Product Description

It seems hard to believe, given the career full of revolutionary and hugely influential stylistic shifts that followed,that this superb record was only David Bowie's fourth. Yet HUNKY DORY ranks alongside ZIGGY STARDUST, LOW, and SCARY MONSTERS as one of Bowie's finest and most consistent albums. Ironically, it is one of the artist's least rock-oriented efforts, bearing little relation to what came before or after in his discography. Instead, HUNKY DORY covers a wide range of styles from operatic pop ("Life on Mars?") to low-key folk ("Quicksand") to English music hall ditties ("Kooks").
There are standout tracks, most notably the glam-rock anthem"Oh, You Pretty Things!" and the chugging, life-affirming "Changes", which went on to become one of Bowie's all-time signature songs. But HUNKY DORY is solid from beginning to end, thanks to the fine musicians, Bowie's excellent songwriting, and the artist's now-mature sense of performance. These qualities fold such wild cards as the tongue-in-cheek celebrity send-up "Andy Warhol", the psychedelic folk of "The Bewlay Brothers", and exuberant jam of "Queen Bitch", the album'sonly overt rocker, neatly into the deck, making for the first of Bowie's truly indisputable masterpieces.

Track Listing

1. Changes
2. Oh! You Pretty Things
3. Eight Line Poem
4. Life on Mars?
5. Kooks
6. Quicksand
7. Fill Your Heart
8. Andy Warhol
9. Song for Bob Dylan
10. Queen Bitch
11. The Bewlay Brothers

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1025 in Music
• Released on: 1999-09-06
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Enhanced

Amazon.co.uk Review
The precursor to Bowie's masterpiece, The Rise And Fall of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars, Hunky Dory points in many of the same musical directions as Ziggy, with Bowie camping it up outrageously through a mixture of cabaret piano, coquettish lyrics and soaring vocals. After the hard rock "The Man Who Sold The World", Mick Ronson's guitar is turned down in favour of plenty of piano and acoustic guitar, as Bowie proves his mettle as a masterful singer-songwriter. Not a dull note is struck on the whole album, which flits from opener "Changes" to the vampy "Oh! You Pretty Thing" to the heart-wrenching "Life On Mars" with a seemingly impeccable ear for a tune. Flirty, sexy and irresistibly seductive. --Amber Cowan

Customer Reviews

there hasnt been a superlative invented yet to describe this record
5* is not enough for this record, 10* wouldnt be enough, in fact 100* wouldnt even do it justice, as another review put it 'the best album ever, by anyone, anywhere'.

A beautiful, heartfelt, sad, haunting, brilliant, wonderful, uplifting and personal record.

Bowie reached pretty high standards both before and after this record, but he never, ever, came close to surpassing it.

Simply a perfect record by a true songwriting genius at the absolute peak of his powers.

'She's seen it ten times or more'
Hunky Dory was Bowie's last album as an aspirant, just before he found fame with Ziggy Stardust. It's a fascinating work on many levels that display lyrical depth, vivid imagery, wit and great musical variety, from the music hall pop of Changes through the sixties pop of Oh You Pretty Things to the cinematic lyricism of Life On Mars, a soaring masterpiece. Another of my favorites is Fill Your Heart, a quirky number with his somersaulting voice over lively piano and cheeky sax. Elements of the folkie singer/songwriter are evident on numbers like Song For Bob Dylan while The Supermen reminds me of his later science fiction work like Diamond Dogs. Bowie also salutes Lou Reed and Andy Warhol here, in fact the whole album makes references to his musical influences. Hunky Dory is a bridge between his earlier music hall style and the glamrock that was to follow, and this was just the right mixture of catchy tunes & brilliant lyrics to ensure a timeless classic. This edition includes two extra tracks: alternate takes of Bewlay Brothers & Quicksand.

A game of two halves
It's unfair to compare any album to Ziggy, but I find it hard to understand fans who prefer this album (as an album) to the next in the Bowie canon.
Hunky Dory is, I think, an odd, eclectic, slightly twee assortment of disconnected songs, but none the worse (in general) for that. It is not an "album", in terms of uniformity of sound or concept in the way that the rest of Bowie's 70s output was, it is an "LP". To this extent, it was outdated when it appeared. It harked back to the 60s; even namechecking both Dylan and the Velvets on 2 tracks.
Songs like "Quicksand" are in the old fashioned singer songwriting tradition. Musically, this was not cutting edge Bowie, and in some ways was a step back to the "Space Oddity" sound after the hard rock of TMWSTW in 1970.
Nonetheless it contains 2 of Bowie's most successful and popular compositions, "Changes", and "Life on Mars", and one really beautiful song, "Kooks", which is that rare thing from the early 70s, a song by Bowie about the real David Jones, or at least the Mr Jones he might have been allowed to be had Ziggy never happened.

To be honest, it does seem dated now; the album cover, the Folksy handwritten credits on the back; the long, long hair, seem to belong to 1969 rather than 1972. Don't forget, that as Bowie was composing this, Roxy Music were already inventing their unique prog/art sound with Eno at the dials. If Bowie had followed this album up with another of the same ilk, then his career would have probably crashed, as it threatened to do so often in the late 60's and early 70s. He was rescued by what came next; by glam, by raising the stakes, and by the uniform rock and roll greatness of records like "Ziggy" and "Aladdin Sane". I know many critics put this album above those, but I think they are wrong. The second side (as it used to be) is quite patchy: "Fill Your Heart" is an irritating cover version; "Song for Bob Dylan" does nothing for either man's career, and I cannot warm to "Andy Warhol" in spite of its standing as one of Bowie's own favourites (if the "Collection" is to be believed).
Still, the album ends with a real gem; the long, spine-tingling "Bewlay Brothers"; the closest Bowie has come to the lyrical dexterity of "Blonde on Blonde". Perhaps, in truth, that is the real song for Bob Dylan.