THE MAN WHO SOLD THE WORLD

While David Bowie's music broke out into the scene with the amazing track, Space Oddity, it wasn't really until this album here that I feel that his songwriting further matured even more, being able to create an entire album of quality, compared to his very spotty first and second attempts. Not only is this what I consider the true beginning of the worthwhile David Bowie albums, but this is also one of his heaviest, taking a lot more cues from hard rock while maintaining the more soft, beautiful melodic touches whenever the time calls for it. There's overall a more prominent focus on somewhat distorted riffs and an often darker mood, leading to an album that while a bit inconsistent, manages to be very distinct and interesting nonetheless.

The album starts off very strongly with The Width of A Circle, a track that fully utilises its 8 minutes to create a deeply memorable song with a number of twists and turns. The intro riff is nothing short of excellent, which segues nicely into the groovy main portion of the song which shows off some really great bass playing and drumming, further accentuated during the section where there's simultaneously a bass and guitar solo. To further cement this song as one of the countless amazing moments in Bowie's career, the song shifts at the halfway point and builds up into a slower, more emotional take on the intro riff, this time with vocals, before breaking out into something extremely fun and bouncy. While the scope of the previous song is quite impressive, it's All The Madmen that I pick out as the true highlight of this album, being absolutely packed with emotion in the form of a powerful tone of paranoia and despondance. While lyrics aren't often the aspect of a song that will really make or break a song for me, this is one of those cases where the extremely sombre lyrics elevate the song by an insane amount, creating a downright haunting listening experience that never fails to leave some kind of impact on me, especially with the absolutely perfect chorus. This is honestly one of Bowie's best songs in my opinion. Unfortunately, it's at this point where the album's flaw becomes more apparent, as its inconsistency arguably begins with Black Country Rock, which is an all around fun rock tune but ends up feeling a bit less powerful as a result. That said, I feel as if this song nonetheless manages to be good despite its unfortunate placement after 2 absolute powerhouses, as it's nonetheless a very entertaining song with some nice riffs and vocal melodies.

WIth this said, I can't quite say similarly about the merely decent After All, which is quite pleasant, but a bit uneventful in comparison, not really escalating at all, but not really doing enough to justify staying the same throughout, ultimately leading to a decent song, but nothing particularly great. This downgrade in quality is further exacerbated by Running Gun Blues, which is fairly repetitive and only saved by Bowie's animated delivery of the chorus, making it feel less monotonous than it probably is. Things are put back on track by Saviour Machine, which all in all feels a lot more typical Bowie across the board, with a more consistent pace and full of moments that are really fun to sing along to, all with tasteful use of synths and guitar solos to spice the song up and give it an almost proggy edge to it. Overall, the song's another essential one that often feels a bit underrated. On the opposite side of things, She Shook Me Cold is easily the worst song here and offers very little in terms of basically anything. The song feels anitclimactic and messily put together, not to mention twice as long as it actually is. While the song isn't outright terrible, barely any of it feels properly paced or thought out, with solos going on for far too long while the drumming just doesn't feel right, way too much crash cymbal. With that said, what better way to salvage the album after this misstep than with a song as iconic as the title track? There's a reason this is as beloved as it is, as everything from the catchy riff to the wistful tone it all has makes it such an amazing song that just feels extremely vibrant and powerful despite being fairly repetitive, overall working quite well here. It's almost a shame that this wasn't the final song on the album, since The Supermen is honestly fairly forgettable, being far from a bad song, but not even comparing at all to the finality that I felt the title track had, but still brings the album to a nice close, albeit not one that's all too remarkable either.

I overall enjoy this album for it going for a darker, heavier approach to most of David Bowie's work, and love it on the basis of it being the first of the many great albums to have followed. While inconsistent, I nonetheless find this a good album regardless due to the charm that permeates the album and the numerous amazing songs peppered throughout, even if they're often balanced by some clearly inferior cuts. Overall, while not the best David Bowie album, this is definitely one that's worthy of a few listens thanks to the great stuff decently outweighing the mediocrity by a respectable margin.

Best tracks: The Width of a Cricle, All the Madmen, Saviour Machine, The Man Who Sold the World

Weakest tracks: Running Gun Blues, She Shook Me Cold

Verdict: The heavier nature of this album in comparison to most of Bowie's albums makes it quite an interesting one, coupled with the numerous tracks that deserve a ton of praise for how charming and powerful they are. This wouldn't be the first album by him that I'd recommend to people due to the inconsistent nature of it, but this is still an album very much worth listening to regardless of some flaws.