Ground Control to My Underpants. Do You Copy, Elastic Band?

Overall Album Score: 8.5 out of 10

This album is mostly notable to us Earthlings as the one that contains one of Bowie's most (rightfully) beloved songs "Space Oddity" in it. I've always been a huge fan of this song ... it was my #1 favorite song at one point in my life, so ... yeah ... I really love it. It's one of Bowie's most genuine and resonant songs, and he really didn't have a whole lot of songs that fit that description.

However, "Space Oddity" isn't the only thing in this album, you know! There's also songs such as the folky "God Knows I'm Good," which is also pretty dang moving! ... Even though this album might be very weak compared to Bowie's later output, you've still got to hear this even if it's just because it's totally different from Bowie's entire discography.

Indeed, we do know that Bowie's main talent in the music biz was constant reinvention, so it's no surprise than an album he cut in 1969 would sound extremely different from his later stuff. This clearly isn't one of the most loved albums of Bowie's career and that's for good reason, but there's plenty of reason not to ignore it.

Even if you discount "Space Oddity" from the picture, this album has a phenomenal attempt at doing Dylan-esque folk, "God Knows I'm Good," which also features a marvellously resonant lyrical theme. It's also a pretty hooky song, which is awesome!

Along with "Space Oddity," Bowie has other musical explorations of art-rock and most of them are pretty compelling. "Cygnet Committee" is a lengthy prog-rock song that ... a lot of critics hate, but at least he's daring. And that song is so successful at sounding epic that I get caught up into its entire nine-minute duration every time I hear it. "Wild Eyed Boy From Freecloud" is even better than that song, in my opinion, and its epic quality is much more awe-inspired. Sure, it's serious, but ... I honestly don't think Bowie was boringly pretentious enough to think that he was writing the greatest song that ever existed! The album closer, "Memory of a Free Festival" proved to be an excellent way to end the album. I'm not a huge fan of the way that song begins, but it's ending, featuring a pretty raucous chorus, are some very good notes to end with!

Anyway, Bowie fans certainly mustn't go too much longer without listening to this album. It's not an important piece of rock history, and I would probably think it'd be weird if this album appeared on anyone's Top 100 list, but ... there's plenty of good stuff here to enjoy.

Overall Album Score: 8.5 out of 10 (Holy cow, this is an interesting album. Some of this might be pretty hard to swallow at times, but this is, after all, the album with "Space Oddity" in it. Thou shalt never forget that.)

Average Song Score: 8.6 (It's basically a fact that "The Space Oddity" rules everything that ever existed on this planet and outside this planet. Don't even go there with me. You'll end up losing a few teeth. Other than that, I really enjoy "God Knows I'm Good" and "Occasional Dream.")

Album Tilt: 8.5 (Just due to the fact that this album starts with such a phenomenal song and ends with something as important sounding, though not necessarily great, "Memory of a Free Festival," I really wanted to up this score. However, I can't do that. There's too many weak spots throughout the album.)

Artist Tilt: 8.5 (Bowie's not exceedingly original, but he has some top-notch hookwritng skills, and he really does the overly-serious, pretentious art-rock here pretty well. Thank goodness, he didn't turn into a progster, though!!!!!!!!)

Track Reviews

Space Oddity 10plus/10

Do I really even need to pointedly explain why this song is such a masterpiece? SERIOUSLY???? ... Well, I'm sure there are a lot of mean people out there who probably doesn't think "Space Oddity" by David Bowie is such a great song, but I assure you: They're doodieheads. This is a great song. The end. Considering I've been such a fan of pulp sci-fi novels and I've grown an extreme affection for the original Star Trek series, it's really no wonder why I'm so fascinated with this song about a space traveller who decides to launch himself into space and cut himself off with the rest of the world, because he figures there's no saving it. The melody is superb and Bowie really does some fantastic things with the instrumentation (notably a few very tasty guitar licks). Anyway, this is an epic song that proves that Bowie was a phenomenal talent, and it's no wonder this guy came forth with such great '70s music. He had great '60s music for goodness sake! It's just that there weren't very many great '60s Bowie songs, and not a whole lot of people knew about it.

