay
Stay (David Bowie song)
"Stay" is a song written by David Bowie for the 1976 album Station to Station.In July 1976 it was released as a single by RCA in the US. The length of the album version of "Stay" is 6:15....
" was another riff-driven funk piece, "recorded very much in our cocaine frenzy", according to Alomar. Its lyrics have been variously interpreted as reflecting on "the uncertainty of sexual conquest", and as an example of "the Duke's spurious romanticism".
The Christian element of the album was most obvious in the hymn-like "Word on a Wing", though for some commentators religion, like love, was simply another way for the Duke to "test his numbness". Bowie himself has claimed that in this song, at least, "the passion is genuine". When performing it live in 1999, the singer described it as coming from "the darkest days of my life ... I'm sure that it was a call for help". The closing ballad, "Wild Is the Wind
Wild Is the Wind (song)
"Wild Is the Wind" is a song written by Dimitri Tiomkin and Ned Washington. The track was originally recorded by Johnny Mathis for the 1957 film Wild Is the Wind...
", was the album's sole cover, and has been praised as one of the finest vocal performances of Bowie's career. Bowie was inspired to record the song after he met singer/pianist/songwriter Nina Simone
Nina Simone
Eunice Kathleen Waymon , better known by her stage name Nina Simone , was an American singer, songwriter, pianist, arranger, and civil rights activist widely associated with jazz music...
, who sang it on the album Wild Is the Wind
Wild Is the Wind (album)
Wild Is the Wind is singer/pianist/songwriter Nina Simone's sixth album under record company Philips. The album was made up of several recordings that were left over of recording sessions for previous Philips albums...
(1966).
The spectre of The Man Who Fell to Earths Thomas Jerome Newton sprawled in front of dozens of television monitors is said to have partly inspired the album's most upbeat track, "TVC15". Supposedly also about Iggy Pop
Iggy Pop
Iggy Pop is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. Though considered an innovator of punk rock, Pop's music has encompassed a number of styles over the years, including pop, metal, jazz and blues...
's girlfriend being eaten by a TV set, it has been called "incongruously jolly" and "the most oblique tribute to The Yardbirds
The Yardbirds
- Current :* Chris Dreja - rhythm guitar, backing vocals * Jim McCarty - drums, backing vocals * Ben King - lead guitar * David Smale - bass, backing vocals...
imaginable".
The title track has been described as heralding "a new era of experimentalism" for Bowie. "Station to Station
Station to Station (song)
"Station to Station" is a song written by David Bowie in 1975 and released in 1976. It is the title track and opener for the album of the same name. The song is Bowie's longest studio recording, clocking in just above 10 minutes...
" was in two parts: a slow, portentous piano-driven march, introduced by the sound of an approaching train juxtaposed with Earl Slick's agitated guitar feedback
Feedback
Feedback describes the situation when output from an event or phenomenon in the past will influence an occurrence or occurrences of the same Feedback describes the situation when output from (or information about the result of) an event or phenomenon in the past will influence an occurrence or...
, followed by an up-tempo rock/blues section. In 1999 Bowie told UNCUT
UNCUT (magazine)
Uncut magazine, trademarked as UNCUT, is a monthly publication based in London. It is available across the English-speaking world, and focuses on music, but also includes film and books sections...
magazine, "Since Station To Station the hybridization of R&B and electronics had been a goal of mine". Despite the noise of a train in the opening moments, Bowie claims that the title refers not so much to railway stations as to the Stations of the Cross
Stations of the Cross
Stations of the Cross refers to the depiction of the final hours of Jesus, and the devotion commemorating the Passion. The tradition as chapel devotion began with St...
, while the line "From Kether
Keter
*Keter in Kabbalah, is one of the ten Sephirot *Keter or kether כתר is the Hebrew word for "Crown ", as worn by a king or queen* Keter Publishing House is a book publisher based in Israel...
to Malkuth" relates to mystical places in the Kabbalah
Kabbalah
Kabbalah/Kabala is a discipline and school of thought concerned with the esoteric aspect of Rabbinic Judaism. It was systematized in 11th-13th century Hachmei Provence and Spain, and again after the Expulsion from Spain, in 16th century Ottoman Palestine...
