Hugo Wilcken

Low was a seminal album for me. I think I knew it at the time, but it somehow didn't really register for a year or two.

By the time I got to Low, I'd already gone through the Ziggy Stardust, Diamond Dogs, and Young Americans albums, and thought I knew what I was getting into.

Then I heard the second side of Low. I didn't know what to think. I'd literally never heard anything like it before. Then, within a year of listening to that, I discovered Roxy Music and, more importantly, Japan's stunning Quiet Life album, and they both changed how I listened to music.

So, I really looked forward to this entry into the sometimes fascinating, sometimes dull 33 1/3 series. I loved that the author chose to really set the period, focusing almost as much on Bowie's Station To Station and Iggy Pop's The Idiot as much as the Low album.

He set the tone, made us understand the key players in Bowie, Brian Eno, and Tony Visconti, as well as the character of both Berlin and The Chateau where some of the album was recorded.

Great insight, great book.… (meer)

An extra half-star for inspiring me to listen to the album a couple of times while reading. Low was the first album I bought with my own money -- not as a shared investment with my sister. She hated it, but I played it over and again, dreaming of romantic artistic despair -- weltschmerz and sturm und drang. Wilcken's most successful argument is that this was Bowie leaving America, embracing Europe, and inventing the strange blend of artist and rock star which he inhabited for the rest of his career and life.… (meer)

The description of the book sounds ever so much more exciting than the book itself. "David quickly finds himself battling forces," or "he decides on a risky course that seems his only way out" ... these are not the way I would describe this book. I would use phrases like "David weirdly decides to do nothing," or "David makes choices that seem incomprehensible to the reader," and not just David, so really it should be more like "all the characters behave incomprehensibly" ... so if you want that kind of book, boy, are you in luck!

It adequately conveyed a sense of post-war New Yorkness, but that's about it. Strange plot that never paid off (it feels like the kind of book that will Suddenly Make Sense 95% of the way through it (which is why I kept reading), but no, sadly, it's not that kind of book. In fact, the ending makes no sense at all, really), ciphers as characters--it's frustrating.

If you really dug Doris Lessing's Briefing for a Descent into Hell you may get a similar kick out of this book. If you found that a bit of a slog, this is only slightly less sloggy.

… (meer)