Best of Bowie: 40 - 36

40. "Cracked Actor" (Aladdin Sane - 1973) - One of the many great, grungey blues riffs on Aladdin Sane, "Cracked Actor" is a song of crazy sexual abandon in L.A. When Bowie was on tour in the US for Ziggy Stardust, he wrote quiet a few tunes about his touring experience. Aladdin Sane would become the album of these tour songs and "Cracked Actor" is definitely the Ziggy vision of Hollywood. It's a vision of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll that is gritty, dirty and hard rockin'. This album really showed a more aggressive rock and roll approach than the more baroque arrangements of his prior Ziggy material and for that it's worth blasting and rocking out to. The title of the song is curious as well as Bowie himself is an "actor" of sorts, putting on these disguises and costumes. It may have been a reflection of the hard times on the road and the need for "company." This is all speculation on my part. Regardless of the true meaning of the song, "Cracked Actor" is one of Bowie's hardest rockers.

39. "Win" (Young Americans - 1975)- Quite the opposite of the aforementioned tune, "Win" is a slow jam of jazzy and smooth proportions. Instead of aggression, "Win" turns up the charm, but still in an unsettling way, mainly in it's lyrical content. Bowie has rarely looked at the brighter side of life and even in this slow jam that'll make the ladies fall to their knees, there is a sense of doubt. It's not quite a love song, although musically it sounds like a bedroom anthem. It's more of a song about not giving up. "All you've got to do is Win." Bowie's shattered croon is backed up again by glorious backing vocals and a rippling saxophone. It's a wonderful track. If you think that this style isn't an influence on future generations, Beck performed this track on several occasions (including in Philadelphia where the song was recorded.) Beck also did his own mock up of a jazzy, love-fest on Midnite Vultures with the fantastic bedroom jazz of "Debra,"an obvious antecedent to "Win."

38. "Starman" (The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars - 1972)

One of Bowie's more classic pop-rock moments, "Starman" is a sumptuous treat. This is another side of Mick Ronson that many don't give him credit for. The string arrangements throughout this album and this song are all by Ronson as well as the catchy riffing. He excelled at creating a functionality for string arrangements amidst a rolling rock ballad. Mirroring T. Rex, Bowie's main competitor for glam rock king at the time, but this song soars high and into the ether. This is Bowie's ballad to rock and roll as a saving grace. This was a constant message in a lot of music in the late 60's and early 70's and this is one of the more hopeful visions in Bowie's catalog.

37. "TVC 15" (Station to Station - 1976) One of Bowie's stranger lyrical songs, "TVC 15" is a disco jam for the ages. It's swirling verses, sung with crazed abandon and almost out of breath intensity create an air of unease amidst a killer beat. The track based on a drug binge with friend and cohort Iggy Pop after Iggy hallucinated his TV eating his girlfriend. Strange, but coming from the mind of a guy deeply paranoid and over-drugged, it's no surprise. As many Bowie songs tend to, this track has a brilliant backbone of piano and guitar haze. This track showed that Bowie's new-ish band of Carlos Alomar, George Murray and Dennis Davis really was coming into their own. Although not as flashy a guitarist as Mick Ronson, Alomar's understated playing with the ripping rhythm section was flexing their muscles with this track. (Editor's Note: The video here from Top of the Pops is fucking stellar.)


36. "I'm Afraid of Americans" (Earthling - 1997) It's a common mistake to give full credit to Trent Reznor for "I'm Afraid of Americans." Although the version that he remixed is in fact the one we most know and hear, this track dates back to 1995's Outside, which was recorded and written by Bowie and Eno. Although there version . Much like "I'm Deranged," it deals with paranoia but in a much more sardonic way. The industrial vibe of the song makes it a no-brainer as to why Trent Reznor was tapped for a remix. His version adds just a bit of edge to the song with his usual drum loops and intensely heavy guitar. Even more memorable to most, this is one of Bowie's best videos with a paranoid bowie being stalked by an exquisitely creepy Trent Reznor through the streets of NYC.

The Best of Bowie: 50 Great Tracks

After a friend requested I bring the blog back, I decided to do so and in the only way I know possible....another arbitrary list of sorts. This time, I've broken down 50 great tracks by the one and only David Bowie and put them in a sorta arbitrary but numerical order. Opinions flair, but ultimately, 50 great songs by the unbelievably brilliant David Bowie will be broken down as I see fit. No covers will be allowed so unfortunately "It Ain't Easy" and "Cactus" won't be found on this list. Let's start with five that didn't make the cut, and unfortunately so as these are great songs.

HONORABLE MENTION!

"Unwashed and Somewhat Slightly Dazed" - From Bowie's first proper full length album, this curiously strange song is something worth checking out off of this album. Unlike it's follow up, The Man Who Sold the World, Bowie's Space Oddity has a lack of cohesion overall, but this track is a compass point in the direction of where Bowie was going. Opening like a typical hard rocker off of Man Who Sold but grooving into a more glam bowie stomp afterward, this is something special. Bowie's competent harmonica solo flows over the riff nicely.

"Afraid" - Bowie may have had his "Golden Years" in the 1970's, but his 2002 album Heathen may have been his best album since the 1970's. "Afraid" is a competent rock song with Bowie's brilliant paranoia ladled over it. Tony Vistonti and Bowie returned for this record and Heathen is the perfect blend of where Bowie went in the 90's and where he and Visconti excelled in the late 70's after his glam years subsided. The perfectly tight band with the drapery of cello's and Bowie's trembling lyrics make for an underrated if not forgotten classic in the Bowie canon.

"Hang Onto Yourself" - The Ramones stole their schtick from this classic proto punk riff. It's a bouncy, glamed out track that has an intensely tight bass groove and an unforgettable guitar riff that Mick Ronson cranks out. A hard cut from the top 50 off of Bowie's classic and easily most loved The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust. There is something rollicking about this track that keeps me coming back to it, but overall in the grand scheme of Bowie's massive catalog, it lacks the staying power beyond a good riff and a toe-tapping beat.

"African Night Flight" - Be it because this song is ridiculously crazy in it's existence or because it's the perfect intersection of Bowie's strange subconscious lyric structure and Eno and Carlos Alomar's strange synth/guitar growls. Deep in Eno's obsession with world music and Bowie's love for the strange and foreign, this track drips with strange bleeps and blips as Alomar's metallic guitar riffs in the background. Lodger is a great album, but not many songs come off of it with ease and love. This is one that closely makes the cut for one of those great Bowie gems.

"Fascination" - Bowie was a constant collaborator--we've already mentioned Eno, Ronson and Visconti--and one of his best was with one Luther Vandross on his "plastic-soul" outing Young Americans. Fits right in with Curtis Mayfield and Funkadelic, Bowie somehow is able to tap into the American 70's perfectly. Maybe it was Vandross' tip of back-up singers or the funky-as-fuck sax and bass volleys, but this is one of the groovier songs in Bowie's line-up of greats. Also, this badass track was recorded in none-other than Philadelphia, one underrated music town amidst many great ones.

Coming soon.... a bi-polar track from Heroes to kick off the countdown.