Product Description

Fresh off his Berlin trilogy (LOW, HEROES, LODGER), David Bowie released SCARY MONSTERS, an album that continued the cool, detached, electronic-flavoured sound he'd been experimenting with on the aforementioned records. Robert Fripp's distinctively angular guitar style contributes greatly to the resulting Kraftwerk-flavoured funk of "Fashion" and the jittery paranoia of the title track. Elsewhere, Bowie updates the saga of Major Tom with "Ashes to Ashes" and turns to Tom Verlaine for the new wave nihilism of "Kingdom Come" which alsofeatures Fripp on guitar.
Robert Fripp was far from the only great guest invited to play on SCARY MONSTERS. Pete Townshend's swirling guitar on "Because You're Young" made it an underrated classic in Bowie's canon. SCARY MONSTERS provedto be David Bowie's last musical effort for a while as he spent the next three years pursuing a career in acting beforereturning to the studio in 1983 to record LET'S DANCE.

Track Listing

1. It's No Game, Pt. 1
2. Up the Hill Backwards
3. Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)
4. Ashes to Ashes
5. Fashion
6. Teenage Wildlife
7. Scream Like a Baby
8. Kingdom Come
9. Because You're Young
10. It's No Game, Pt. 2

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5359 in Music
• Released on: 1999-09-20
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
The last of David Bowie's long run of classic albums is best remembered for its superb electropop-ish hit singles "Ashes To Ashes" and "Fashion". But while these may be representative of the record's quality, they're very different in sound to the rest of the album. Scary Monsters is fiercely and unforgivingly a rock album, reflecting strongly the influences of both British and American post-punk artists, particularly Television's Tom Verlaine, one of whose songs, "Kingdom Come", appears here. The uncompromising Robert Fripp plays a significant role, which he accurately described as "spraying burning guitar all over" the songs. Scary Monsters is Bowie's most abrasive and ferocious piece of work, and its power to needle and astonish has remained undimmed over the years. --David Bennun

Customer Reviews

Not so Scary
This is my favourite Bowie Classic album. Its good because its on a different level to his other albums it comes at you from different levels first hearing this album, i was not so sure, but Ashes to Ashes lifts the album with by now familiarity, before delving back into the depths just to be lifted for air once more with the brilliant Fashion, but commercial this album definitely is. Up the hill back wards also by now a classic in its own right, this album does not take long to get really into it, and where Ashes to Ashes works as a single piece of art, the album as a whole is pure magic and does take you on a journey but one that you just know you will come out of the other side. Even if you don't like Bowie this album is still a must have album on any format and i have bought over the years all the formats going. BUY IT NOW.

Mart

My favourite Bowie album
Don't like to say best, as that's a matter of opinion, but this is the Bowie album I find I return to the most and rewards repeated listens. I think it captures a certain period in music history when punk/new wave was giving way to New Romantic/electronic better than any other album I can think of. Ashes To Ashes is my favourite ever Bowie song, a true gem, and Teengae Wildlife is another fave, one of his most underrated tracks. I think it's true that this was the last truly great Bowie album (he did some great stuff later but this is where he peaked), but I just find that this album encapsulates everything about Bowie's style and sound better than any other album. Wonderful.

In retrospect...disappointing
The single, Ashes to Ashes, was a bolt from the blue. Bowie had not been at number 1 for 5 years. The latter half of the seventies may have been an artistic high for DB, but in truth, he had disappeared from the mainstream after Golden Years. The single "Heroes", now (and then) rightly revered as a classic, reached only 24 in the UK charts at the time of release.
Bowie's records had been well received critically, but he was no longer an iconic figure, and punk had made the shock of Ziggy look quaint and outmoded.
Yet here was a single which looked backwards, to 1969 and Major Tom.
The album, when it arrived, also seemed to look backwards. The sleeve even carried a montage of previous covers and guises; as though Bowie were laying something to rest, rather than stepping into new ground.
And, in truth, this was the beginning of the end.
The album is a mix of styles, but none of them really convince.Fashion sounds like an outtake from Station to Station or Young Americans; Teenage Wildlife is worthy but very messy; and the second side is uniformly dull. It's No Game is the sound of Bowie trying too hard.
In truth, the flame had been passed on after Heroes, and it was David Byrne who was now making the interesting music with Eno.The fact that Bowie used Blitz Club extras in his Ashes video simply re-inforced the message that here was a star who traded on his past reputation for dandyism.It was a move which Bowie would have scorned at his peak, and was the first of many which saw him slip into midstream mediocrity during the eighties. No surprise, then, that the next chart topping move would be with Queen.
I suspect the album was made partly as a reaction against the commercial rejection of the Berlin trilogy. Shame; the right thing to do in 1980 would probably have been a collaboration with Kraftwerk....ah well, if only.