The four tiers of David Bowie
After extensive scientific research, I can reveal the four tiers of David Bowie.
Methodology
I realised I own no Bowie except an old 45 rpm single of “Sound and Vision” which I can’t play as I have no record player, went to the web to buy The Platinum Collection and listened to it a few times.
Rating system
– 20% is awarded for a catchy chorus
– 20% for having a good verse as well (often why some songs are relegated to Tier 2 or below – great choruses but weak verse)
– 20% for weird lyrics, sexual ambivalence
– 10% for singing in a funny voice (machismo of “Boys Keep Swinging”, mockney sneering)
– 10% for odd instrumentation (“Heroes”)
– 10% for a blistering guitar part (whether medlodic like Starman or just nasty like “Boys Keep Swinging”)
– 10% for being seminal (“Ziggy Stardust”)
Environment
1 bottle of Toro Loco Tempranillo wine, stereo cranked up so loud your partner wakes up and comes downstairs to give you a bollocking before stomping off to bed and waking early to turn on some bullshit Kerrang radio in revenge.
Results
Tier 1 (80% or more): Starman, Ziggy Stardust, Suffragette City, Heroes, Scary Monsters, Let’s dance, Boys Keep Swinging, All the Young Dudes (but Mott The Hoople’s version is still better at 100%; Bowie’s suffers from too much sax)
Tier 2: (65% – 79%) Life on Mars, Ashes to Ashes, Fashion, Jean Genie, Space Oddity, Sound and Vision, Diamond Dogs, The Prettiest Star
Tier 3: (50% – 64%) China Girl, Changes (great choruses, weak verse) Rebel Rebel, Oh You Pretty Things
Tier 4: the rest
Tier 67: Laughing Gnome, Tin Machine stuff, execrable covers of Let’s Spend The Night Together, The Alabama Song
Conclusion
Bowie’s best is sublime, and had hardly dated at all. There is a perception of a quality drop-off in the 80s, but some great songs came about during that time, although there was a lot of mediocre funk nonsense too. In a career spanning four decades, there is a good deal of filler but that’s both unsurprising and forgiveable, given the brilliance of his Tiers 1-3 work.
If Bowie came round to my house, I’d share a bottle of red with him and we could have a jam, and I’d even let him use my 12 string elecro-acoustic guitar.
5 Responses to “ The four tiers of David Bowie ”
Life on Mars and Sound and Vision are surely tier one dammit!
Listening to David Bowie’s Platinum Collection again right now, but just enjoying the music. Maybe doing my own rating next time.
Missing from “Above Tier 4” is definitely “Loving the Alien”, “TVC15″*, “Black Tie, White Noise” (and, FWIW, *I* like “The Wedding / The Wedding Song” from the same album, for being quirky – how many rock artists employ an oboe in their music?).
(* I have a great bootleg of Bowie doing TVC15 with Stevie Ray Vaughn on guitar – rehearsals for the Let’s Dance tour that SRV never did. Some tasty SRV licks there…)
I demand a recount. Using your system, I’m pretty sure that Ashes to Ashes should be 100% (perhaps 90%, but only because it has a blistering keyboard part instead of a blistering guitar part, but apart from that, it definitely fulfils all the criteria, no?)