, mixing Christian and Jewish allusions. Fixation with the occult was further evident in such phrases as "white stains
White Stains
White Stains is a poetic work written by English author and occultist Aleister Crowley under the pseudonym "George Archibald Bishop". It was published in 1898 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands....
", the name of a book of poetry by Aleister Crowley. The lyrics also gave notice of Bowie's recent drug use ("It's not the side effects of the cocaine / I'm thinking that it must be love"). With its Krautrock
Krautrock
Krautrock is a generic name for the experimental music scenes that appeared in Germany in the late 1960s and gained popularity throughout the 1970s, especially in Britain. The term is a result of the English-speaking world's reception of the music at the time and not a reference to any one...
influence, it was the album's clearest foretaste of Bowie's subsequent 'Berlin Trilogy
Berlin Trilogy
The Berlin Trilogy is a series of David Bowie albums recorded in collaboration with Brian Eno in the 1970s. The three albums are Low, "Heroes" and Lodger....
'.
Speaking to Creem
Creem
Creem , "America's Only Rock 'n' Roll Magazine," was a monthly rock 'n' roll publication first published in March 1969 by Barry Kramer and founding editor Tony Reay. It suspended production in 1989 but received a short-lived renaissance in the early 1990s as a glossy tabloid...
magazine in 1977, Bowie proclaimed that Station to Station was "devoid of spirit ... Even the love songs are detached, but I think it's fascinating."
Singles and unreleased tracks
Every song on Station to Station, with the exception of the title track, eventually appeared on a single. "Golden Years" was released in November 1975, two months before the album. Bowie allegedly got drunk to perform it on TV for the American show Soul TrainSoul Train
Soul Train is an American musical variety show that aired in syndication from October 1971 to March 2006. In its 35-year history, the show primarily featured performances by R&B, soul, and hip hop artists, although funk, jazz, disco, and gospel artists have also appeared.As a nod to Soul Trains...
, resulting in the film clip seen on music video programmes. It made number 8 in the UK and number 10 in the US (where it charted for 16 weeks) but, like "Rebel Rebel
Rebel Rebel
"Rebel Rebel" is a song by David Bowie, released in 1974 as a single and on the album Diamond Dogs. Cited as his most-covered track, it was effectively Bowie's farewell to the glam movement that had made him a star.-Music and lyrics:...
"'s relationship to Diamond Dogs
Diamond Dogs
Diamond Dogs is a concept album by David Bowie, originally released by RCA Records in 1974. Thematically it was a marriage of the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell and Bowie's own glam-tinged vision of a post-apocalyptic world...
(1974), was a somewhat unrepresentative teaser for the album to come.
"TVC15" was released in edited form as the second single in May 1976, making number 33 in the UK and number 64 stateside. "Stay", also shortened and appearing the same month, was issued as a companion 45 to RCA's Changesonebowie
Changesonebowie
Changesonebowie was David Bowie's first widely-selling compilation album, issued by RCA Records in 1976. It collected songs from the 1969-1976 period, including the first LP appearance of "John, I'm Only Dancing"...
greatest hits collection, though it did not appear on the compilation (Changesonebowie was itself packaged as a uniform edition to Station to Station, featuring a black-and-white cover and similar lettering). In November 1981, as Bowie's relationship with RCA was winding down, "Wild Is the Wind" was issued as a single to push the Changestwobowie
Changestwobowie
Changestwobowie, released in 1981, was a David Bowie compilation album issued by RCA Records. Its title and packaging followed the format of RCA's first Bowie compilation, Changesonebowie in 1976. As well as post-1976 singles, the album collected songs from earlier in Bowie's career that had not...
compilation. Backed with "Word on a Wing" and accompanied by a video shot especially for the release, it made number 24 in the UK and charted for 10 weeks.
Another song purportedly recorded during the album sessions at Cherokee Studios, a cover of Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen , nicknamed "The Boss," is an American singer-songwriter who records and tours with the E Street Band...
