David Bowie – Young Americans

One of my favourite Bowie albums. There seem to be quite a few variations of the American pressings, and I’m fairly certain I’ve chosen the right one. It’s not easy seeing what’s been etched on the dead wax. 5/5 in spite of the Beatles cover. Im cheating a bit by including in my mind all the bonus songs that were recorded but didn’t make the final release. When you look at the list of songs, and play them its one Helluva musical ride.
I’ve had this copy for years and can’t where I got it. I don’t think it’s a promo but on the matt textured sleeve top left there is stamped into the card NOT FOR SALE promotion use only. Nothing on the label. Hopefully I’ve got a rarity that would sell for £10,000 🤔😀

Young Americans was both unexpected and expected if you were clued into the spaces between the notes. It was certainly not the album most folks were expecting, though in its way, the record continued with Bowie’s fascination for the fame of pop stardom, though this time viewed though the funk and soul sound of Philadelphia, through a haze of cocaine, making this the album that nearly physically destroyed him.

Not many knew what to do with this release back in 1975, especially rock radio stations. No longer was he dancing with gender changes this time, this time he was changing genres in a very meaningful and insightful manner. The record is nearly flawless, though if you were to ask me to point out a single flaw, I imagine I’d stand there shuffling my feet, unable to do so. Nevertheless Young Americans certainly opened new doors, meshing his new interest in soul with his keen knowledge of English pop. It would have been easy for Bowie to have fallen into a James Brown impersonation, but he doesn’t, nearly leaving Brown to stand in his shadow, leaving that wonderful line “Isn’t there one damn song that can make me break down and cry?” forever echoing in my head.

David Bowie was like so many English rockers, always wishing that they’d been born in America, yet knowing that they can only appreciate all that America had to offer because they viewed it for so long from afar, from the radio and records. Bowie didn’t take his ideas back to the UK, he stayed in the States, recording this gem at Sigma Sound Studios in 1974. Young Americans is a musical snapshot of the America that grabbed his attention, mixed with his character Ziggy Stardust, where like a man from another time and place, he was creating his own version of what had always been just out of reach for him. Certainly the album dives deeply into Bowie’s scripted themes, presentations of despair, alienation and the notion of being the quintessential forever lonely misunderstood rockstar. I’ve forever wondered if he purposely recorded the cover of the John Lennon song “Across the Universe” so matter of factly, so poorly, in an attempt to express that alienation through his quirkiness, as at the time (1975) it was without a doubt the throwaway song on the record.

For those of you who weren’t there then, you should certainly go back and binge watch a day of the Soul Train dance show. The album is sweet and enticing, meaningful and forgettable, filled with all of the idiosyncrasies that defined who David Bowie was. Of the album, and it really is a grand affair, with Bowie claiming, “(Young Americans) It’s the definitive plastic soul record.” Certainly it was not a Philly soul album by any means, but then Bowie doesn’t claim it to be. It's all a heartfelt reconstruction, a re-interpretation of all the things he loved and ired about the genre, turned a bit sideways and skewed, as seen through fresh eyes, where in so doing, he steps up the game for the likes of the O’Jays on “Back Stabber,” or the Spinners’ take on “Pick of the Litter,” a white kid from the other side of the globe, showing established artists what is so irably brilliant and persuasive about what they do.

Yet … when all is said and done, artificial or not, the record feels captivatingly alive and real.

*** The Fun Facts: Originally the album was to be called Shilling The Rubes, which is circus slang for taking money off people, with Bowie saying, “I was advised that my stunning wit would not go down well.” (from the David Bowie January 8th 1997 50th Birthday Chat)

Review by Jenell Kesler