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JUNE 26, 2004: TONY VISCONTI AT NUMBER ONE Polls
and lists are great when you're in them. These two albums are from Pitchfork's
best albums of the 1970s. 001:
David Bowie Released in January 1977, Low was the most potent and encompassing hybridization of pop music's many modes to that point, an album that continues to resonate as a syncretic masterpiece three decades later. Still
fascinated with the urban funk rhythms he'd employed less subtly for
Young Americans and Station to Station, Bowie was increasingly drawn
to the synthetic novelties Can, Neu!, and Eno were positing, particularly
Eno's Discreet Music, which informs most of Low's second side. This
gorgeous quartet of dramatic instrumental pieces started out as the
soundtrack for The Man Who Fell to Earth, an 1975 film by Nicholas Roeg
starring Bowie, at the apex of his cocaine addiction, as an extraterrestrial
†bermensch. Unbelievably, Bowie's compositions were rejected; brought
through to Low, they provide a grave emotional counterpoint to the record's
self-exploratory A-side, proof positive that Bowie really was out to
wipe the mirror clean in Berlin. To correct an injurious and carelessly repeated claim, Brian Eno did not produce Low (or "Heroes" or Lodger). While his presence and influence are uncontestable-- especially in the aching instrumental "A New Career in a New Town"-- producer Tony Visconti and Bowie shaped the analog onslaught heard here. For their fine ears, there's also a principal debt to the Eventide H910 Harmonizer, the first commercially available pitch-shifter, which through doubling lends Low its signature distorted snare drum, one of the most ingenious production advances you can point to in the 1970s, and a sound producers still reach for today. Politically, Low is a singular and brutal indictment of the only thing Bowie's native England cared about in January 1977: punk rock. To a man who lived through Iggy and-- let's be honest-- designed Johnny Rotten, punk's brief lifespan and predominantly societal (rather than musical) impact were foregone conclusions. That Bowie could see past the flames to paint this horizon is irrefutable evidence of his solipsistic genius. Balancing process art, experimentalism and rock 'n' roll tradition, Low is Bowie unrefined, the most captivating effort from the decade's most-watched man. --Chris Ott 020:
T.Rex Appropriately, Marc Bolan began his ill-fated career as a well-kempt model for John Temple suits. His body was grafted onto cardboard placards and hung in department store windows. On Electric Warrior, not much changed. He's the cut-out embodiment of a shallow, smutty pulp culture reared on Elvis' hips and Mick's lips. Except Bolan knows it, and every line is delivered as archly and ironically as possible: "I danced myself right out the womb," or, in a sort of ultra-Zeppelin aria, "You're built like a car/ You got a hubcap." Bolan's guitar trembles with dark angst and pop perversion, as well as traces of psychedelic folk. Vocally, the most frequent sound is some sort of neon yawn-hum, halfway between an injured coyote and a 60s girl group. But more fundamentally, Electric Warrior served as the blueprint for glam and-- filtered through the filth of New York Dolls and The Sex Pistols-- the genesis of punk's attitude, if not its sound. Essential to T.Rex's junkie-vaudeville was producer Tony Visconti (also a key contributor to Bowie's Young Americans and Berlin Trilogy). Every noise-- from the symphony of "Cosmic Dancer" to the grimy warbling of "Lean Woman Blues"-- is lobbed out of some dank echo chamber where hobos and supermodels unite for the sake of their zombie heroin. And whether or not you buy into T.Rex's brand of fashionable sleaze, they are directly responsible for Ziggy Stardust, Mott the Hoople, and-- for better or really, really worse-- Poison, Whitesnake, and L.A. Guns. --Alex Linhardt
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