67: STATION TO STATION | DAVID BOWIE
If I were to ever get married ‘Word On A Wing’ would be at the top of the list of the newly married couple slow dance number.
Station to Station is the tenth studio album by English musician David Bowie, released on 23 January 1976 through RCA Records. Regarded as one of his most significant works, the album was the vehicle for Bowie's performance persona, the Thin White Duke. Co-produced by Bowie and Harry Maslin, Station to Station was mainly recorded at Cherokee Studios in Los Angeles, California, in late 1975, after Bowie completed shooting the film The Man Who Fell to Earth; the cover art featured a still from the film. During the sessions, Bowie was dependent on drugs, especially cocaine, and later said that he recalled almost nothing of the production.
The album consists of six songs, ranging from funk and soul to art rock and krautrock. The lyrics reflect Bowie's preoccupations with Friedrich Nietzsche, Aleister Crowley, mythology and religion. The opening title track is a 10-minute epic that incorporates elements of electronic music and motorik rhythms, while the closing track "Wild Is the Wind" is a cover of a 1950s ballad. The album also includes the hit singles "Golden Years", "TVC 15" and "Stay".
Station to Station was a commercial success, reaching the top five on both sides of the Atlantic. It was also critically acclaimed for its originality and influence on later genres such as post-punk and new wave. Bowie supported the album with the Isolar Tour in early 1976, during which he attracted controversy with statements suggesting support for fascism. At the end of the tour, he moved to Europe to remove himself from L.A.'s drug culture. The styles explored on Station to Station culminated in some of Bowie's most acclaimed work with the Berlin Trilogy over the next three years.
Station to Station has been reissued several times and was remastered in 2016 as part of the Who Can I Be Now? (1974–1976) box set. It has appeared on several lists of the greatest albums of all time and is widely regarded as one of Bowie's masterpieces.
Stephen Thomas Erlewine @ AllMusic: Taking the detached plastic soul of Young Americans to an elegant, robotic extreme, Station to Station is a transitional album that creates its own distinctive style. Abandoning any pretense of being a soulman, yet keeping rhythmic elements of soul, David Bowie positions himself as a cold, clinical crooner and explores a variety of styles. Everything from epic ballads and disco to synthesized avant pop is present on Station to Station, but what ties it together is Bowie's cocaine-induced paranoia and detached musical persona. At its heart, Station to Station is an avant-garde art-rock album, most explicitly on "TVC 15" and the epic sprawl of the title track, but also on the cool crooning of "Wild Is the Wind" and "Word on a Wing," as well as the disco stylings of "Golden Years." It's not an easy album to warm to, but its epic structure and clinical sound were an impressive, individualistic achievement, as well as a style that would prove enormously influential on post-punk.