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Aladdin Sane by David Bowie

Aladdin Sane

Release Date: 7/16/1990

Recording Date: 1/1973

Tracks: 10

Length: 00:40:47 Hrs

Label: EMI Music Distribution

Type: CD,LP

Genre/Styles:
Hard Rock, Glam Rock, Contemporary Pop/Rock, Piano, Guitar (Electric), Vocals, Proto-Punk, Experimental Rock, Album Rock, Art Rock

Album Tracks (10)

Song Title
Length
1.
Watch That Man
04:30
2.
Aladdin Sane (1913-1938-197?)
05:07
3.
Drive-In Saturday
04:36
4.
Panic in Detroit
04:27
5.
Cracked Actor
03:01
6.
Time
05:14
7.
The Prettiest Star
03:31
8.
Let's Spend the Night Together
03:10
9.
The Jean Genie
04:06
10.
Lady Grinning Soul
03:52

What the Critics Say

Ziggy Stardust wrote the blueprint for David Bowie's hard-rocking glam, and Aladdin Sane essentially follows the pattern, for both better and worse. A lighter affair than Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane is actually a stranger album than its predecessor, buoyed by bizarre lounge-jazz flourishes from pianist Mick Garson and a handful of winding, vaguely experimental songs. Bowie abandons his futuristic obsessions to concentrate on the detached cool of New York and London hipsters, as on the compressed rockers "Watch That Man," "Cracked Actor," and "The Jean Genie." Bowie follows the hard stuff with the jazzy, dissonant sprawls of "Lady Grinning Soul," "Aladdin Sane," and "Time," all of which manage to be both campy and avant-garde simultaneously, while the sweepingly cinematic "Drive-In Saturday" is a soaring fusion of sci-fi doo wop and melodramatic teenage glam. He lets his paranoia slip through in the clenched rhythms of "Panic in Detroit," as well as on his oddly clueless cover of "Let's Spend the Night Together." For all the pleasures on Aladdin Sane, there's no distinctive sound or theme to make the album cohesive; it's Bowie riding the wake of Ziggy Stardust, which means there's a wealth of classic material here, but not enough focus to make the album itself a classic. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi

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