you are absolutely right

Station to Station is the best album in the history of ever and "Stay" the best track

it's pretty great

Add me to the list of admirers.

I'm off to listen again now.

Its wonderful

Set coming out in 2010 with a live in Nassau show.

.... I was uploading some photos only a coupla days hence to Facebook, taken whilst accompanying the missus on one of her regular bizztrips to Paris; this time round rather than fly we took the Eurostar. I figured I'd call the photoset 'Station To Station' cos of the train journey which prompted me to put said album on for the first time in a very long time - when I get a hankering for some Bromley, I usually go for "Heroes" or "Low" so it was a great memo to self to reconnect with some of his earlier stuff. And yes Sheev, "Stay" is the best track on it and I especially like the live version on the 3rd CD of the "Bowie At The Beeb" boxset with Earl Slick on live gee-tar duties!

BTW, the missus is a native of Helsinki so naturallement I referred to us both as the Finn / White Duke!

BR
Freaky Trigger

It's the one Bowie album which seems that bit more timeless than the rest, I'm not sure why. I think he was going for a kind of blank canvas approach to his image and his vocal delivery, deliberately avoiding a new persona. It's definitely aged well.

I think mid-70s Bowie was a peculiarly intellectual sort, definitely off on his own tangent, cold and aloof. There's a chilly depth to Station To Station that's absent from most pop music.

My favourite track is the title track. Weird structure and gospelly touches: it's like a cocaine-infused Jesus Christ Superstar.

pumping out station to station back in the day

i think it was worth it

Surely the title track is the best one on this fine, fine album...?

It's a superb album. I really like Stay but the intro to Station to Station really sets up the platform for the album.
I remember walking down from Wembley underground station dressed in my big hat hair dyed red/blonde at the front. On the other side of the road were the rugby fans (St Helens?) coming out from Wembley stadium. It was a funny sight I'm sure. Getting to the arena and checking out all the other Bowie lookalikes - I was fifteen and captured in the buzz of it all. Then inside on came 'Un chien andelour'(sorry if that't not quite the right spelling) by Salvador Dali. It was a great build up to a fantastic gig. The black & white lighting was great and a fantastic show.
I'm going to play it all the way through over the weekend.....

that Bowie wrote 'Golden Years' With Elvis in mind to sing it? It makes perfect sense when you listen & Imagine.If only.

Got to agree with the opinions expressed above. He was also looking fantastic during this period. The drugs really did seem to work - as evidenced in the picture below...

http://monparadissolitaire.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/david-bowie-mugsh...

Did anyone ever take a cooler mugshot?

"Deluxe...Set coming out in 2010 with a live in Nassau show."

I used to have the '76 Nassau Coliseum show on a bootleg tape, and adored it. Still my favourite Bowie live album. However bits of it then turned up on Bowie CD reissues in the 90s, and whoever did the remix totally sucked the life out of it. Here's hoping it gets a bit more TLC next time.

cool name, great guitar player.

Good call. That is much better than I remember it. ITunes Ahoy!

been listening to Station to Station a lot recently too! I adore this record so much and though most of the massive are probably aware< I'd like to direct you to one or two things to further enhance listening to it.Item 1, Apparently, ver dame often meticulously works out how every syllable is to be enunciated in terms of tone, register, accent, vibrato etc. We can see the fruits of this everywhere but it's particularly apparent IMHO on Wild is the Wind. 2. Recorded, indeed, in a cocaine blizzard, there's a heck of a lot of arcane symbolism on the title track: you can almost imagine the lonely, paranoid LA living rooms filled with stored wee wee where much of it was conceived. There is a deep and extraordinary exploration of some of this occulty stuff in the great Ian McDonald's The People's Music, which I would heartily recommend to returning listeners as well as baffled new arrivals at this station.

Listening to Station to Station always snaps me straight back to the early 80s, listening to it at high volume in my study at school (yep, it was that kind of school) on a Saturday evening. Stay is a stunner, as are the title song, Word On A Wing and Wild Is The Wind. Strangely perhaps, the two original singles, Golden Years and TVC15 are the songs I don't love quite as much as the others.

