Lodger (Album)
Production
Lodger is an album by David Bowie in 1979 and the last of his " Berlin Trilogy ". He wrote it with Brian Eno and recorded it but actually in the Mountain Studios, Montreux, Switzerland and Record Plant Studios, New York City, and published it on May 18, 1979. It reached number 4 in the UK and number 20 on the Billboard - Charts and rankings in other countries.
The album contains ten songs. 1991 it appeared on CD with bonus tracks I Pray, Olé, which was written in 1979 by Bowie, but not until 1991 this CD first appeared, and a re-recorded version of Look Back in Anger from the year 1988.
Many songs are produced and written as in the two predecessors Low and Heroes mainly of David Bowie and Brian Eno. It is called " one of his top 5 albums of the 70s ."
Style
Although Lodger is regarded as the third album " Berlin Trilogy", it contains many new elements that Bowie not einbaute in his previous albums. There new musical experiments were consulted that stand sometimes only after repeated listening.
The first song Fantastic Voyage is a relatively quiet piano piece with soft drums. It continues with the song African Night Flight, in which Bowie first time, inspired by a trip to Kenya, used African sounds. After the Move on song follows. In Yassassin elements of Turkish music can be heard, violin deposits with oriental effects. After Red Sails with a touch of New Wave DJ follow somewhat reminiscent of Bowie's hit " TVC 15" of 1976 and the rocking Look Back in Anger. Boys Keep Swinging, the first single from Lodger, mid-1979 came to the UK Top 10 Last come the songs of repetition and Red Money, which are held back in the New Wave style.
In this album all songs have been covered with moderate song texts, unlike its predecessors Low and Heroes again. Lodger is not considered a typical Bowie album and it's getting to know the typical Bowie - style rather unsuitable.
Cover
For the cover design David collaborated with the British pop artist Derek Boshier. On the outside of the gatefold cover Bowie is depicted as a victim with seemingly broken nose. For the effect of the image was deliberately low resolution taken with a Polaroid SX -70 camera. The inside of the folds will show pictures of the corpse of Che Guevara, Mantegna's Lamentation of Christ and preparing Bowie for the cover photo. These images were not used for Rykodiscs CD edition of 1991.
Title list
All text by David Bowie; Music by David Bowie and Brian Eno with the above exceptions.
Reprints
Lodger was reprinted several times on CD. The CDs from RCA in 1980, there were at least two editions: Japanese and German pressure ( at least some of the early Japanese CDs were deficient, with heavy dropouts in the entire album). Rykodisc ( in the U.S.) and EMI (other countries ) reported in 1991 a version with two bonus tracks out. The last edition was published in 1999 by EMI ( 24-bit digitally remastered without bonus tracks ); later editions are only new issues of the current EMI Edition.
Bonus tracks ( only on the edition of 1991)
Occupation
- David Bowie - vocals, backing vocals, piano, guitar, synthesizer, Chamberlin, Producer
- Carlos Alomar - guitar, drums
- Dennis Davis - Percussion, Bass
- George Murray - bass
- Sean Mayes - Piano
- Simon House - violin, mandolin
- Adrian Belew - guitar, mandolin
- Tony Visconti - backing vocals, guitar, mandolin, bass, producer, sound engineer, mixing,
- Brian Eno - synthesizer, ambient drone, Prepared Piano, Cricket Menace, guitar treatments, trumpet, horn, piano
- Roger Powell - Synthesizer
- Stan - Saxophone
- David Richards - sound engineer
- Rod O'Brien - mixing
Charts
The album and individual singles reached the following chart positions:
Album
Singles