Recorded live at the Nassau Coliseum, Uniondale, New York, on 23 March 1976. The back cover showed Bowie sketching the Kabbalah Sephirot with chalk—something he had been doing on the set of the film. "[21] AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote that, "at its heart, Station to Station is an avant-garde art-rock album", which includes "everything from epic ballads and disco to synthesized avant pop" while extending "the detached plastic soul of Young Americans to an elegant, robotic extreme. [20], Station to Station is often cited as a transitional album in Bowie's career. [53] In the UK, it charted for seventeen weeks, peaking at No. [30] Bowie was inspired to record it after he met singer/pianist/songwriter Nina Simone (whose version is on the eponymous 1966 album). [35] Despite the noise of a train in the opening moments, Bowie says that the title refers not so much to railway stations as to the Stations of the Cross, while the line "From Kether to Malkuth" relates to mystical places in the Kabbalah, mixing Christian and Jewish allusions. It's an extremely dark album. David Bowie, on the other hand, produced Station to Station, an album he allegedly doesn't remember making, but which, ironically, stands as his most immaculately constructed album, and … Station To Station spawned one lingering hit, in "Golden Years", but the album was littered with malevolent miracles. Bowie claimed that the photographer simply caught him in mid-wave,[63] a contention backed by a young Gary Numan who was among the crowd that day: "Think about it. The title track was released as a promo 7-inch single in January 1976. [16] According to Bowie, "I got some quite extraordinary things out of Earl Slick. We were in the studio and it was nuts—a lot of hours, a lot of late nights. [65] The album was ranked No. So much so that he disassociated himself from this era — claiming it felt like it was another person when he looked back at it before his death. "[34] In 1999 Bowie told UNCUT magazine, "Since Station To Station the hybridization of R&B and electronics had been a goal of mine". 324 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. I've never read a review that really sussed it. Station to Station is the 10th studio album by English musician David Bowie, released on 23 January 1976 by RCA Records. [4] Berman for Pitchfork wrote that "the title track's momentous prog-disco suite [...] charts a course from spiritual void toward ecstatic religious reawakening. Commonly regarded as one of his most significant works, Station to Station was the vehicle for his performance persona, the Thin White Duke. "[11] The Isolar Tour was the source of one of the artist's best-known bootlegs, culled from an FM radio broadcast of his 23 March 1976 concert at Nassau Coliseum. [4] Bowie himself said that Station to Station was "a plea to come back to Europe for me".[3]. [57] Reviewing the record for the newspaper, Christgau expressed some reservations about the length of the songs and the detached quality of Bowie's vocals, but deemed "TVC 15" his "favorite piece of rock and roll in a very long time" and wrote, "spaceyness has always been his shtick, and anybody who can merge Lou Reed, disco, and Dr. John ... deserves to keep doing it for five minutes and 29 seconds. [60] The staging featured Bowie, dressed in the Duke's habitual black waistcoat and trousers, a pack of Gitanes placed ostentatiously in his pocket, moving stiffly among "curtains of white light",[4] an effect that spawned the nickname 'the White Light Tour'. Station to Station is the 10th studio album by English musician David Bowie, released on 23 January 1976 by RCA Records. 1 on Billboard 200, David Bowie at No. He staged a country",[61] but managed to avoid condemnation. [52] Station to Station was certified gold by the RIAA on 26 February 1976. By the mid-70s, it was customary for pop stars to sing of their disillusionment with fame (see: John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, Neil Young's On the Beach) but they usually did so in an insular, introspective fashion, after they had gained some distance from the storm. 8 in the UK and No. [65] It has also been described as "enormously influential on post-punk". Miserable time to live through, I must say,” Bowie added. The new master perfectly mediates between the album's surface elegance and underlying menace. I think for me, personally, theatrically, that was the most successful tour I've ever done. [4] The persona has been described as "a mad aristocrat",[4] "an amoral zombie",[9] and "an emotionless Aryan superman". David Bowie’s Station to Station is undoubtedly a masterpiece but it was an album that the late maestro had almost no recollection of creating because of his penchant for cocaine. The album's lyrics reflected his preoccupations with Friedrich Nietzsche, Aleister Crowley, mythology and religion. "[17] Alomar recalled, "It was one of the most glorious albums that I've ever done ... We experimented so much on it". Another song purportedly recorded during the album sessions at Cherokee Studios, a cover of Bruce Springsteen's "It's Hard to Be a Saint in the City",[11] went unreleased at the time but was issued in 1989 on the Sound+Vision box set. [54] Both magazines found the meaning of the lyrics difficult to fathom. I have various photographs of me looking skeletal, which remind me how badly behaved I was back in the 70s,” Bowie honestly stated. "[4] However, Stylus declared in 2004 that "just as few had anticipated Bowie's approach, few copied it ... for the most part this is an orphaned, abandoned style". Station to Station was made in Los Angeles and the city of angels had burnt Bowie out. [69] The same year, Eno called it "one of the great records of all time". [27] Its lyrics have been variously interpreted as reflecting on "the uncertainty of sexual conquest",[27] and as an example of "the Duke's spurious romanticism". [4] Bowie himself has claimed that in this song, at least, "the passion is genuine". [41] In November 1981, as Bowie's relationship with RCA was winding down, "Wild Is the Wind" was issued as a single to push the Changestwobowie compilation. The drug is usually the enemy of creativity but, somehow, Bowie made it work and the sprawling six-song record was a triumph with his fans and has been a key part of his iconography ever since. [72] In 2004, The Observer ranked the album No. He sounds throughout on the verge of cackling dementedly and wandering off into the night; CD 1: Station to Station 2010 analogue transfer, CD 3: Station to Station single edits five track EP, LP 1: heavyweight 12" of Station to Station from the original stereo analogue master in replica sleeve, LP 2 & 3: heavyweight 12"s of Live Nassau Coliseum '76 in gatefold sleeve, 24-page booklet including text and rare photographs, David Bowie on Stage 1976 replica collectibles folder (for example, a backstage pass), 1976 Fan Club Folder replica collectibles folder (for example, two badges/pins), In 2016, the album was remastered for the Who Can I Be Now?