Just been reading some of the messages on this MB, and I feel the album Young Americans is recieved alot of negative reviews, and is seen as mediocre compared to others!
I am shocked by this becasuse along with station to station, it is proabably my favorite Bowie records of all time. I find it is straight from his heart, playing what he loveddoing, before he got into the Rock n Roll scene. The complete turn around in style from his ziggy days and Diamond dog days was amazing. That mid-70's demise of his personal life, and drug abuse brought out some of the most heart-wrenching, and truly brilliant music of his carear.. even though he said he couldnt rememeber recording half of it. I even think the extra songs available on the cd are truly amazing, especially 'its gonna be me', which for me, is his most romantic song ever.
fascination is I think, up there with his best also
I love this album. Lost of people seem to be pretty passionate about which albums they like and don't like (which Bowie they prefer?). I love them all but this is one of my favorites. One of the things I like best about Bowie is the way he continues to reinvent (or in some cases recycle) himself according to his whims. He just does whatever he wants to do and I love it all.
Absolutely. Young Americans is a mind boggling achievment which exposed dbs raw capability like nothing else. The fact that this album really works and is fantastically good is fairly difficult to believe. Roger Taylor of Duran Duran recently said that YA could not possibly have been done without serious amounts of cocaine. Whether thats true or not is debatable, but it illustrates that sense that YA is something beyond normal, or even really really exceptional, human capability.
Imagine if Radiohead dropped all the existential angst, electronic noise, abstract form and did something like say, Jeff Buckley. Impossible? Thats what db did, and he absolutely nailed it.
Heh, I just remembered reading an interview someplace in which Thom Yorke professed that he'd love to be able to do a soul/R&B album, but sadly accepted that he probably never would.
Absolutely! I agree, I think it's very underrated. It sits up there with Station To Station, Low and Diamond Dogs as one of my all time fave albums... I think db's vocals are great and Can You Hear Me is a song that's hard to surpass. Years back, it was one of the few albums that I could play from start to finish without skipping tracks - although I must admit that these days I do tend to switch off at Fame (never one of the highlights for me and conveniently the last track!).
To me Young Americans sounds rushed. The vocals are weak and the lyrics not up to scratch. And as for the Across The Universe cover - jesus was that a mis-calculation.
I love Fame and that still stands up today but the rest is really dated and hasn't stood the test of time like most of his other 70s work.
IMHO.
It was very well received at the time and is still a favourite of mine and I'll never tire of it. It is a one-off. Even Station to Station is a different direction and I do feel that these two albums should not be lumped together so much, as they are distinctly different in texture and message.
Perhaps yes db's voice was hoarse around this time ( he was still touring the Diamond Dogs TheaTour while recording the YA stuff) but it does add a touch of class to what would otherwise be considered the kind of album he would definately NOT do.
As I 've said before, Young Americans with the inclusion of the out-takes we all now know(without the two Lennon collaborations though ) would have been a masterpiece.
Got to be one of his worst... along with Tonite and Never Let Me Down.
Tried to listen to it again recently, but it is such dross! I find it really painful.....give me Tin Machine anyday!!
At the time of release a lot of fans felt that our man had betrayed us and gone over to motown/soul. Some feared we'd lost him forever. There was a very similar backlash against Low and Heroes due to the lack of vocals. Try to imagine the let down when after months of waiting for new songs your'e presented with Warzawa or Sense of doubt.It was all very frustrating and the worry for us then was that the Bowie we loved was moving,not only on but away from us.I think that basic 'anti' feeling towards YA still remains today. I know it took me many years to come to appreciate 'those' albums. Even at the live 'STAGE' tour you could feel the tension in the audience until songs with lyrics were played. Of course we were all to shortsighted to see what was before us and as someone else on here says 'Thats what makes David Bowie David Bowie' [at least I think thats what he says].
Young Americans has ALWAYS been one of my fave if not my FAVE album. I agree Station To Station is very different in concept but never-the-less is right up there along side it.
Knowing and seeing how desperately ill Bowie was, albeit drug induced, he was ill, a virtual bag of bones. I still to this day cannot get over the raw power and conviction in that bag of bones’ voice on this album! Undoubtedly his best, both vocally and in content and form. How incredibly sensual his vocals are on Can You Hear Me and in contrast so powerful on Across The Universe which I think is an excellent cover, as all Mr. B’s are. Bowie always manages to cover songs by singing them the way they should have been sung originally, with feeling, with soul! But lest we forget Somebody Up There Likes Me, for me another masterpiece for all the reasons already mentioned.
In my mind Young Americans has never been underrated but that’s just my mind!
I am not hot on this album, must mean I hate sex then but my god I have tried and tried to get into it, but can't. Title track I can get by with and strangely ATU I also like (I can hear the sneers). but win? glad that never made the last tour, horrible, sounds like my dad in the shower, well as he used to sound in the shower, been a long time since i heard him in the shower, not taht he's dirty, just haven't lived there for years.
