DAVID BOWIE - ALADDIN SANE - RCA LSP-4852 - 1973 - Excellent
$
20
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Description
From Far Out Magazine --
You can tell that David Bowie had a knack for music as much as he had a flair for the dramatics. To Bowie, who also tried his hand as a mime artist and as an actor throughout his career, it was all about incorporating optical paraphernalia to go with his music and putting that creation out to the public as a whole, distinctive and singular piece. What immediately comes to mind is his character as Cloud in the mime act Threepenny Pierrot, his other widely known persona of Ziggy Stardust, and of course, Aladdin Sane. The aesthetics of these characters did not only draw from the kind of music he produced, but his appearance affected the music too. Ziggy Stardust, for example, was the iconic alter ego that crash-landed with the advent of glam rock.
Probably one of Bowie’s better-known on-stage personalities, the fantastical figure of Ziggy gained him mainstream popular acclaim, proving he didn’t need to compromise to make sales. An extension of Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust persona was the seminal figure of Aladdin Sane, which was, essentially, what Bowie described as “Ziggy Stardust goes to America”.
Aladdin Sane was the sixth studio album by Bowie and directly followed his previous hit, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. The decorative front cover of the album was, of course, the iconic photo of a shirtless Bowie with the colourful flash-like scar painted on his face, (what looks like) a teardrop loosely positioned on his clavicle, his eyes closed and mouth slightly agape. The photograph was symbolic in many ways.
For starters, it represented Bowie at a time when he was struggling to come to terms with his rising stardom and felt himself “crack” under the building pressures of a life of fame. It was a time when he wanted to be “up on stage performing my songs, but on the other hand not really wanting to be on those buses with all those strange people.” As an explanation, he said, “So Aladdin Sane was split down the middle.”
The cover art, photographed by Brian Duffy, successfully conveyed this split brilliantly as the sharp, distinctive painted scar contrasted the soft, vulnerable tear, with Bowie’s eyes shut, apparently unwilling to face the reality of the polarities he found himself trapped in. Duffy, who would also go on to work with Bowie for his later albums like Lodger and Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), was quite certain on how he wanted the final photograph to look like, taking much of the inspiration from Bowie’s articulation of feeling like a “cracked actor”.
Track List for Aladdin Sane -
Watch That Man4:30
Aladdin Sane (1913-1938-197?)5:15
Drive-In Saturday4:38
Panic In Detroit4:30
Cracked Actor3:01
Time5:10
The Prettiest Star3:28
Let's Spend The Night Together3:10
The Jean Genie4:06
Lady Grinning Soul
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