Taking the detached plastic soul of
Young Americans
to an elegant, robotic extreme,
Station to Station
is a transitional album that creates its own distinctive style. Abandoning any pretense of being a soulman, yet keeping rhythmic elements of soul,
David Bowie
positions himself as a cold, clinical crooner and explores a variety of styles. Everything from epic ballads and disco to synthesized avant pop is present on
, but what ties it together is
Bowie
's cocaine-induced paranoia and detached musical persona. At its heart,
is an avant-garde art-rock album, most explicitly on "TVC 15" and the epic sprawl of the title track, but also on the cool crooning of "Wild Is the Wind" and "Word on a Wing," as well as the disco stylings of "Golden Years." It's not an easy album to warm to, but its epic structure and clinical sound were an impressive, individualistic achievement, as well as a style that would prove enormously influential on post-punk. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine