Diamond Dogs
Diamond Dogs is the eighth studio album by the English musician David Bowie, released on 24 May 1974 through RCA Records. Bowie produced the album and recorded it in early 1974 in London and the Netherlands, following the disbanding of his backing band the Spiders from Mars and the departure of the producer Ken Scott. Bowie played lead guitar on the record in the absence of Mick Ronson. Diamond Dogs featured the return of Tony Visconti, who had not worked with Bowie for four years; the two would collaborate for the rest of the decade. Musically, it was Bowie's final album in the glam rock genre, though some songs were influenced by funk and soul music, which Bowie embraced on his next album, Young Americans.
Conceived during a period of uncertainty over where his career was headed, Diamond Dogs is the result of multiple projects Bowie envisaged at the time: a scrapped musical based on Ziggy Stardust ; an adaptation of George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four ; and an urban apocalyptic scenario based on the writings of William S. Burroughs. The title track introduces a new persona named Halloween Jack. The Belgian artist Guy Peellaert painted the controversial cover artwork depicting Bowie as a half-man, half-dog hybrid, based on photos taken by the photographer Terry O'Neill.
Preceded by the lead single "Rebel Rebel", Diamond Dogs was a commercial success, peaking at number one in the UK and number five in the US. It has received mixed reviews since its release, many criticising its lack of cohesion; Bowie's biographers consider it one of his best works and, in 2013, NME ranked it one of the greatest albums of all time. Bowie supported the album on the Diamond Dogs Tour, which featured elaborate and expensive set-pieces. Retrospectively, Diamond Dogs has been cited as an influence on the punk revolution in the years following its release. It has been reissued several times and was remastered in 2016 for the Who Can I Be Now? box set.
Background
released his seventh studio album Pin Ups in the summer of 1973. At the time, he was unsure of where to take his career. Not wanting Ziggy Stardust to define him, he disbanded his backing band the Spiders from Mars and parted ways with producer Ken Scott. According to biographer David Buckley, Scott's departure marked an end to Bowie's "classic 'pop' period" and brought him to more experimental territory and "arguably greater musical daring".During the Pin Ups sessions, he told reporters that he wanted to create a musical, using various titles such as Tragic Moments and Revenge, or The Best Haircut I Ever Had. His guitarist Mick Ronson recalled: " had all these little projects... wasn't quite sure what he wanted to do." As Ronson began work on his solo album Slaughter on 10th Avenue, Bowie and his wife Angie moved out of Beckenham's Haddon Hall because of harassment by fans. They moved initially into an apartment in Maida Vale, rented to them by the actress Diana Rigg, before moving into a larger house on Oakley Street, Chelsea. According to Buckley, David Bowie's manager Tony Defries prevented this move initially, citing the house as "too extravagant". Despite RCA Records estimating Bowie's album and single sales in the UK at over two million copies combined, Defries said that sales did not provide Bowie with enough income to afford the house. In spite of Defries, Bowie bought the house and it was here the Bowies spent time with Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood of the Faces, Mick Jagger and his then-wife Bianca, and the American singer and model Ava Cherry, with whom Bowie had an affair during this time.
Along with recording Pin Ups, Bowie participated in other musical ventures in 1973. He co-produced and played on Lulu's recording of "The Man Who Sold the World", which was released as a single in January 1974, contributed to Steeleye Span's Now We Are Six, and formed a trio called the Astronettes, comprising Cherry, Jason Guess and Geoff MacCormack. The group recorded sessions at Olympic Studios in London but the project was ultimately shelved in January; a compilation album titled People from Bad Homes was released in 1995. Bowie reworked songs from these sessions in subsequent years. Buckley writes that the songs he recorded featured a blend of glam rock and soul, which proved to be the direction Bowie took in 1974.