's "It's Hard to Be a Saint in the City", went unreleased at the time but was issued in 1990 on the Sound and Vision box set. According to Nicholas Pegg, however, the Cherokee work most likely consisted of overdubs to a track originally cut at Sigma Sound Studios
Sigma Sound Studios
Sigma Sound Studios is an American music recording studio in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania founded by recording engineer Joseph Tarsia in 1968.Located at 212 N. 12th Street in Philadelphia, it was the second studio in the country to offer 24-track recording and the first in the country to use console...
during Young Americans.
Release and reception
Station to Station was released in January 1976. BillboardBillboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
considered that Bowie had "found his musical niche" following songs like "Fame
Fame (David Bowie song)
"Fame" is a song recorded by David Bowie, initially released in 1975. It reached number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 during the week of September 20, 1975.-Song development:...
" and "Golden Years" but that "the 10-minute title cut drags". NME
NME
The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...
called it "one of the most significant albums released in the last five years". Both found the meaning of the lyrics difficult to fathom. In his consumer guide for The Village Voice
The Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...
, critic Robert Christgau
Robert Christgau
Robert Christgau is an American essayist, music journalist, and self-proclaimed "Dean of American Rock Critics".One of the earliest professional rock critics, Christgau is known for his terse capsule reviews, published since 1969 in his Consumer Guide columns...
gave the album an A rating, indicating "a great record both of whose sides offer enduring pleasure and surprise. You should own it". Christgau wrote that Bowie "can merge Lou Reed
Lou Reed
Lewis Allan "Lou" Reed is an American rock musician, songwriter, and photographer. He is best known as guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of The Velvet Underground, and for his successful solo career, which has spanned several decades...
, disco, and Huey Smith" and found the album a progression from his previous albums, stating "Miraculously, Bowie's attraction to black music has matured; even more miraculously, the new relationship seems to have left his hard-and-heavy side untouched".
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
writer Teri Moris applauded the album's 'rockier' moments but discerned a move away from the genre, finding it "the thoughtfully professional effort of a style-conscious artist whose ability to write and perform demanding rock & roll exists comfortably alongside his fascination for diverse forms ... while there's little doubt about his skill, one wonders how long he'll continue wrestling with rock at all." Circus
Circus (magazine)
Circus was a monthly American magazine devoted to rock music. It was published from 1966 to 2006. In its heyday the magazine had a full-time editorial staff that included some of the biggest names in rock journalism, including Paul Nelson, David Fricke, and Kurt Loder, and rivaled Rolling Stone in...
, noting that Bowie was "never one to maintain continuity in his work or in his life", declared that Station to Station "offers cryptic, expressionistic glimpses that let us feel the contours and palpitations of the masquer's soul but never fully reveal his face." The review also found various allusions to earlier Bowie efforts, such as the "density" of The Man Who Sold the World, the "pop feel" of Hunky Dory
Hunky Dory
Hunky Dory is the fourth album by English singer-songwriter David Bowie, released by RCA Records in 1971. It was Bowie's first release through RCA, which would be his label for the next decade...
, the "dissonance and angst" of Aladdin Sane
Aladdin Sane
Aladdin Sane is the sixth album by David Bowie, released by RCA Records in 1973 . The follow-up to his breakthrough The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, it was the first album Bowie wrote and released as a bona fide rock star...
, the "compelling percussion" of Young Americans
Young Americans (album)
Young Americans, released in 1975, shows off David Bowie’s 1970’s shift to his “obsession” with soul music . For this album, Bowie let go of the influences he had drawn from in the past, replacing them with sounds from “local dance halls”, which, at the time, were blaring with “…lush strings,...
, and the "youthful mysticism" of "Wild Eyed Boy from Freecloud
Wild Eyed Boy From Freecloud
"Wild Eyed Boy from Freecloud" is a song written by David Bowie in 1969 and first released as B-side to his single "Space Oddity". It was later included in his second eponymous album...
", concluding that "it shows Bowie pulling out on the most challenging leg of his winding journey".
