Radioman's Radio Program 01/24/2021 Album Spotlight David Bowie - Station to Station

Station to Station is the 10th studio album by English musician David Bowie, released on 23 January 1976 by RCA Records. Commonly regarded as one of his most significant works, Station to Station was the vehicle for his performance persona, the Thin White Duke. Co-produced by Bowie and Harry Maslin, the album was recorded at Cherokee Studios in Los Angeles, California, in the latter half of 1975 after he completed shooting Nicolas Roeg's The Man Who Fell to Earth; the cover artwork featured a still from the film. During the sessions, Bowie was heavily dependent on drugs, especially cocaine, and later claimed that he recalled almost nothing of the production.

Musically, Station to Station was a transitional album for Bowie, developing the funk and soul music of his previous release, Young Americans, while presenting a new direction influenced by German bands such as Neu! and Kraftwerk. The album's lyrics reflected his preoccupations with Friedrich Nietzsche, Aleister Crowley, mythology and religion. Drawing on funk and krautrock, romantic balladry and occultism, Station to Station has been described as "simultaneously one of Bowie's most accessible albums and his most impenetrable". Bowie himself said that Station to Station was "a plea to come back to Europe for me".

Preceded by the single "Golden Years", Station to Station made the top five in both the UK and US charts. The musical styles explored on the album would culminate in some of Bowie's most acclaimed work with the "Berlin Trilogy", recorded with Brian Eno in 1977–79. In 2020, the album was ranked No. 52 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. It has since been reissued multiple times and was remastered in 2016 as part of the Who Can I Be Now? (1974–1976) box set.

0:00 station to station
10:07 golden years
14:08 word on a wing
20:07 TVC15
25:38 stay
31:00 wild is the wind