Writing
According to the biographer Chris O'Leary, Diamond Dogs is a combination of numerous projects Bowie envisioned at the time. In November 1973, Bowie conducted an interview with the writer William S. Burroughs for Rolling Stone. Published in February 1974, the interview gave insight into Bowie's current ambitions. An admirer of Burroughs's working methods and his 1964 novel Nova Express, Bowie revealed he had begun using Burroughs's "cut-up" technique as a way for inspiration. He spoke of a musical based on Ziggy Stardust, saying: "Forty scenes are in it and it would be nice if the characters and actors learned the scenes and we all shuffled them around in a hat the afternoon of the performance and just performed it as the scenes come out." He also casually mentioned adapting George Orwell's 1949 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, a Bowie favourite, for television. He had wanted to create a theatrical production of the novel and began writing material after completing sessions for Pin Ups. Neither of these projects came to fruition.The Ziggy Stardust musical fell through, but Bowie salvaged two songs for Diamond Dogs he had written for it—"Rebel Rebel" and "Rock 'n' Roll with Me". At the end of 1973, George Orwell's widow, Sonia Orwell, denied Bowie the rights to use the novel. The rejection annoyed Bowie, who lambasted her for it in Circus magazine a few years later. She refused to allow any adaptation of her late husband's work for the rest of her life. No adaptations were possible until after her death in 1980. Unable to adapt the novel, Bowie decided to create his own apocalyptic scenario inspired by the works of Burroughs. Songs from this scenario included what would become the album's title track and "Future Legend".
Recording
Buckley writes that the album was the first time Bowie used a recording studio as an instrument. With Scott's departure, Bowie produced the album himself. Keith Harwood, who had worked previously with the Rolling Stones, and on Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy, handled engineering duties. Nicholas Pegg writes that despite Bowie and Harwood's previous collaborations on Mott the Hoople's All the Young Dudes and the original version of "John, I'm Only Dancing", Diamond Dogs was Harwood's first credit on a Bowie album. Bowie described being "in awe" of Harwood because of his work with the Stones. Given the departure of the Spiders from Mars, Bowie played lead guitar. He recalled in 1997 that he practised every day knowing "the guitar playing had to be more than okay". This surprised NME critics Roy Carr and Charles Shaar Murray, producing what they described as a "scratchy, raucous, semi-amateurish sound that gave the album much of its characteristic flavour".The pianist Mike Garson and the drummer Aynsley Dunbar returned from the Pin Ups sessions, Tony Newman also played drums while Herbie Flowers, who had played previously on Space Oddity, was recruited to play bass. Alan Parker of Blue Mink played guest guitar on "1984" and "augmented" Bowie's riff on "Rebel Rebel", although he was only credited for "1984". Bowie's longtime friend Geoff MacCormack, now known as Warren Peace, sang backing vocals. Diamond Dogs reunited Bowie with Tony Visconti, who provided string arrangements and helped mix the album at his studio in London. Visconti would go on to co-produce much of Bowie's work for the rest of the decade.
Before the Nineteen Eighty-Four project was denied, Bowie worked on "1984", recording it on 19 January 1973 during the sessions for Aladdin Sane. Initial work on Diamond Dogs began in late October 1973 at Trident Studios in London, where Bowie and Scott recorded "1984" in a medley with "Dodo", titled "1984/Dodo", mixed the track: this session was the last time the two worked together. According to O'Leary, this session was also the last time Bowie worked with Ronson and Bolder. The medley had already made its public debut on the American television show The 1980 Floor Show recorded in London on 18–20 October 1973. A cover of Bruce Springsteen's "Growin' Up", with Ronnie Wood on lead guitar, was also recorded during this time. Recording for the album at Olympic officially began at the start of 1974. Bowie had started to work on "Rebel Rebel" during a solo session at Trident following Christmas 1973. On New Year's Day, the group recorded "Candidate" and "Take It In Right", an early version of "Can You Hear Me" from Young Americans. Following the final sessions with the Astronettes, recording continued from 14 to 15 January, with the group recording "Rock 'n' Roll with Me", "Candidate", "Big Brother", "Take It In Right" and the title track. The following day, Bowie recorded "We Are the Dead", after which he contacted Visconti for mixing advice. "Rebel Rebel" was finished around this time. Recording was finished at Ludolph Studios in the Netherlands, where the Stones had just finished recording It's Only Rock 'n Roll.