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Lodger (album)

Lodger
Bowie-lodger.jpg
Studio album by David Bowie
Released 18 May 1979 (1979-05-18)
Recorded September 1978, March 1979
Studio
Genre
Length 34:38
Label RCA Records
Producer
David Bowie chronology
Stage
(1978)
Lodger
(1979)
Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)
(1980)
Singles from Lodger
  1. "Boys Keep Swinging" b/w "Fantastic Voyage"
    Released: 27 April 1979
  2. "DJ" b/w "Repetition"
    Released: 29 June 1979
  3. "Yassassin" b/w "Repetition"
    Released: June 1979
  4. "Look Back in Anger" b/w "Repetition"
    Released: 20 August 1979
Professional ratings
Review scores
Source Rating
AllMusic 4.5/5 stars
Blender 4/5 stars
Chicago Tribune 2.5/4 stars
Encyclopedia of Popular Music 2/5 stars
Entertainment Weekly B+
Pitchfork Media 8.5/10
Q 4/5 stars
The Rolling Stone Album Guide 5/5 stars
Spin 4/5 stars
The Village Voice A−

Lodger is the thirteenth studio album by David Bowie. It was originally released in May 1979, on the label RCA. The last of the Berlin Trilogy, it was recorded in Switzerland and New York City with collaborator Brian Eno and producer Tony Visconti. Unlike Bowie's previous albums, Lodger contained no instrumentals and a somewhat more pop-oriented style while experimenting with elements of world music and recording techniques inspired by Eno's Oblique Strategies cards.

The album was not, by Bowie's standards, a major commercial success. Indifferently received by critics on its initial release, it is now widely considered to be among Bowie's most underrated albums. It was accompanied by several singles, including the UK Top 10 hit "Boys Keep Swinging."

Originally to be titled either Planned Accidents or Despite Straight Lines,Lodger was largely recorded between legs of David Bowie's 1978 world tour and featured the same musicians, along with Brian Eno. The recording sessions saw Bowie and Eno utilize techniques from Eno's Oblique Strategies cards. Experiments on the album included using old tunes played backwards, employing identical chord sequences for different songs and having the musicians play unfamiliar instruments (as on "Boys Keep Swinging"). Lead guitar was played not by Robert Fripp, as on "Heroes", but by Fripp's future King Crimson band member, Adrian Belew, whom Bowie had "poached" while the guitarist was touring with Frank Zappa. Much of Belew's work on the album was composited from multiple takes played against backing tracks of which he had no prior knowledge, not even the key.

Eno felt that the trilogy had "petered out" by Lodger, and Belew also observed Eno's and Bowie's working relationship closing down: "They didn't quarrel or anything uncivilised like that; they just didn't seem to have the spark that I imagine they might have had during the "Heroes" album." An early plan to continue the basic pattern of the previous records with one side of songs and the other instrumentals was dropped, Bowie instead adding lyrics that foreshadowed the more worldly concerns of his next album, Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps).


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