DAVID BOWIE - DIAMOND DOGS @ 50

 

Celebrating its golden jubilee today at 50 years old is the 8th studio LP from David Bowie, Diamond Dogs. It would mark the end of his glam-rock, Ziggy Stardust era and point the way to his transition to his next incarnation the soulful "Thin White Duke".

After completing his previous LP, Pin-Ups, a collection of covers recorded to satisfy record label obligations, Bowie was beginning to waffle in terms of the clarity of his vision for the direction of his career. He was running out of runway with the Ziggy persona, and had disbanded The Spiders From Mars band lead by guitarist, Mick Ronson. Ronson had moved on to record a solo album, so Bowie opted to assume the position of lead guitarist for the recording of Diamond Dogs. Bowie's more rudimentary guitar technique ended up working in his favour in some respects because it necessitated a raunchier, more primitive performing style, something that, in retrospect, became a bit of inspiration for the punk scene that would start bubbling up in the UK within the following year. Those kids, like Sid Vicious, were ardent Bowie fans, and the link between the punk explosion in the UK and Diamond Dogs cannot be overlooked.

However, as pivotal as the album may have been towards inspiring the musical revolution around the corner, Bowie was still in a state of flux, part way between shedding the Ziggy skin and emerging in a new form. In that sense, Diamond Dogs was a bit of a chrysalis, with the artist beginning to embrace the R&B and soul influences that would overtake his sound on his next record, Young Americans. Because of that, critics of the day saw Bowie as loosing focus, so some of the contemporary reviews of the day were quite critical of his stylistic floundering. That didn't stop the record from smashing its way the top of the charts in the UK and getting near there in the US at a respectable number five position at its peak.

The themes explored on the album were equally a hodgepodge of half grasped concepts, some stemming from a planned Ziggy Stardust stage musical Bowie had been contemplating, others inspired by William Burroughs apocalyptic visions, and who's "cut-up" technique Bowie had been actively exploiting to help with his creative process. Bowie was also toying with an adaptation of George Orwell's 1984, all of which meant the overall vibe of the album was decidedly nihilistic, a disposition that, along with the thrashing guitar work, dovetailed with the mindset that would inform the aforementioned punk aesthetic. Even Bowie's look, still within the Ziggy framework, took on a spiky visage, another element predicting the near future.

In many respects, Diamond Dogs serves as a fitting capstone to the glam-rock era of the first half of the 1970s, putting a final punctuation on the scene and queuing up the punk era around the corner, though Bowie himself was about to shift gears into something slick and sophisticated for his shift to LA, along with a serious cocaine addiction and some funky grooves.