Station to Station was, and remains, Bowie's highest-charting album in the US, reaching number 3 and remaining for 32 weeks. It was certified gold
Music recording sales certification
Music recording sales certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped or sold a certain number of copies, where the threshold quantity varies by type and by nation or territory .Almost all countries follow variations of the RIAA certification categories,...
by the RIAA
Recording Industry Association of America
The Recording Industry Association of America is a trade organization that represents the recording industry distributors in the United States...
on 26 February 1976. In the UK, it charted for 17 weeks, peaking at number 5, the last time one of his studio albums placed lower in his home country than in America.
Aftermath
With the Station to Station sessions completed in December 1975, Bowie started work on a soundtrack for The Man Who Fell to Earth with Paul BuckmasterPaul Buckmaster
Paul John Buckmaster is a Grammy Award-winning English artist, arranger and composer.He began learning the cello at the age of 4 and graduated from the Royal College of Music at age 16....
as his collaborator. Bowie expected to be wholly responsible for the film's music but found that "when I’d finished five or six pieces, I was then told that if I would care to submit my music along with some other people's... and I just said "Shit, you're not getting any of it". I was so furious, I’d put so much work into it." However Harry Maslin contended that Bowie was "burned out" and couldn't complete the work in any case. The singer eventually collapsed, admitting later, "There were pieces of me laying all over the floor". In the event, only one instrumental composed for the soundtrack saw the light of day, evolving into "Subterraneans
Subterraneans
"Subterraneans" is a song by David Bowie for his album Low . Subterraneans is mostly instrumental, with brief, obscure lyrics sung near the song's end....
" on his next studio album, Low.
Isolar - 1976 Tour
The David Bowie Isolar – 1976 Tour was a concert tour in support of the album Station To Station. It opened on 2 February 1976 at the Pacific Coliseum, Vancouver, British Columbia, and continued through North America and Europe, concluding at the Pavillon de Paris in Paris, France, on 18 May 1976...
, commencing 2 February 1976 and completing on 18 May 1976. Kraftwerk
Kraftwerk
Kraftwerk is an influential electronic music band from Düsseldorf, Germany. The group was formed by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider in 1970, and was fronted by them until Schneider's departure in 2008...
's "Radioactivity
Radioactivity (song)
Fatboy Slim covered "Radioactivity" on his compilation album Late Night Tales: Fatboy Slim. The song was released as a limited edition 7" single.- Track listing :# "Radioactivity" - Fatboy Slim# "Everything Is Everything" - Bootsy Collins...
" was employed as an overture to the shows, accompanying footage from Luis Buñuel
Luis Buñuel
Luis Buñuel Portolés was a Spanish-born filmmaker — later a naturalized citizen of Mexico — who worked in Spain, Mexico, France and the US..-Early years:...
's and Salvador Dali
Salvador Dalí
Salvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol , commonly known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres,Spain....
's surrealist
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
film Un Chien Andalou
Un chien andalou
Un Chien Andalou is a 1929 silent surrealist short film by the Spanish director Luis Buñuel and artist Salvador Dalí. It was Buñuel's first film and was initially released in 1929 to a limited showing in Paris, but became popular and ran for eight months....
. The staging featured Bowie, dressed in The Duke's habitual black waistcoat and trousers, a pack of Gitanes
Gitanes
Gitanes is a brand of French cigarettes, sold in many varieties of strengths and packages. It is currently owned by Imperial Tobacco following their acquisition of Altadis in January 2008, having been owned by SEITA before that. Originally rolled with darker or brun tobacco, in contrast to...
placed ostentatiously in his pocket, moving stiffly among "curtains of white light", an effect that spawned the nickname 'the White Light Tour'. In 1989 Bowie reflected, "I wanted to go back to a kind of Expressionist German-film
German Expressionism
German Expressionism refers to a number of related creative movements beginning in Germany before the First World War that reached a peak in Berlin, during the 1920s...
look ... and the lighting of, say, Fritz Lang
Fritz Lang
Friedrich Christian Anton "Fritz" Lang was an Austrian-American filmmaker, screenwriter, and occasional film producer and actor. One of the best known émigrés from Germany's school of Expressionism, he was dubbed the "Master of Darkness" by the British Film Institute...
or Pabst
Georg Wilhelm Pabst
-Biography:Pabst was born in Raudnitz, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary , the son of a railroad employee.Returning from the United States, he was in France when World War I began...
