Is "Station to Station" David Bowie's Most Intriguing Album?
I celebrate the 50th anniversary of one of the Starman's most intriguing albums.
This album review looks back at one of David Bowie’s most stunning studio efforts to mark its 50th anniversary.
Genre: Rock, R&B, Art-Pop
Label: RCA
Release Date: January 23, 1976
Vibe: 👀
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In the mid-1970s, David Bowie was in a bind that’s plagued rock stars since the dawn of time.
He’d amassed eye-popping fame by rattling off one classic album after another. Beginning in 1970, he dropped, in order, The Man Who Sold the World, Hunky Dory, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, Aladdin Sane, Pinups, Diamond Dogs, and Young Americans, the latter of which finally got him to the top of the Hot 100 with “Fame.” He was selling millions of records worldwide and selling out arenas. But, as he was ascending into increasingly rarified air, his mental and physical health were spiraling out of control due to his increased drug use. At one point, his cocaine habit was so bad that his diet consisted of nothing more than peppers and milk. He lived in a constant state of paranoia, insisting that, among other things, dead bodies were falling outside the windows of the house he lived in at the time, and that witches were stealing his semen. In April 1975, he announced his retirement from music, stating: “There will be no more rock’n’roll records or tours from me. The last thing I want to be is some useless f****** rock singer.”
That self-imposed exile lasted all of five months, until he began work on Station to Station. Recorded between September and November 1975 at the then-new Cherokee Studios in Los Angeles, time and money weren’t necessarily constraints. It’s a big reason why the ethos of Bowie and assembled players, which included longtime collaborators like drummer Dennis Davis and newcomers like E Street Band pianist Roy Bittan, ventured into the experimental. Station is frequently referred to as a “transitional” album by his acolytes, marking his continued departure from rock and roll norms and showing far more interest in the growing popularity of disco and funk, as well as the burgeoning sounds of German krautrock. That sonic morass was funneled through the new persona Bowie introduced to the world on this album: the Thin White Duke. Impeccably dressed yet emotionally hollow, it’s among his most distinctive and frightening creations, with a commentator once referring to him as an “emotionless Aryan superman.”
Based on his obsessions at the time, I don’t think Bowie would disagree with that description. When he began writing Station, he had immersed himself in the works of Aleister Crowley, Friedrich Nietzsche, and religious mythology. Though the former two authors’ ideologies may not show up frequently or all that explicitly, Bowie nipping at the edges of giving himself over to a higher power are palpable. It sounds less like an exercise in one’s devoutness and more of a self-imposed test to see if God, or anything beyond the realm of the mortal, really, can penetrate the numbness he feels to the rest of the world. “Word on a Wing,” in particular, was borne out of spiritual despair.
As Bowie told NME in 1980:
“There were days of such psychological terror when making [1976’s The Man Who Fell to Earth] that I nearly started to approach my reborn, born again thing. It was the first time I’d really seriously thought about Christ and God in any depth, and ‘Word on a Wing’ was a protection […] The passion in the song was genuine, something I needed to produce from within myself to safeguard myself against some of the situations I felt were happening on the film set.”
For a man whose life was clearly going off the rails, he’s never sounded more in control than he does on the opening title track. Swirling synths and train sounds (Bowie would later clarify that the song and album title was not, in fact, a direct reference to rail travel) give way to a vaguely glam rock rhythm that, crucially, takes its time building up steam (no pun intended). That last part matters because when the vibe turns on a dime halfway through, your ears perk up. That shift locks everything about the groove into place, with Earl Slick’s lead guitar providing sparks over the Thin White Duke’s exposed emotional wiring. It’s striking how nakedly despondent he is lyrically in the second half, where he talks about how he’s “got to keep searching and searching” before asking, point blank, “Who will connect me with love?” The music has a menacing strut, with that very sense of control creating the illusion of an expensive-but-shallow escape from impending doom.
The biggest commercial hit off this album, “Golden Years,” pushes that deceptively warm tone close to its logical extreme. It’ a polished, accessible funk song that, at its core, sells nostalgic gratification through clenched teeth. There’s something so inviting about that bassline and drum pattern that you really have to be paying attention to hear the tension in Bowie’s lyrics. The gusto with which he starts out the chorus (”There’s my baby, lost, that’s all/Once I’m begging you save her little soul”) devolves into this timid, pained cry for help. It captures his Duke persona in complete denial, even if he doesn’t know it yet. “Word on a Wing” expands on this idea, stripping away that performative, icy confidence for something much more vulnerable. The arrangement is as fragile as he is, with piano and organ that tread water gently beneath his vocal. The instrumental never pushes too hard for drama. Instead, it meets Bowie on his terms, using negative space as part of the story. Bowie sounds genuinely frightened that he may never find the spiritual closure he seeks.
If there’s a secret weapon on Station, it’s “Stay.” The band plays with this lean, relentless precision. Carlos Alomar’s rhythm guitar in particular gives the track this muscular, kinetic energy, fueling a vehicle that can only move forward, regardless of what’s in its way. By contrast, Bowie’s singing comes off as distant, almost disinterested, as if he’s forensically prodding the words individually to see if they still carry the meaning they once did. It’s the kind of experimental detour that would later emerge as his Berlin trilogy’s raison d’etre, this liminal space where desire and fatigue meld into a sneakily affecting atmosphere. Clarity and hallucination blur, roping you into the alt-rock equivalent of a late-night physical state where you’ve been awake too long to fully understand everything that’s going on around you, but you’re so wired and consumed by stimuli that there’s no way you’ll be able to get to sleep, either.
The closer, Bowie’s take on the standard “Wild is the Wind,” delivers an aching moment of surrender to tie up loose ends. It’s one of his most compelling vocal performances, one where he’s consciously holding back, resisting the temptation to dramatize every line and syllable for its own sake. He lets the song unfold with care and patience, allowing himself a couple of moments (you’ll know them when you hear them) where he cracks just enough to remind us there’s a human at the album’s center. After nearly 40 minutes of posturing for the audience, burying his pain under one groove after another, it’s an uncannily matter-of-fact release. No redemption or spiritual transformation. Instead, I’d call it a moment of quiet acknowledgement, one that finally loosens the tension he’s built up across both sides of the LP.
Station is, in many ways, a document of Bowie at his lowest point. He continued on a downward spiral throughout most of 1976, drawing criticism for spouting pro-fascist rhetoric and, in May of that year, culminating in an incident where he supposedly gave a Nazi salute to a crowd at Victoria Station. That moment was photographed and published by NME, though several eyewitnesses, including the Cars’ Gary Numan, later debunked the narrative as false. Thankfully, Bowie would later move back to Europe, get clean, and record some of the best experimental rock albums ever committed to tape. For those interested in where his influence on the post-punk and art-rock movements really takes hold, start here.
What’s your favorite Bowie track from the 1970s? Shout it out in the comments.