Diamond Dogs is a concept album by David Bowie, originally released in 1974 on RCA Records, his eighth album. Thematically, it was a marriage of the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell and Bowie’s own glam-tinged vision of a post-apocalyptic world. Bowie had wanted to make a theatrical production of Orwell’s book and began writing material after completing sessions for his 1973 album Pin Ups, but the late author’s estate denied the rights. The songs wound up on the second half of Diamond Dogs instead where, as the titles indicated, the Nineteen Eighty-Four theme was prominent.
Though the album was recorded and released after the ‘retirement’ of Ziggy Stardust in mid-1973, and featured its own lead character in Halloween Jack (“a real cool cat” who lives in the decaying “Hunger City”), Ziggy was seen to be still very much alive in Diamond Dogs, as evident from Bowie’s haircut on the cover and the glam-trash style of the first single “Rebel Rebel”. As was the case with some songs on Aladdin Sane, the influence of The Rolling Stones was also evident, particularly in the chugging title track.
Although Diamond Dogs was the first Bowie album since 1969 to not feature any of the ‘Spiders from Mars’, the backing band made famous by Ziggy Stardust, many of the arrangements were already worked out and played on tour with Mick Ronson prior to the studio recordings, including “1984” and “Rebel Rebel”. In the studio, however, Herbie Flowers played bass with drums being shared between Aynsley Dunbar and Tony Newman. In a move that surprised some commentators, Bowie himself took on the lead guitar role previously held by Mick Ronson, producing what NME critics Roy Carr and Charles Shaar Murray described as a “scratchy, raucous, semi-amateurish sound that gave the album much of its characteristic flavour”. Diamond Dogs was also a milestone in Bowie’s career as it reunited him with Tony Visconti, who provided string arrangements and helped mix the album at his own studio in London. Visconti would go on to co-produce much of Bowie’s work for the rest of the decad.
The record was Bowie’s glam swansong; according to author David Buckley, “In the sort of move which would come to define his career, Bowie jumped the glam-rock ship just in time, before it drifted into a blank parody of itself”. At the time of its release Bowie described Diamond Dogs as “a very political album. My protest … more me than anything I’ve done previously”. Disc magazine compared the album to The Man Who Sold the World (1970), while Rock and Sounds both described it as his “most impressive work … since Ziggy Stardust”. It made #1 in the UK charts and #5 in the US (where the song “Rebel Rebel” proved popular), Bowie’s highest stateside placing to that date. In Canada, it was able to repeat its British chart-topping success, hitting #1 on the RPM 100 national albums chart in July 1974 and holding it for two weeks
Diamond Dogs’ raw guitar style and visions of urban chaos, scavenging children and nihilistic lovers (“We’ll buy some drugs and watch old bands / And jump in the river holding hands”) have been credited with anticipating the punk revolution that would take place in the following years. Bowie himself has described the Diamond Dogs, introduced in the title song, as: “all little Johnny Rottens and Sid Viciouses really. And, in my mind, there was no means of transport, so they were all rolling around on these roller-skates with huge wheels on them, and they squeaked because they hadn’t been oiled properly. So there were these gangs of squeaking, roller-skating, vicious hoods, with Bowie knives and furs on, and they were all skinny because they hadn’t eaten enough, and they all had funny-coloured hair. In a way it was a precursor to the punk thing.”
Bowie played all of the album’s songs except “We Are the Dead” on his 1974 Diamond Dogs Tour (recorded and released as David Live). “Rebel Rebel” has featured on almost every Bowie tour since, “Diamond Dogs” was performed for the 1976 Station to Station and 1995-96 Outside tours, and “Big Brother/Chant of the Ever Circling Skeletal Family” was resurrected for the 1987 Glass Spider Tour.
Track listing
All songs written by David Bowie, except where noted.[15]
Side one
- “Future Legend” – 1:05
- “Diamond Dogs” – 5:56
- “Sweet Thing” – 3:39
- “Candidate” – 2:40
- “Sweet Thing (Reprise)” – 2:31
- “Rebel Rebel” – 4:30
Side two
- “Rock ‘n’ Roll with Me” (lyrics: Bowie; music: Bowie, Warren Peace) – 4:00
- “We Are the Dead” – 4:58
- “1984” – 3:27
- “Big Brother” – 3:21
- “Chant of the Ever Circling Skeletal Family” – 2:00