Unwashed and Somewhat Slightly Dazed 8/10

I used to think this song was the coming of the Anti-Christ, but there's really nothing so extremely wrong with it. It starts up all druggy and hippie, which is kind of hard to swallow for some listeners. However, the melody is pretty catchy. The song succumbs to an overblown rock jam at the end of it, which is ... kind of rollicking and enjoyable. Bowie never really did rock jams later on in his career, so it's interesting just to hear this out of curiosity. ((Oooo! Hear Bowie's Marc Bolan impression toward the end of this!)

Don’t Sit Down 4/5

Bowie was high or something! This song is a formally discarded demo or something that features some really drugged up laughing at the end of it! ... Um ... thanks ...

Letter to Hermoine 7/10

Alright, Bowie finally loses me with this song. The melody isn't very hooky at all. And, as we all know, when a Bowie song ain't hooky, it ain't much of a Bowie song at all. To his credit, however, he does pack on the instrumentation here, so he was trying to go for an *atmospheric piece* rather than a pop song, but ... he didn't really do such a fantastic job at it. I'm not very compelled by this.

Cygnet Committee 8/10

Holy GEEZ, you can rack up progressive rock on Bowie's list of attempted musical styles through the entirety of his career. This song is well over nine minutes long, and ... Honestly, I don't find anything so extremely wrong with it. It's been criticised over and over again for being pretentious (even more pretentious than Bowie usually gets), but I find myself rather easily caught up in it. For a start, the melody has plenty of hooks to compell me through the song. The instrumentation, which features changes of tempo, and some thickly layered instruments. The end of the song is very spirited, indeed. It really takes off. I'm not claiming that this is some huge lost Bowie classic. I just think it gets unfair flack.

Janine 7/10

A more regular rock tune is here ... It has a pretty hooky melody, but other than that, it's not extremely compelling. It features an acoustic guitar, a steady bass guitar and an occasional line from an electric guitar. ... Eh, this is only so-so.

Occasional Dream 9/10

I like this song! It might be more related to the stuff that appeared in his eponymous 1967 album. That also means that this might just be the most dated-sounding song on here, but ... what a pleasant song this is! Besides, it's only barely over three minutes long, so it doesn't do too much damage. It features mostly acoustic guitar, a nice and sweetly paced bass guitar, and the occasional and pleasant addition of a fruity flute. Oh, babyyyyyyyy... Don't pass this one by, people.

Wild Eyed Boy From Freecloud 9/10

This track isn't quite as long as "The Cygnet Committee," but it has similar ambitions, and I think this one was quite a bit better at telling it. This song sounds so damn epic, and it actually succeeds at it marvellously. It's certainly a dramatic sounding song that, I suppose, that we're supposed to take seriously. I don't believe Bowie ever really took himself more seriously than necessary, and I don't think he was being too serious here. The instrumentation is rather overblown (which might have been on purpose you know), but it's also very easy to get caught up in this song ... especially in the middle when Bowie belts out "It's really meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!" Anyway, David Bowie is this pretentious bastard, and he's loving every second of it.

God Knows I’m Good 10/10

Bowie's always been a huge Bob Dylan fan and he tries his mightiest to pen and sing a song as closest to the "guy with the funny looking haircut" as he possibly can. Well, someone would have to be doing some serious crack to confuse this with a Bob Dylan song, but ... this really is a fantastic song. Not only does this song feature an approrpiately hooky melody, but there's some very nice acoustic guitar work here. This is also one of Bowie's more resonant songs, but it's not any more resonant than necessary. It's a story about an old starving shoplifter who gets caught and exclaims "God knows I'm good!"

Memory of a Free Festival 9/10

I swear there's someplace, somewhere in an early Tyrannosaurus Rex album that sounds exactly like the first part of this song! ... This is a pretty interesting song for Bowie. It starts up rather dismally with Bowie singing amidst an accordian of all instruments! (Yeah ... Bowie doing something like this during the height(s) of his career? Nooooooooooooooooo.) Anyway, this is a rather poignant song for Bowie. I mean, the guy doesn't have the greatest soul of all rock 'n' roll people, but ... he's not bad here. My favorite bit is at the end of this song, which features a raucous chorus of "the Sun machine is coming down and we're going to have a party." ... And, there really wasn't a better ending you could have to this album. It's very exciting, and even though this might not have been the strongest album that has been thrust onto the world, this is pretty memorable. It makes me think I've just listened to something more important than it actually was!

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