On the subject of dad's...na, YA right? No Tim Machine? I've been ill you know.
I'm ill too: I'm throwing down gauntlets saying those who don't like r & b surely don't like sex either.
Ahh,hell-I'm probably more ill (read: f@cked up) than I know...
I suppose there's merit in self-recognition..
across the universe and fame werent on there. at least, in my book. id have put the tracks that have emerged since then on there instead. it would have made the album as a whole look much stronger.
i think a problem a lot of people had was either that bowie was trying to do soul which they treated as betryal or something stupid, or that they found fault with his envisioning of then-current soul as being watery, mild, and somewhat soft.
can hold my tongue no more.
young americans is a beautiful collection of words and music.
an exquisite lush mood fills the room from the moment it starts
i'll never forget wembley 83 when he brought some of that magic to the stage with the title track coupled with a fred astaire fast foot shuffle....the ultimate in cool
apart from the obvious other great tunes (every damn one o them!)
across the universe....what a great vocal..building to a crescendo of urgency , desperation and ultimate defiance, awesome!! ok look its a beatle tune so by definition it cant be definitive,but its a whole new treatment of a cool number,so very different to the original.
thats my opinion and nothings gonna change it (so there) x
NO NO NO NO NOOOOOOOO!!!!!
can a heartbeat live in the fever raging inside of me??
I always wondered if fans of David's in the UK and abroad resented the title of the album to an extent that it tainted their open-mindedness to an extent.
On the *surface*,it smacks of a mild conceit: 'Young Americans ' and he's from the UK.
Would it have gone down better here and there if he had called it 'Young Britannica ' or something?
(Just trying to appropriate an "alt." title and using as many of the original syllable-count as possible ...)
Considering he left songs such as 'It's Gonna Be Me', 'John I'm Only Dancing (Again)' and especially 'After Today' off the finished album, I love 'Young Americans'.
I know that he's played "Young Americans" on the 'Serious Moonlight','Glass Spider' and 'Sound+Vision' tours in '83,'87 and '90 respectively.
Also,I heard he and his band rehearsed "Fascination" for 'Live Aid' back in '85 but changed their minds at the last second and slipped in "Modern Love" to appease EMI (or so I read).
Just those two songs basically,I believe: "Fame" and the title track.
About the live stuff from the YA album being ignored..
Although I think it is one of his best albums he has produced, and certainly one of my faves, Im not sure how well the material would hold up in such huge venues that Bowie plays nowadays. (apart from fame and YA)
Alot of the songs on the album are not as "grand" as some of his other hits, and have more subtle melodies and rely on backing vocals and harmonies. They are all about the 'atmosphere' of the song just as much as the tune.
The elements that makes these songs so beautiful and work so well on the album, would be lost in such a huge arena. A smoky, more intimate club would be more fitting I think. (a smaller atmospheric venue where David could just blast it out).
A song that I am so dissapointed that David hasnt played since 1974, which works so well in a large venue as it did on the DD tour, is Sweet thing/ candidate/ reprise.. why not!! Im sure it is a popular song and would go down well at a live show...
for me is one of those albums I play often more than the big 'fan' albums. I tihnk his voice is brilliant, the arrangements stunning and the lyrics as good as you get. My faves are Win ( I have played this to a helluva lot of non bowie fans and they love it cant believe its him) Somebody up there, Fame (yes it has in time become a hoary standard but the lyrics are still the best.) The outtakes would have made the album a bigger calssic than it is. I cant stand Across the Universe think its a bad song covered badly. Each to their own. Eh?
I think Across the Universe is a wonderful song - such a unique melody and probably my favourite Beatles/Lennon track EVER - and the Bowie cover of it is so atrociously bad one becomes quite affectionate towards it!
On the whole, though, I'm very fond of the album. It's hard to get quite as thrilled about it as say Diamond Dogs, Aladdin Sane, Lodger, Scary Monsters, Station to Station which have such powerful, towering personalities ... it's not quite up there with the giants ... and yet YA is a very respectable and likeable album.
Fascination, Somebody Up There and Fame are glorious.
The r&b grooves can be a bit rigid and unfunky on Right and Win, but Win has a unique little atmosphere and that line about starting fires, and the one where Bowie says "I say it's hip to be alive" sounding like he means anything BUT are killer.
I am sure I read some where that John Lennon said DB's version of Across The Universe on Young Americans was how he wanted the Beatles to record it originally. Apparently he didn't like McCartney's input on the Beatles version.
Given that Lennon played guitar on the Young Americans version, it seems very likely that Lennon had a huge influence on the arrangement.
Have another listen to it...it's classic Lennon style.
Is that right? I had always assumed (guessed) that Lennon had a hand in it, but had never heard it confirmed.
I think its a terrific version, much better than the rather twee and anaemic original - which I stilled like trememdously anyway. Of course beatle fanatics will never agree.
"I am sure I read some where that John Lennon said DB's version of Across The Universe on Young Americans was how he wanted the Beatles to record it originally. Apparently he didn't like McCartney's input on the Beatles version."