. A black-and-white movies look, but with an intensity that was sort of aggressive. I think for me, personally, theatrically, that was the most successful tour I’ve ever done." The Station to Station tour was the source of one of the artist's best-known bootlegs
Bootleg recording
A bootleg recording is an audio or video recording of a performance that was not officially released by the artist or under other legal authority. The process of making and distributing such recordings is known as bootlegging...
, culled from an FM radio broadcast
FM broadcasting
FM broadcasting is a broadcasting technology pioneered by Edwin Howard Armstrong which uses frequency modulation to provide high-fidelity sound over broadcast radio. The term "FM band" describes the "frequency band in which FM is used for broadcasting"...
of his 23 March 1976 concert at Nassau Coliseum
Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum
The Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum is a multi-purpose indoor arena in Uniondale, New York, United States. Home to the New York Islanders of the National Hockey League, the Coliseum is located approximately east of New York City on Long Island...
.
Bowie drew criticism during the tour for his alleged pro-fascist views. In a 1974 interview he had declared, "Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
was one of the first rock stars ... quite as good as Jagger
Mick Jagger
Sir Michael Philip "Mick" Jagger is an English musician, singer and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist and a founding member of The Rolling Stones....
... He staged a country", but managed to avoid condemnation. On the Station to Station tour, however, a series of incidents attracted publicity, starting in April 1976 with his detention by customs
Customs
Customs is an authority or agency in a country responsible for collecting and safeguarding customs duties and for controlling the flow of goods including animals, transports, personal effects and hazardous items in and out of a country...
in Eastern Europe for possession of Nazi
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
memorabilia. The same month he was quoted in Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
as saying that "Britain could benefit from a Fascist leader". Bowie would blame his addictions and the persona of The Thin White Duke for his lapses in judgment. The controversy culminated on 2 May 1976, shortly before the tour completed, in the so-called 'Victoria Station incident' in London, when Bowie arrived in an open-top Mercedes
Mercedes-Benz
Mercedes-Benz is a German manufacturer of automobiles, buses, coaches, and trucks. Mercedes-Benz is a division of its parent company, Daimler AG...
convertible
Convertible
A convertible is a type of automobile in which the roof can retract and fold away having windows which wind-down inside the doors, converting it from an enclosed to an open-air vehicle...
and apparently gave a Nazi salute to the crowd that was captured on film and published in NME
NME
The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...
. Bowie claimed that the photographer simply caught him in mid-wave, a contention backed by a young Gary Numan
Gary Numan
Gary Numan is an English singer, composer, and musician, most widely known for his chart-topping 1979 hits "Are 'Friends' Electric?" and "Cars". His signature sound consisted of heavy synthesizer hooks fed through guitar effects pedals.Numan is considered a pioneer of commercial electronic music...
who was among the throng that day: "Think about it. If a photographer takes a whole motor-driven film of someone doing a wave, you will get a Nazi salute at the end of each arm-sweep. All you need is some dickhead at a music paper or whatever to make an issue out it ..." The stigma remained, however, to the extent that the lines "To be insulted by these fascists/It's so degrading" from Scary Monsters
Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)
Scary Monsters is an album by David Bowie, released in September 1980 by RCA Records. It was Bowie's final studio album for the label and his first following the so-called Berlin Trilogy of Low, "Heroes" and Lodger . Though considered significant in artistic terms, the trilogy had proved less...
opening track "It's No Game
It's No Game
"It's No Game" is a song written by David Bowie for the 1980 album Scary Monsters , featuring lead guitar played by Robert Fripp...
", four years later, were interpreted as an attempt to bury the incident once and for all.
Legacy
Station to Station was a milestone in Bowie's transition to his late-1970s 'Berlin TrilogyBerlin Trilogy
The Berlin Trilogy is a series of David Bowie albums recorded in collaboration with Brian Eno in the 1970s. The three albums are Low, "Heroes" and Lodger....
