David Bowie - Low - 1977 - "...Drifting into my solitude, over my head."

What's a reliable way to kick a Heculean cocaine addiction? If you're David Bowie, you move to West Berlin, team up with ambient minimalist Brian Eno, assemble some keyboards and synthesizers, and you release Low.

Let me start by stating what Low isn't: There are no songs about freaky aliens, life on Mars, or thin white dukes. At no point in this album did Bowie make a suggestion resembling anything near 'Let's Dance.' However, it's important to bear in mind what Bowie was up to during the recording of this album. The time leading up to Low apparently marked a difficult point in Bowie's career. Between 1975 and 1977, Bowie struggled with his substance abuse problems, starred in The Man Who Fell to Earth, and prepared a soundtrack for said film that was unceremoniously rejected. Bowie soon after found himself as a resident of West Berlin, sharing an apartment with Iggy Pop, sober, in possession of a batch of unused instrumental songs, and immersed in the proto-German-electronic music scene (think Kraftwerk). And so, the era of Bowie's career referred to as 'The Berlin Trilogy' begins...

What can one expect from Low? Good ideas on side A -- great ideas, actually. In fact, from 'Breaking Glass' through 'Be Me Wife,' the album flowed with consistent buoyancy, even though the lyrics hovered somewhere between morose and utterly incomprehensible. The trouble is, as soon as a song started to gain some steam, it would end or fade out 1.5 to 2 verses in. Specifically, 'Sound and Vision,' which could very well be one of the best songs of Bowie's career, is a painful tease -- so catchy, yet so incomplete.

Which brings me to the other half of this album, the instrumentals...all six of them. For those who don't know the aforementioned Brian Eno, he likes keyboards and he likes employing those keyboards for experimental ambient boopity boops. For some, this could be a recipe for an abysmal disaster, but it ended up being the solidifying statement of the album for me.

Surely there had to be an explanation for such an unconventional move. Supposedly, these instrumental tracks were inspired by Bowie's experiences in Warsaw and Berlin. Although I did not know about Bowie's time in Europe, cocaine addiction, or failed soundtrack at first, once I did, my album experience vastly improved. I can appreciate what was going on here -- this album plays like an unedited purge of creativity and healing, kind of like an amplified diary. It's rough, but Low finds strength in its emotional evocation. 

However, to get to a meaningful place with Low, I had to spend some time contemplating the album and scouring various online articles and interviews for some much needed subtext. Time well spent in the end, but Low may be unfulfilling for some who have difficulty finding an entry point. Once I found mine, I could appreciate the album for its unapologetically honest nature, as well as the moment in time it captures. And when it comes to David Bowie, Low's moment is simply one of the many comprising his ever-changing career. A challenging, yet endearing oddity? Yes. But you know Bowie -- that's how he likes to werk it.

The Beach Boys - Smiley Smile - 1967 "...it's all an affair of my life with the heroes and villains."

Given the band's in-fighting, the approaching storm of chief songwriter Brian Wilson's mental illness, and the complete abandonment of the now famously unreleased SMiLE album (until 2004, that is), it's a surprise Smiley Smile ever came together enough to be released at all. And yet, it did...sort of.

Let's talk about SMiLE first, because I feel that a large part of Smiley Smile's value comes from its epically troubled and unrealized first draft. Basically, it was dubbed by Brian Wilson to be his 'teenage symphony to god,' and intended to be the album that picked up where Pet Sounds left off. An unprecedented studio experiment in pop music, humor, and recording techniques, it ultimately became the source of turmoil amongst Brian Wilson's bandmates.  Then its release date was pushed back a few times by the record label, then a few times more. Then Brian Wilson lost confidence when The Beatles released 'Strawberry Fields Forever' as a single. Then Brian Wilson's lyricst quit the project. SMiLE was finished.

After a frantic re-recording schedule through the summer of 1967, The Beach Boys unleashed Smiley Smile upon its listening audience. Instead of starting over, the boys instead chose to rehash and recycle SMiLE ideas into a sequenced patchwork of melodies, interludes, and random oddities in between. Here, we have songs about heroes and villains, vegetables, a reinterpretation of the Woody Woodpecker theme, a girl losing her hair, Hawaii (I think), good vibrations, love, windchimes, hunger, love, and whistling. Apparently, the idea was to record a potpourri of different ideas, and then compress those ideas down into concise pop gems. However, the closest Smiley Smile comes to offering anything in the way of pop songs is 'Good Vibrations.'  Everything else...required some effort. 

As disjointed as it could be at times, I managed to find quite a bit of beauty within the chaos. I mean, with Smiley Smile, you're still listening to The Beach Boys, which means a bountiful supply of velvety angelic harmonies. And thank god, because each song's vocal melody kept me initially intrigued, and provided something in the way of cohesion throughout subsequent visits with this unmatched batch of orphans. Ultimately, the problem and the merit of this album are inextricably bound; it never gets off the ground and it's oddly inconsistent, and yet I found myself enamored with its allure and its potential. Plus, I was truly haunted by the creative SMiLE turmoil that managed to leave imprints of itself throughout Smiley Smile. I was fascinated, repulsed, bewitched, and a little freaked out each time I listened to this album.

So, the ideas on this album are certainly good ones, even if they were worked into songs that are not so good. And as of the drafting of this post, I have yet to listen to the official '04 release of SMiLE, but I'm not so sure I want to. Maybe some things are better off left as unfinished secrets hidden away from the world. The hints left on Smiley Smile indicated to me the possibility for something so much greater than what it became in its completed form, but to venture any further could spoil its appeal. Its charm is its folly is its charm, and I'm ok with that.

Of course, if you need a warm up for the challenge, do yourself a huge favor and check out Pet Sounds first.