Growing up I wore at least 2 copies of this record out. And, it still holds up today when I listen to it. Especially the cut 'Rock ‘n’ Roll With Me'. I can't understand why I don't see it on more best of lists. Famed reviewer Robert Christgau gave it a C+. A C FUCKING PLUS?! A recent magazine celebrating Bowie's life didn't have it on their 10 quintessential Bowie albums list. NO COMPRENDE! It is Bowie's elegant dark masterpiece.

Here is a great article from Barry Walters at Pitchfork:

David Bowie's third consecutive UK chart-topper and U.S. Top 5 breakthrough, 1974’s Diamond Dogs is a bummer, a bad trip, "No Fun"–a sustained work of decadence and dread that transforms corrosion into celebration.

…Top 5 breakthrough, 1974’s *Diamond Dogs—*Bowie’s first record of original material since killing off the Ziggy Stardust character that made him an instant superstar back home—remains rooted in his still-reigning glam scene that knocked most utopian '60s rockers off the UK charts with glistening shards of pansexuality, sci-fi fantasy, and bespangled spectacle. His bleakest album until recent swansong Blackstar, Diamond Dogs is a bummer, a bad trip, "No Fun"—a sustained work of decadence and dread that transforms corrosion into celebration. Whereas Ziggy features its titular messiah, Diamond Dogs has jackals that live on corpses the way Bowie fed off rotting urban culture and reckless rock'n'roll.

The last glam gasp of Bowie's English years, Dogs also sprawls toward Bowie’s forthcoming Thin White Duke persona, embracing Blaxploitation funk and soul, rock opera, European art song, and Broadway. The album cracked FM radio with "Rebel Rebel," an Iggy Pop-like blast aimed at America’s teenage wasteland. Recapitulating his earlier achievements while raising their stakes, it stomped on whatever good vibes remained in British rock, and cleared the stage for punk and goth. As Bowie noted decades later, the tribal "peoploids" that rummage through the album’s fantastically bleak Hunger City like the orphaned pickpockets of Oliver Twist presaged a generation of Johnny Rottens and Sid Viciouses. Dogs envisioned a no-future future just before the next breed of pop stars lived it.

As befitting a post-apocalyptic work, Dogs was born from the frustration of failed opportunities. Bowie initially endeavored to create a TV musical adaptation of George Orwell’s totalitarian milestone 1984—until the social critic’s widow refused permission. Around the same time, Rolling Stone’s London bureau arranged for Bowie and William S. Burroughs to interview each other, which introduced the singer to the author’s Nova Express. Immediately thereafter, Bowie began penning lyrical non sequiturs via that novel’s cut-up technique, and planned a Ziggy musical to be similarly shuffled each night. This, too, faltered, although it inspired new tunes. These two projects, sharing dystopian themes, fused together to form the mutant Dogs.

Wiki: Diamond Dogs is a concept album, and the eighth studio album by David Bowie, originally released in 1974 on RCA Records. Thematically, it was a marriage of the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell and Bowie's own glam-tinged vision of a post-apocalyptic world. Bowie had wanted to make a theatrical production of Orwell's book and began writing material after completing sessions for his 1973 album Pin Ups, but the author’s estate denied the rights. The songs wound up on the second half of Diamond Dogs instead where, as the titles indicated, the Nineteen Eighty-Four theme was prominent.

Though the album was recorded and released after the 'retirement' of Ziggy Stardust in mid-1973, and featured its own lead character in Halloween Jack ("a real cool cat" who lives in the decaying "Hunger City"), Ziggy was seen to be still very much alive in Diamond Dogs, as evident from Bowie's haircut on the cover and the glam-trash style of the first single "Rebel Rebel". As was the case with some songs on Aladdin Sane, the influence of the Rolling Stones was also evident, particularly in the chugging title-track. Elsewhere, however, Bowie had moved on from his earlier work with the epic song suite, "Sweet Thing"/"Candidate"/"Sweet Thing (Reprise)", whilst "Rock 'n' Roll with Me" and the Shaft-inspired wah-wah guitar style of "1984" provided a foretaste of Bowie's next, 'plastic soul', phase. The original vinyl album ended with a juddering refrain Bruh/bruh/bruh/bruh/bruh, the first syllable of "(Big) Brother", repeats incessantly. "Sweet Thing" was Bowie's first try at William S. Burroughs' cut-up style of writing, which Bowie would continue to use for the next 25 years.

Although Diamond Dogs was the first Bowie album since 1969 to not feature any of the Spiders from Mars, the backing band made famous by Ziggy Stardust, many of the arrangements were already worked out and played with Mick Ronson prior to the studio recordings, including "1984" and "Rebel Rebel". In the studio, however, Herbie Flowers played bass with drums being shared between Aynsley Dunbar and Tony Newman. In a move that surprised some commentators, Bowie himself took on the lead guitar role previously held by Ronson, producing what NME critics Roy Carr and Charles Shaar Murray described as a "scratchy, raucous, semi-amateurish sound that gave the album much of its characteristic flavour". Diamond Dogs was also a milestone in Bowie's career as it reunited him with Tony Visconti, who provided string arrangements and helped mix the album at his own studio in London. Visconti would go on to co-produce much of Bowie's work for the rest of the decade.

The cover artwork features Bowie as a striking half-man, half-dog grotesque painted by Belgian artist Guy Peellaert, based on photographs of Bowie by Terry O'Neill. It was controversial as the full image on the gatefold cover showed the hybrid's genitalia. The genitalia were airbrushed out from the 1974 LP's sleeve on most releases. Very few copies of this original cover made their way into circulation at the time of the album's release.  According to the record-collector publication Goldmine price guides, these albums have been among the most expensive record collectibles of all time, as high as thousands of US dollars for a single copy. The original image was included on the Rykodisc/EMI rerelease of the album in 1990, and subsequent reissues have included the uncensored artwork (the 1990 packaging also resurrected a rejected inner gatefold image featuring Bowie in a sombrero cordobés holding onto a ravenous dog; like the cover, this artwork was a Guy Peellaert image based on a photograph captured by Terry O'Neill).