[review]
The debut album of David Bowie’s short-lived rock band Tin Machine offers quite a different approach than his more widely embraced solo material. Working with equal input to the other musicians, Bowie opts for a much more straightforward, mid to high tempo rock n roll style. Spliced with the DNA of blues, there’s plenty of swagger and energy in the music, delivered with a wonderfully satisfying crunchy blues guitar tone. Bowie’s immediately recognizable voice alongside the instrumentals create an interesting and unusual style which may have been overlooked in its time. The fast blues rock musical styling combined with Bowie’s trademark elevated melancholy can only be described as something of a predecessor to the grunge style made popular years later by bands such as Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Alice In Chains. Being that Tin Machine appeared to be pioneering a style that as yet was not properly recognized, this album was somewhat overlooked in its time, with some disregarding it as a downgrade for Bowie to bog standard hard rock. However, it is now generally regarded to be as important a part of David Bowie’s catalog as his classics, and a fine example of his forward thinking nature.
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