David Bowie – Diamond Dogs (1974)

Diamond Dogs is Bowie's last glam rock album. After this, he went on to release Young Americans, which was more influenced by soul and R&B. By the time Diamond Dogs was released, Bowie had already retired Ziggy Stardust and Diamond Dogs is the first album after the glam era where he's not accompanied by the Spiders from Mars. Then again, Bowie's hairdo and style is still very much similar to the Ziggy Stardust era and most of the songs have been written with the Spiders, which means that the album sounds very much like the swansong to Bowie's glam era. There are, however, some art rock influences that seem to anticipate the Berlin era albums and on the other hand, there are strong influences from early 70's Rolling Stones. Diamond Dogs is not one of my favourite Bowie albums, but it has its moments.



Originally, Bowie wanted to make a theatrical production about George Orwell's 1984, but the author's estate denied the rights for it. The latter half of this album features many of those songs intended for that production and that's why the album sort of has a 1984 theme. Bowie has called the album one of his most political works ever.

Like many other Bowie albums, I only have this on CD, which is kind of a shame, since the vinyl versions look phenomenal. I just liked Bowie too early when I didn't yet have a vinyl player and I'm reluctant to buy albums I already own on another format. That's why my sad jewel case CD will have to do.

The album starts with psychedelic yells, synth sounds and spoken word poetry in the song Future Legend. It's mostly just an intro to the whole album that leads into the title-track Diamond Dogs, which at least sounds like it was recorded live. This song has strong influences from early 70s Rolling Stones. The vocals are sung through some strange vocoder that changes the voice to sound like it's coming from under the water. Sweet Thing already sounds a lot like Bowie's Berlin era. The guitars must have sounded quite futuristic at the time of the release. Candidate features some noise elements and jazzy saxophones. in terms of intensity, it continues directly from the earlier song and kind of seems just like a second part to that song. It kind of is a part of the same song, because this is followed by Sweet Thing (Reprise) that brings the earlier song back. The side one ends in one of Bowie's all time biggest hits, Rebel Rebel, which is a perfect glam rock dance song. I've played it as a DJ multiple times to dancing audiences. Rock 'n' Roll With Me is a very theatrical song and it takes the sounds back a bit towards Bowie's earlier career. The sounds are somehow older than on the first half of the album. We Are the Dead has some excellent guitars and Bowie's free-flowing vocals are some of the best on the album. 1984 has some strong disco influences, which is a bit strange taking into account the nature of the book and the story. It's also kind of like a musical song. Big Brother has some dooms day horns in the beginning and has a true feel of apocalypse upon it. The album ends with Chant of the Ever Circling Skeletal Family, which is also very theatrical and danceable. There aren't that many lyrics in the song, it's mainly just musical yells.

I'm not sure if this really counts as a music video, but it certainly looks like one. The video for Rebel Rebel features the album version of the song at least and it doesn't even look like it's in sync with the video. Anyway, it features lots of Bowie's stage charisma and incredibly tight spandex jumpsuit, so it's worth watching.

For some reason, I haven't listened to Diamond Dogs as much as I have listened to the other early albums by him. I guess I like the true glam era even more, but now that I'm more familiar also with Bowie's later albums, I feel like it's historically very clear where this album stands. It's a bridge between his early glam rock era and his later albums that explored soul and art rock. As pretty much all the other Bowie albums, it's a classic album that any record collector should own.

Listen to the album on Spotify.