Stationary

While I still get excited by new music, I'd be lying if I denied that reissues of beloved or overlooked albums are as often as not the ones to which I look forward the most. Perhaps it's something reflective in my nature that prizes rediscovery over the shock of the new. Last year saw the release of the latest (and likely best ever) edition of one of the most strangely wonderful albums ever to grace the upper reaches of the pop charts, David Bowie's 1976 album Station to Station.

It's unlikely that anyone will ever know for certain just what demons, chemical or otherwise, haunted Bowie during the making of this album. Even Bowie himself isn't quite sure, if the story that preceded his performance of the song Word on a Wing on his 1999 Storytellers performance is to be believed. Whatever the causes, the effect is undeniable. No other album in Bowie's 40-year achieved the same balance between accessibility (Golden Years was one of his few top 10 pop hits in America) and musical experimentation (the inscrutable title song remains one of Bowie's most ambitious works).

Interestingly, it's also an album that convinced at least a few doubters of Bowie's talent. Though he had previously dismissed him as "Johnny Ray on cocaine singing about 1984", critic Lester Bangs conceded that Station to Station was a masterpiece that showed Bowie coming into his own as an artist. Bangs, who had previously criticized Bowie's lyrics as among the worst in pop music, went so far as to praise the emotional coherence the album's lyrics brought to its impressive musical mix of rock of rock and soul styles.

Among Bowie's (numerous) classic albums from the 1970s, Station to Station has been largely eclipsed by Low and the rest of the "Berlin Trilogy".While this isn't surprising, and there's a lot of great music on Low, this Bowie fan can't help but feel that at least a portion of the later album's acclaim derives at least as much from the mythology surrounding its making (not to mention his work with Iggy Pop) as from its artistic merits.

The latter notion is, of course, highly subjective speculation on a topic that resists certainty. While Bowie hasn't to my knowledge performed the whole album in sequence as he's done with Low, songs from Station To Station have found their way onto the set-lists of most of his tours since its release. This ongoing re-visitation, including such unique forums as Live Aid and the aforementioned Storytellers program, suggests that the artist himself certainly retained a fondness for the album.

What is certain is that the latest edition of Station to Station is a real gift to Bowie fans, more so even than the anniversary editions of Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane from several years ago. Not only does it include a re-mastered version of the original album, it also includes the full recording of Bowie's 1976 Nassau Coliseum concert. A couple songs from this show, which had been recorded for broadcast, were included on the 1991 Rykodisc version of Station to Station, and I'm thrilled to see the rest of the show get a proper release.

Interestingly, this points to one of the few good things to come out of Bowie's lack of new recordings since Reality in 2003. Whereas legitimate releases of live Bowie had been relatively sparse for most of his career, the last few years have brought concert recordings spanning three decades to CD. While I'd rather have new music from him, these opportunities for rediscovery are an undeniable pleasure.