That album and Low are the most evocative of any records in my collection. And they still sound magnificent.

'Golden Years' was just about my all time favourite song, of all time, ever. It is just so smoky, slick and yet has this very strange and dark undertone that colours it. And I always loved that rock-solid groove that seems to keep intensifying over and over until the final flourish. Dark, magnificent.
Never got on with TVC15 though.
And can't wait for the reissue - I've heard a lot about that Nassau gig!

I find Young Americans and Station To Station to be enjoyable but wholly transitional albums.

The disappointing and lacklustre Young Americans is confused and confusing...

... and STS sees Bowie only just beginning to focus (artistically) through the murk.

They're both stepping stones in getting from the bloated cocaine expression of Diamond Dogs to the junk introspection of the Berlin pair.

In similar fashion, Earthling and Hours are merely adequate and reasonably interesting routestops between Outside and Heathen.

Except it's shoes and smoking, not illicit drugs. Doctor Marten boots and Gauloises to pipe-and-slippers.

I'm immersing myself in "Station To Station" as we speak. I bought a copy at the beginning of the year (along with various other Bowie albums in HMV) and haven't exposed myself to it's wonders enough to form an opinion.

Still, I remember (vaguely) liking what I heard first-time around.

Saw Bowie at The Empire Pool in '76 on this S2S tour and yes, it's a great album and he was my idol, looking great etc. but something started changing in his vocals on this album; I think Charles Shaar Murray compared it to a drunk singing in a bar. I can't listen to "word on a wing" or "wild is the wind" without wincing now, and "Low" aside, he started sliding down from here on in. Even though I still religiously bought his albums, my interest peaked at "Low" and I've never listened to any later stuff more than a couple of times. He was a tremendous influence though, on my reading and listening matter by his references, and I still like to see the old bugger, although sightings sadly seem to be getting fewer and fewer these days. He really was the best thing in my life in those bleak early 70's. Love you matey!

is really the one that does it for me, tho.

throwing pins in lovers eyes

Obviously.

As always, I add my love of this album. The best Bowie album. It leaves you wanting more. Which is always a good thing.

And as to claims of "Stay" being the best track? I think that honour has to go to "Wild Is The Wind". Hands down.

I agree with Sheev. I think all of Bowie's work in this period was fantastic - YA and Low and Heroes and I even like Lodger which some people think is not as good. But S to S and Heroes are a cut above

The somewhat maligned twins in Bowie's late 70s canon.

Dug out Scary Monsters the other day, and it really is fantastic, a contemporary sound, loads of weirdness, just great.

Lodger is pretty fine too, more song based than Low and Heroes, and some might say all the better for it.

cannot remember anything about recording it except for a guitar lick he was trying to teach Alomar. as a result he says its his favourite of his own work cos he's not as emotionally tied up with it as others of that time. Its almost as if he didn't write it.

Bowie's 70s output is virtually flawless; Station To Station jostling for position with Low as the highlight. Having been bombarded with Bowie on a 10-day driving holiday, during Station To Station my wife asked, 'Does Bowie write all the music and everything?'

'Yes he does', I replied.

'I'm beginning to see what all the fuss is about.' Love that girl.

that Station to Station is genius, but for me Diamond Dogs heads it slightly.
Mind you, that's because it soundtracked that, you know... er, 'First Time'.
We were going to jump in a river holding hands afterwards, but the Trent is deadly and the Humber is an estuary.

to 'Cracked Actor'? You old smoothie

is a Bowie track that really took my breath away when I first heard it. I was leant a stack of Bowie CD's by a workmate and Station to Station is still my go to Bowie album.

Where is he nowadays, dont seem to hear much from him since all that scarymonsterglassspiderjaredundergroundtightpantstinmachine thing he was doing a few years ago... David if you're reading get in touch mate, be lovey to hear what you've been up to?

Station to Station is the one I put on more than any of his others. Station to Station itself is a fantastic piece of drama - 10 mins of the highest quality. But it's so rarely mentioned in the wider world.

It's illustrative in this era of 12 track, 58 minute albums to see this come and go in 38 minutes, and that includes the lengthy train chuff build up (which is great) on S2S, and leave you wanting more.