Who will love Aladdin Sane...
Thirty five years ago today, on Friday April 13 1973, David Bowie's timeless classic, Aladdin Sane, was unleashed on an unsuspecting public. That cliché is overused, but I can honestly say that I was genuinely taken aback by the life-size Aladdin Sane cut out in the window of Diamond Stylus, my local record shop.
The cut out was of the silver-bodied centre piece which graced the inner gatefold of the album, and it remains one of the most striking images in rock music ever. Proud and androgynous, Bowie was otherworldly and aloof and your mother really didn't like him very much at all. After all, his direct influence surely meant the end of the family line.
I remember well the kid with the cash at school brought the album in on the Friday lunchtime, and we all giggled in disbelief at the word "wanking" on the lyric inner.
As a 12-year-old I couldn't yet afford to buy Bowie LPs on the day of release, and instead borrowed the album from the best friend of my eldest brother.
He knew how big a fan I already was and let me keep the fan club application (which I filled in but never sent off...still have it somewhere) on the proviso that I looked after the record properly and that I would be playing it on decent equipment. "Yes" I replied. It was a Dansette with an auto-changer...well, it's all relative and I thought it was a good machine at the time.
Musically the album remains one of my favourites, capturing brilliantly, and for the last time, all of The Spiders at their razor-sharp, tour-toughened best.
As for the songs...well, obviously we were already familiar with the anthemic The Jean Genie (the first song I ever danced to at a disco) and did anything ever sound like it was created on another planet more so than Drive-In Saturday? Not that the weird synth noises, swirling saxophones and eerie Mellotron strings did anything to hamper the song's chart success. It had been released as a single the week before the album and it eventually peaked at #3 a few weeks later.
And you could tell it all came so naturally to Bowie...He was obviously born on Mars and didn't have to try so desperately hard like all the others.
It was also the first album to feature Mike Garson...and how good did he sound on tracks like Time and the title track. A
nyway, I could go on and on and on, but I recommend you just get the album out and give it another spin...at Max Vol obviously.
Trivia buffs may want to know that the press advert above was from an American magazine. RCA in the US obviously felt that the punning title had to be driven home for those that hadn't already grasped it.