'. Bowie himself has said of the album, "As far as the music goes, Low and its siblings were a direct follow-on from the title track", while Brian Eno
Brian Eno
Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno , commonly known as Brian Eno or simply as Eno , is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.Eno studied at Colchester Institute art school in Essex,...
opined that Low was "very much a continuation from Station to Station". It has also been described as "enormously influential on post-punk
Post-punk
Post-punk is a rock music movement with its roots in the late 1970s, following on the heels of the initial punk rock explosion of the mid-1970s. The genre retains its roots in the punk movement but is more introverted, complex and experimental...
". Roy Carr
Roy Carr
Roy Carr is an English music journalist. He joined the New Musical Express in the late 1960s and has edited NME, VOX and Melody Maker magazines...
and Charles Shaar Murray
Charles Shaar Murray
Charles Shaar Murray is an English music journalist. His first experience in journalism came 1970 when he was asked to contribute to the satirical magazine Oz...
wrote in 1981, "If Low was Gary Numan
Gary Numan
Gary Numan is an English singer, composer, and musician, most widely known for his chart-topping 1979 hits "Are 'Friends' Electric?" and "Cars". His signature sound consisted of heavy synthesizer hooks fed through guitar effects pedals.Numan is considered a pioneer of commercial electronic music...
's Bowie's album, then Station to Station was Magazine's
Magazine (band)
Magazine are an English post-punk group active from 1977 to 1981, then reformed in 2009. Their debut single, "Shot by Both Sides", is now acknowledged as a classic and their debut album, Real Life, is still widely admired as one of the greatest albums of all time...
." However, Stylus
Stylus Magazine
Stylus Magazine was an online music and film magazine launched in 2002. It featured long-form music journalism, four daily music reviews, movie reviews, a number of different podcasts, an MP3 blog, and a text blog....
declared in 2004 that "just as few had anticipated Bowie’s approach, few copied it ... for the most part this is an orphaned, abandoned style".
More than twenty years after its release, Bowie considered both Station to Station and Low "great, damn good" albums, but due to his disconnected state during its recording, listened to Station to Station "as a piece of work by an entirely different person". He elaborated:
In 1999, music biographer David Buckley described Station to Station as a "masterpiece of invention" that "some critics would argue, perhaps unfashionably, is his finest record". The same year, Eno called it "one of the great records of all time". In 2003, the album was ranked number 323 on Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time
The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
"The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" is the title of a 2003 special issue of American magazine Rolling Stone, and a related book published in 2005.Related news articles:...
. A year later, The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
ranked the album number 80 on its list of the 100 greatest British albums.
Track listing
All songs written by David BowieDavid Bowie
David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
except where noted.
Side one
- "Station to StationStation to Station (song)"Station to Station" is a song written by David Bowie in 1975 and released in 1976. It is the title track and opener for the album of the same name. The song is Bowie's longest studio recording, clocking in just above 10 minutes...
" – 10:14 - "Golden YearsGolden Years (song)An updated single for "Golden Years" was released in 2011 to coincide with the re-release of Station to Station. 4 new remixes were provided by DJs from radio station KCRW in California.-Track listing:# "Golden Years " - 3:27...
" – 4:00 - "Word on a WingWord on a Wing"Word on a Wing" is a song written by David Bowie in 1976 for the Station to Station album.Bowie admits that the song was written out of a coke-addled spiritual despair that he experienced while filming the movie The Man Who Fell To Earth...
" – 6:03
Side two
- "TVC 15TVC 15"TVC 15" is a song written and recorded by David Bowie and released in 1976.The track was inspired by an episode in which Iggy Pop, during a drug-fuelled period at Bowie’s LA home, hallucinated and believed the television set was swallowing his girlfriend. Bowie developed a story of a holographic...
" – 5:33 - "StayStay (David Bowie song)"Stay" is a song written by David Bowie for the 1976 album Station to Station.In July 1976 it was released as a single by RCA in the US. The length of the album version of "Stay" is 6:15....
" – 6:15 - "Wild Is the WindWild Is the Wind (song)"Wild Is the Wind" is a song written by Dimitri Tiomkin and Ned Washington. The track was originally recorded by Johnny Mathis for the 1957 film Wild Is the Wind...