Lennon was never happy with anything he or The Beatles did and said that he thought Paul subsconsciously tried to destroy that one. He didn't like The Beatles version, but he would have rerecorded ALL his Beatles songs.
I don't think the original is twee, though, but cosmic and haunting! The metre of its verse melody is like rain falling; so extraordinary and such beautiful words.
Bowie's version is just so hammed up I think you can only really appreciate it as being ultra-camp - it destroys every last nuance of the original. But I have grown to like it, if only for its audacious rewriting and hamming up of a classic.
The thing that bemuses me about people thinking the Bowie version is actually better is that it completely omits the Jai Guru Deva Om section; one of the loveliest bits of the original.
And that two minute bit at the end where Bowie goes "Nothin's gow-na change it, NOTHING, NOTHING, NOTHING etc." dragging on and on and on is just horrible!
1. Young Americans sits among my faves, that whole period from Dogs thru Scary is the best period in DBs career in my opinion.
2. Can You Hear Me is superb, probably one of his best ballads ever.
3. "Universe" is the low point but doesn't nearly plumb the depths as much as God Only Knows, now that is an appaling cover.
4. People prefer Tonight/NLMD to YA, does my head in so much I can't comment!
If you follow "Dogs thru YA to Station there is a natural progression so I suppose without YA there would be no Station and in turn no Low, what a miserablr thought.
lennon probably only disliked his version of the song
July 15 2004, 12:39 PM
due to how he remembered the beatles at that time. as for the quote that he liked DBs version more, i can only think that was him either being contrary for its own sake or just being perverse.
i used to hate DBs version with a passion. i still dont much like it but its 'interesting'. the best cover of ATU ive heard by far is the remake by rufus wainwright on the soundtrack to i am sam. rufus' voice is quite pained and although its melodramatic, he never makes it farcical or hammy like DB. its a lot more considered. DB sounds like he almost set out to harangue the song, its almost careless as if he doesnt really care for it (but then its not even humorous enough for that so perhaps not). or perhaps lennon told him to do something malicious to the beatles catalogue and he obliged.
"The Beatles didn't make a good record of "Across the Universe." I think subconsciously we - I thought Paul subconsciously tried to destroy my great songs. We would play experimental games with my great pieces, like "Strawberry Fields," which I always felt was badly recorded. It worked, but it wasn't what it could have been." - John Lennon, Playboy, 1980
Give me an issue and I'll give you a tissue - Lou Reed
YA is one of my favourite Bowie albums and it always irks that in a live context we only ever get Fame. Don't get me wrong, Fame is a great song, but I don't need to hear it EVERY time Bowie tours. When I first heard ATU I didn't realise it was a Beatles song, since I'm not really a fan of the band. When I finally got to hear the original I thought Bowie's was better, but maybe this is just a case of what you are used to? I hate any artist covering Bowie - it never seems to be as good and I'm sure Beatles fans feel the same. Many people on this board seem to think that Bowie murdered Try Some, Buy Some on the Reality album but I love his version. Same with Gemini Spacecraft on Heathen (here he made something that was complete crap into a wonderful song IMO). I obviously just like a lot of Bowie covers!
To get back to YA, I think it would be great if Bowie did a few more "albums-back-to-back" gigs a la Heathen/Low. My preference would be for Diamind Dogs/Young Americans mini-tour with all the YA outtakes included. Now that really would be something...
Re: roy carr/charles shaar murrays summary WAS right
July 15 2004, 5:19 PM
"A song that I am so dissapointed that David hasnt played since 1974, which works so well in a large venue as it did on the DD tour, is Sweet thing/ candidate/ reprise"
Well, he missed an opportunity recently. He could have started singing "Boys, boys, it's a sweet thing" when that lollipop whacked him.
I find it refeshing to listen to...partly because I don't listen to it very often, but then I enjoy it more when I do (a tactic I seriously recommend for listening pleasure, btw! The more variety the better...).
Fascination and Right let the side down a little for me, but they are in a similar mood to the rest of the album, so I still 'get into' them. I just wouldn't get much from listening to those two out of the context of the album.That said Fascination did sound ok on the box set, and the early, langorous, take of Right on bootleg (with those 2 other early takes) sounded good. Of course those Young Americans sessions tracks WILL be missing from a Young Americans 30th Anniversary if there is one...
Right and Fascination are the best two tracks on YA for me
They are the reason I got hooked on that period
We'd never heard db embark on that direction b4, and those two represent the extremes of what he was trying to accomplish during those sessions
That said, I do have my fair share of Smokey, Stevie and Motown CD's.
Just got that new Northern Soul CD... a bit hit and miss as some of the tracks are remakes!! It does have that brilliant 'Nothin' but a heartache' from the KFC ad (and all the other KFC tunes according to the sleevenotes).
There's one or two other CD's I want to tell the (Bowie Wonder)world about, so maybe I'll bring them to the library next time and write a 'Stranger's Review' piece.
