Where bought? I think this might have been out of a cut-out bin in the big sale at Alans when it re-opened for a week to get rid of stock. This might have been from the Static Records pile, but I'm pretty sure I got it from my home town. £3.
In my esteemed opinion Let's Dance is the fourth best David Bowie solo LP; ahead of Low, ahead of "Heroes", ahead of Scary Monsters, Hunky Dory, or Lodger. I'm not a big hot takes monster but I believe this at least until faced with new evidence.
Why? Six of the songs bang utterly and the other two are just fine. The title track feels the most obviously unimpeachable by the peanut gallery in 2021, propelled by an awesome bass groove and spectral horns and synths. And though maybe 'Modern Love' doesn't sustain the brilliance of its opening 60 seconds, I simply say that the introduction and early verses are perfect pop music. Watch it used excellently in cinema:
'China Girl' I guess brings forward problems not helped by the very straight reading of the lyric offered by the video. I have to say that the more I hear it, particularly the middle 8, I don't hear it as a song about an oriental woman and more something in the drugs/colonialism realm. I love the song and I think the bassline that comes in after the chorus is wonderful, a moment in a song that could have been pure connective tissue becoming a wholly realised moment.
'Ricochet' is one of my favourite Bowie cuts. I read an interview where he said he was disappointed in how it turned out, that he was gunning for this Alemayehu Eshete style Ethiopiques flavour, while the results are comparitively stiff. He's right, but I think the persistence of his own rhythm here gives the structure of the song a real housing to build all that weirdness in the instrumental passages with the stacked voices and samples. I bet no one in the studio really *got* that one, but it stands up.
I also really like 'Criminal World' (a song he wrote for someone else, then re-recorded) and absolutely sue me but I think the Cat People theme is good, especially the return to the intro chords in the outro.
No huge memories attached to this, and I think I mentioned in the last Bowie write-up that I used to have furtive teen sex to a Bowie comp, so that's that one covered.
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