01	Watch That Man						04:30
	02	Aladdin Sane						05:07
	03	Drive In Saturday						04:32
	04	Panic in Detroit						04:24
	05	Cracked Actor						03:01
	06	Time						05:14
	07	The Prettiest Star						03:30
	08	Let's Spend the Night Together						03:10
	09	The Jean Genie						04:07
	10	Lady Grinning Soul						03:52

re-release 1990

Aladdin Sane
Date of Release 1973

Ziggy Stardust wrote the blueprint for 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

1. Watch That Man (Bowie) - 4:25
2. Aladdin Sane (Bowie) - 5:06
3. Drive-In Saturday (Bowie) - 4:29
4. Panic in Detroit (Bowie) - 4:25
5. Cracked Actor (Bowie) - 2:56
6. Time (Bowie) - 5:09
7. The Prettiest Star (Bowie) - 3:26
8. Let's Spend the Night Together (Jagger/Richards) - 3:03
9. The Jean Genie (Bowie) - 4:02
10. Lady Grinning Soul (Bowie) - 3:46


David Bowie - Guitar, Harmonica, Arranger, Keyboards, Saxophone, Vocals, Producer
Mike Garson - Piano
Linda Lewis - Vocals (bckgr)
Mick Ronson - Guitar, Piano, Arranger, Vocals, Engineer, Mixing
Ken Scott - Producer, Engineer, Mixing
Trevor Bolder - Bass
Mac Cormack - Vocals
Ken Fordham - Flute, Saxophone
Juanita "Honey" Franklin - Vocals (bckgr)
G A MacCormack - Vocals (bckgr)
Peter Mew - Remastering
Mike Moran - Engineer
Dr. Toby Mountain - Remixing
Mick "Woody" Woodmansey - Drums
Jonathan Wyner - Digital Remastering Assistant
L
Sukita - Photography
Nigel Reeve - Remastering
Duffy Design Concepts - Design
Celia Philo - Design, Cover Design
Duffy Philo - Design, Cover Design
Kevin Cann - Design
Pierre LaRoche - Make-Up

1999 CD Virgin 21902
CD Rykodisc RCD-10135
1973 LP RCA 4852
1990 LP Rykodisc 135
1990 CS Rykodisc 135
LP Rykodisc RALP-0135-2
CS Rykodisc RACS-10135





Watch That Man

AMG REVIEW: The opening track from 1973's Aladdin Sane album caught Bowie and the Spiders in irrepressibly playful mode, documenting a wild after-show party with a breathtaking litany of infectious "bam" and "slam"s. Less a great song than a fabulous mood, "Watch That Man" showcased guitarist Mick Ronson as much as it did Bowie, and became a minor tour de force on the accompanying world tour. However, any deficiencies registered on the Aladdin Sane version were remedied later in the year when Bowie and Ronson rearranged the song for Lulu, as the B-side to her cover of another Bowie number, "The Man Who Sold the World." This version really cooks.
"Watch That Man" remained in Bowie's own live set during 1974, and appears on the David - Live album in suitably garage-shaded style. Since that time, however, it has lain untouched, a sad fate for such an exuberant number. - Dave Thompson




Aladdin Sane

AMG REVIEW: The title track from David Bowie's 1973 album is one of his most ambitious efforts of this period, combining ambitious social commentary with a musical backing that blurs the line between rock & roll and jazz. The lyrics, inspired by the work of British novelist Evelyn Waugh, use a cut-up lyrical style to portray the euphoria in youthful generations that often precedes the outbreak of world wars: "Battle cries and champagne, just in time for sunrise." This theme is made explicit by the song's subtitle, "1913-1938-197?": The first two years preceded the outbreaks of World Wars I and II and the third was Bowie's doomy prophecy that another was around the corner. The melody of "Aladdin Sane" downplayed the glam rock element prominent elsewhere on the album to create a jazzy, European ballad feel: The twisty verse melodies move along in a minor-key fashion, punctuated by an ethereal chorus whose notes reach high in a yearning way for the lyrical question "Who will love Aladdin Sane?" David Bowie's recording takes the continental feel even further in his recording with a performance that often strays from rock & roll entirely: the song's lead instrument is Mike Garson's piano, which adds cocktail jazz frills to the verses and gets a lengthy break where Garson goes off an wild, atonal avant-garde improvisations around the song's steady drum beat. However, the song keeps one foot in rock, thanks to Mick Ronson's guitarwork which chugs along menacingly during the choruses and adds lighter shadings to the verses. Bowie tops it off with a delicate vocal that is highlighted by an anguished falsetto on the chorus. The end result is an impressive fusion of rock, jazz, and European balladry that became a concert staple for Bowie during the 1970s and one of his most-discussed works. - Donald A. Guarisco



Drive-In Saturday

AMG REVIEW: There are maybe half a dozen David Bowie songs one can never tire of listening to - and this is the best of them all. Bowie's first single of 1973, "Drive in Saturday" was the standout track on the Aladdin Sane album, a nostalgia-laden look back at the 1970s, from an unknown date in what was then a long distant future ( Bowie once said the year 2033). Equal parts '50s styling and '70s sensibility, name checking Jagger and Twiggy as icons of the age, the song is also notable for providing one David Batt with the stage name he still possesses - Sylvian. Ironically, Bowie never even intended the song for himself. It was originally written for Mott the Hoople, as they searched for a follow-up to "All the Young Dudes"; only after they rejected it did Bowie swing into action, performing the song on British television's Russell Harty Plus a full three months before it was ready for release. It climbed to number three in Britain, but strangely made very few live appearances - its first, just hours after it was composed, was in Phoenix on November 4, 1972; a bootleg captures another early performance, in Fort Lauderdale two weeks later. Thereafter, it drifted in and out of his repertoire, a difficult number to capture correctly even during 1974's big band phase. However, performances on the VH1 Storytellers broadcast in 1999, and a BBC concert soon after, suggest that, even after 25 years, Bowie was not prepared to give up on it. - Dave Thompson



