Reissues are not only a good way to refresh a home record collection and improve a label’s bottom line. They are also an excellent opportunity to see how certain albums have stood the test of time. A prime example is David Bowie’s Station to Station, which will be released later this month in new vinyl editions to mark its 50th anniversary.
Although it is not usually ranked among the five Bowie albums that everyone must own, or at least hear once in a lifetime, it is unquestionably a masterpiece well worth discovering.
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David Bowie in his Thin White Duke era
(Photo: Central Press/Hulton Archive/GettyImagesIL)
In the decade since Bowie left us unexpectedly at age 69, just two days after releasing his chilling requiem album Blackstar, his estate and record company have done everything possible to make his work accessible, both in physical formats and on streaming services. Nearly his entire discography has been reissued over these ten years, including comprehensive, sometimes overly comprehensive, box sets, live recordings from various eras and even albums Bowie chose to shelve at the time.
With Bowie, Sound and Vision was not just the title of a key song from his classic album Low. It was a holistic approach. His look and sound shifted every album or two, depending on the period. In the mid-1970s, Bowie found himself between two more widely discussed and influential phases of his career: the early-decade glam rock era of Ziggy Stardust and the Berlin period at the decade’s end. In fact, Bowie was then moving through two sub-periods. First came the brief "plastic soul" phase of 1975’s Young Americans, which included his collaboration with John Lennon on Fame. That was followed by the year in which he adopted the persona of the Thin White Duke and recorded Station to Station.
After abandoning glam rock, Bowie wanted to discover America and hoped America would discover him in return. Fame was a hit, but his full-fledged soul album received mixed reactions. Undeterred, Bowie immediately moved on to his next project. By early 1976, Bowie was no longer just a successful rock star. He was also an emerging film actor, thanks to his role in the science fiction film The Man Who Fell to Earth, which seemed tailor-made for him. Bowie initially planned to record the film’s soundtrack, but ultimately dropped the idea. He was exhausted from work and consumed by cocaine, or perhaps the other way around. Despite all this, his tenth album delivered one of his greatest achievements as a songwriter and performer.
On paper, Station to Station hardly seemed destined to become a truly legendary album or an essential item for anyone seeking to understand the constantly shifting faces of Bowie. It is short, under 40 minutes, with the title track alone occupying more than a quarter of its running time. It sold reasonably well, but did not generate a string of major hits. Even its cover, taken from a single frame of the film and insisted upon by Bowie in stark black and white, is considered less iconic than those of albums such as The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars or Aladdin Sane.
All these dry facts fade the moment the listener presses play on the album’s six tracks. Like its title, Bowie in early 1976 was moving between stations. One foot was firmly planted in the world of the Thin White Duke, while the other was already offering unsettling hints of the trilogy of albums he would complete by the end of the decade in a divided and shadowy Berlin. The title track opens with electronic influences inspired by Germany’s Kraftwerk and includes references to Nietzsche and the Kabbalah, including the line “From Kether to Malkuth”. After this majestic opening comes Golden Years, the album’s biggest hit, originally written for Elvis Presley. The King passed on it and missed out. Bowie, and especially his fans, gained one of the most dazzling moments of his 1970s output, and of his career as a whole.
Much of the credit, and much of the pleasure of listening to Station to Station, whether for the first time or the tenth, belongs to the superb group of musicians assembled by producer Harry Maslin. They include Carlos Alomar and Earl Slick on guitars, the outstanding bass work of George Murray and the muscular drumming of Dennis Davis, particularly on Word on a Wing and Stay. Roy Bittan’s honky-tonk piano complements Bowie’s saxophone beautifully on TVC15.
The album closes with a cover of Wild Is the Wind, made by jazz icon Nina Simone, whom Bowie met during his stay in Los Angeles, where the album was recorded. Bowie had recorded covers before and would continue to do so, but if there is one cover in which he delivered a canonical performance that rivals, and perhaps even surpasses, the original, this is it.
Fifty years after its release, Station to Station remains essential listening for Bowie fans, whether newcomers or seasoned listeners. Those already familiar with it will gladly take another spin. Those who are not yet acquainted are invited to discover one of the most beautiful and least celebrated chapters in the work of an artist who has been gone for ten years, while his music remains very much with us.