" (Ned WashingtonNed WashingtonNed Washington was an American lyricist.-Biography:Washington was nominated for eleven Academy Awards from 1940 to 1962...
, Dimitri TiomkinDimitri TiomkinDimitri Zinovievich Tiomkin was a Russian-born Hollywood film score composer and conductor. He is considered "one of the giants of Hollywood movie music." Musically trained in Russia, he is best known for his westerns, "where his expansive, muscular style had its greatest impact." Tiomkin...
) – 6:02
CD releases
The album has been re-released four times to date on CD, the first being in 1985 by RCARCA Records
RCA Records is one of the flagship labels of Sony Music Entertainment. The RCA initials stand for Radio Corporation of America , which was the parent corporation from 1929 to 1985 and a partner from 1985 to 1986.RCA's Canadian unit is Sony's oldest label...
with the original black-and-white
Black-and-white
Black-and-white, often abbreviated B/W or B&W, is a term referring to a number of monochrome forms in visual arts.Black-and-white as a description is also something of a misnomer, for in addition to black and white, most of these media included varying shades of gray...
cover art, the second in 1991 by Rykodisc
Rykodisc
Rykodisc Records is an American record label. It is owned by Warner Music Group, operates as a unit of WMG's Independent Label Group and is distributed through Alternative Distribution Alliance.-Company history:...
(containing two bonus tracks), the third in 1999 by EMI
EMI
The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...
(featuring 24-bit digitally remastered sound and no bonus tracks), and finally in 2007 by EMI Japan replicating the original vinyl artwork.
1991 reissue bonus tracks
Recorded at Nassau ColiseumNassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum
The Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum is a multi-purpose indoor arena in Uniondale, New York, United States. Home to the New York Islanders of the National Hockey League, the Coliseum is located approximately east of New York City on Long Island...
, Uniondale, New York
Uniondale, New York
Uniondale is a hamlet as well as a suburb of New York City in Nassau County, New York, United States, on Long Island, in the Town of Hempstead. The population was 24,759 at the 2010 United States Census.-Geography:...
.
- "Word on a Wing" (liveRecorded live trackA recorded live track is a song or audio sequence recorded from live performances .Live song tracks typically have concert hall noise . Though often less precise than practiced, studio recordings, live recordings may offer a more exciting feel...
) – 6:10 - "Stay" (live) – 7:24
2010 reissues
In 2009 it was announced that a deluxe edition would be released in 2010, including a Dolby 5.1 mix of the album and the entire 1976 Nassau Coliseum show on two CDs. On 1 July 2010, Bowie's official website announced the contents of the reissues, to be released on 20 September that year.Special Edition and Digital Download
The special edition features three CDs in a special CD sized packaging, including a 16-page booklet and three photocards. The digital download edition includes the same audio content and a bonus track.CD 1: Station to Station 2010 transfer
- "Station to Station" – 10:11
- "Golden Years" – 4:02
- "Word on a Wing" – 6:01
- "TVC 15" – 5:31
- "Stay" – 6:12
- "Wild Is the Wind" – 6:02
- 2010 transfer of Station to Station from the original stereo analogue master in mini-replica sleeve.
CD 2 & 3: Live Nassau Coliseum '76
- "Station to Station" – 11:53
- "Suffragette City" – 3:31
- "Fame" – 4:02
- "Word on a Wing" – 6:06
- "Stay" – 7:25
- "Waiting for the Man" – 6:20
- "Queen Bitch" – 3:12
- "Life on Mars?" – 2:13
- "Five Years" – 5:03
- "Panic in Detroit" (with most of drum solo edited out) – 6:03
- "Changes" (with band intro) – 4:11
- "TVC 15" – 4:58
- "Diamond Dogs" – 6:38
- "Rebel Rebel" – 4:07
- "The Jean Genie" – 7:28
- Recorded live at the Nassau Coliseum, Uniondale, NY, USA. 23 March 1976, in gatefold CD wallet.