Panic in Detroit

AMG REVIEW: Certainly one of the highlights of 1973's Aladdin Sane album, and one of the hardest-driving numbers David Bowie has ever recorded, "Panic in Detroit" was written the previous year, inspired by Iggy Pop's anecdotes about life in that city during the late-'60s riots. Set to a pulsing percussive soundtrack, with a backing chorus clearly modeled on the Rolling Stones' similarly foreboding "Gimme Shelter," "Panic in Detroit" is a furious succession of musical climaxes, riddled with imagery which is both gleefully apocalyptic and knowingly mundane.
Compared with the fury of the studio version, no live rendition has ever truly hit the spot - indeed, the one in-concert performance which has been officially released, a B-side drawn from the 1974 American tour, so degenerates into a drum solo that it is scarcely even comparable. A more focused, but similarly unfulfilling studio version was recorded in 1979 and appears among the bonus tracks on Rykodisc's reissue of Scary Monsters. The original, however, remains untouchable. - Dave Thompson




Cracked Actor

AMG REVIEW: One of the highlights of Aladdin Sane, "Cracked Actor" has the same glam-stomp and strut of "The Jean Genie" but is less celebration and more bemused take on the titular character, lost in an LA setting of sun, sex, and easy drugs to pass the time away. Mick Ronson's roaring guitar start alone got referenced by any number of later bands (consider the way the Smiths' "I Started Something I Couldn't Finish" begins), while the whole band rocks out wonderfully, Woody Woodmansey's drums in particular some of his best work, simple but focused. David Bowie himself has a great and patently hilarious time talking about whoever or whatever the cracked actor is meant to be, with a wonderfully catchy chorus (including the rather wicked line "Suck baby suck! Give me your head!") the icing on the cake. It could have made for another smash single on Bowie's part if he was so inclined, but such is life. - Ned Raggett



Time

AMG REVIEW: David Bowie's work had contained plenty of cabaret and European-inspired influences almost from the beginning, so this particular effort, from 1973's Aladdin Sane, isn't surprising, per se. More so than songs like "Changes," though, "Time" finds Bowie taking the full plunge into something approaching the heights of Brecht and Weill. In part this is due to the appearance of Mike Garson, the inspired keyboardist he had recruited the previous year for his American appearances. Garson's at once playful and weird piano work introduces the track and takes a commanding role throughout, giving off more than one hint of Weimar Germany in its interpretation of Bowie's basic melody. Bowie himself clearly seeks out the sheer theatricality of the entire piece vocally, squealing, crooning, aiming for a heroic delivery on the choruses. The full band adds everything and the kitchen sink - Mick Ronson's mega-guitar, mournful backing vocals, steady and strong drums, excellent arrangements and production via Bowie and Ken Scott. Lyrics reference everything from masturbation to the death of original New York Dolls' drummer Billy Murcia, getting away with it all as well. If Lotte Lenya had popped in to duet, nobody would have been surprised at all. - Ned Raggett



Prettiest Star

AMG REVIEW: David Bowie has more than once reinterpreted songs over the years, and "The Prettiest Star" is no exception. Though it came to most listeners' attention via an enjoyable enough and self-consciously nostalgic take on Aladdin Sane, with intentionally fifties-referencing backing vocals as a nice little touch, it had actually first surfaced as a single three years previously. There the homages to the past weren't quite so prominent, and though the single itself flopped it was notable because of who the electric guitar player was - none other than Marc Bolan, Bowie's London music scene compatriot and competitor. Bolan himself was starting to break through in a major way with T. Rex, so the session probably felt more like Bolan trying to help Bowie out rather than the reverse, something Bowie more or less confirmed in later years by describing it as a fairly tense session. The song itself isn't one of Bowie's more noteworthy moments, but given the original's status as the only formally recorded and released collaboration between the two musicians, it's worthy of that much attention at least. - Ned Raggett



Jean Genie

AMG REVIEW: Any critics who doubted David Bowie's hard rock credentials following his breakthrough in 1972 (and there were some) were forced into a serious rethink following the release of this, his third British hit single of the year, and the biggest one yet. Released just in time for Christmas, "Jean Genie" soared to number two, and that despite the counter-attractions of the latest single by labelmates the Sweet - "Blockbuster" plundered the self-same Yardbirds/ Deviants riff as "Jean Genie," a grisly coincidence which gave Bowie's supporters pause for thought, too. Their hero, after all, was pushing back the frontiers of rock itself. The Sweet, on the other hand were...well, they were he Sweet, an unabashed bubblegum band last seen cavorting around the TV dressed as Native Americans. Hmmm, maybe they weren't so bad after all.
Included on Bowie's next album, Aladdin Sane, "Jean Genie" is surely the most performed song in Bowie's entire repertoire, although it is ironic that the most legendary version of all, recorded at the 1973 farewell concert with Jeff Beck guesting on dual lead guitar, was absent from the official Ziggy Stardust - The Motion Picture document of the event. It is readily available, however, on bootlegs taken from the concert film's original airing on U.S. TV in 1974. Other impressive performances date from Bowie's own 1974 American tour, the 1983 Serious Moonlight outing, and the 1997 Earthling tour. - Dave Thompson