Digital download bonus track
- "Panic in Detroit" (Unedited alternative mix) – 13:09
Deluxe Edition
The deluxe edition features five CDs, one DVD and three 12" vinyls in an album-sized box, including a 24-page booklet and two replicas of the David Bowie on Stage 1976 and the 1976 Fan Club Folder (contents listed below).CD 1: Station to Station 2010 transfer
CD 2: Station to Station 1985 CD master
CD 3: Station to Station single edits five track EP
- "Golden Years"
- "TVC 15"
- "Stay"
- "Word on a Wing" (first time on CD)
- "Station to Station" (previously unreleased version)
CD 4 & 5: Live Nassau Coliseum '76
DVD
- Station to Station (original analogue master, 96 kHz/24bit LPCM stereo)
- Station to Station (new Harry Maslin 5.1 surround sound mix in DTS 96/24 and Dolby Digital)
- Station to Station (original analogue master, LPCM stereo)
- Station to Station (new Harry Maslin stereo mix, 48 kHz/24bit LPCM stereo)
Vinyl 1: Heavyweight 12" vinyl of Station to Station from the original stereo analogue master in replica sleeve
Vinyls 2 & 3: Heavyweight 12" vinyls of Live Nassau Coliseum '76 in gatefold sleeve
David Bowie on Stage 1976 collectibles
1976 Fan Club Folder collectibles
Musicians
- David BowieDavid BowieDavid Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
– vocals, guitar, tenor and alto saxophoneSaxophoneThe saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...
, Moog synthesiser, MellotronMellotronThe Mellotron is an electro-mechanical, polyphonic tape replay keyboard originally developed and built in Birmingham, England in the early 1960s. It superseded the Chamberlin Music Master, which was the world's first sample-playback keyboard intended for music... - Carlos AlomarCarlos AlomarCarlos Alomar is an American guitarist, composer and arranger best known for his work with David Bowie, having played on more Bowie albums than any other musician...
– guitar - Roy BittanRoy BittanRoy Bittan is an American keyboardist, best known as a member of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, which he joined on August 23, 1974...
– piano - Dennis DavisDennis DavisDennis Davis is an American drummer and session musician best known for his work with David Bowie.He was born and raised in Manhattan, New York City and studied with the late drummers Max Roach and Elvin Jones. He met guitarist Carlos Alomar when they were both playing with Roy Ayers...
– drums - George MurrayGeorge Murray (musician)George Murray is an American bass guitarist best known for his work with David Bowie as a part of his regular ensemble , on a number of Bowie's albums released in the 1970s.-Selective Discography:Weldon Irvine...
– bass - Warren PeaceWarren PeaceWarren Peace is a pseudonym for Geoffrey Alexander MacCormack , an English vocalist, composer and dancer best known for his work with David Bowie in the 1970s.-Musical career:...
– backing vocals - Earl SlickEarl SlickEarl Slick is a guitarist best known for his collaborations with David Bowie, Jim Diamond and Robert Smith, although he has also worked with other artists , John Waite, and even released some solo recordings.In the early 1970s, Earl Slick gained his...
– guitar
Album
| Chart (1976) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| Norway Norway Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million... 's album chart |
8 |
| Sweden Sweden Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund.... 's album chart |
11 |
| UK Albums Chart UK Albums Chart The UK Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales in the United Kingdom. It is compiled every week by The Official Charts Company and broadcast on a Sunday on BBC Radio 1 , and published in Music Week magazine and on the OCC website .To qualify for the UK albums chart... |
5 |
| US Billboard Billboard (magazine) Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis... Pop Albums |
3 |
Single
| Year | Single | Chart | Peak position |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1975 | "Golden Years" | UK Singles Chart UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ... |
8 |
| "Golden Years" | US Billboard Pop Singles | 10 | |
| 1976 | "Golden Years" | Netherland's singles chart | 6 |
| "Golden Years" | Sweden's singles chart | 10 | |
| "Stay"/"Golden Years" | US Billboard Club Play Singles | 9 | |
| "TVC 15" | Sweden's singles chart | 18 | |
| "TVC 15" | UK Singles Chart | 33 | |
| "TVC 15" | US Billboard Pop Singles | 64 | |
| 1981 | "Wild Is the Wind" | UK Singles Chart | 24 |