DAVID BOWIE – YOUNG AMERICANS LP – Nr MINT ITALY

David Bowie – Young Americans
(RCA Records  APL10998  Italy Press)

Sleeve in Excellent+ condition
 – a little light ringwear and a little wear to edges

Vinyl in Nr MINT condition
 

David Robert Jones (8 January 1947 – 10 January 2016), known as David Bowie, was an English singer, songwriter, actor and record producer. He was a figure in popular music for over five decades, considered by critics and musicians as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s. His career was marked by reinvention and visual presentation, his music and stagecraft significantly influencing popular music. During his lifetime, his record sales, estimated at 140 million worldwide, made him one of the world’s best-selling music artists. In the UK, he was awarded nine platinum album certifications, eleven gold and eight silver, releasing eleven number-one albums. In the US, he received five platinum and seven gold certifications. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996.

Born and raised in south London, Bowie developed an interest in music as a child, eventually studying art, music and design before embarking on a professional career as a musician in 1963. “Space Oddity” became his first top-five entry on the UK Singles Chart after its release in July 1969. After a period of experimentation, he re-emerged in 1972 during the glam rock era with his flamboyant and androgynous alter ego Ziggy Stardust. The character was spearheaded by the success of his single “Starman” and album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, which won him widespread popularity. In 1975, Bowie’s style shifted radically towards a sound he characterised as “plastic soul”, initially alienating many of his UK devotees but garnering him his first major US crossover success with the number-one single “Fame” and the album Young Americans. In 1976, Bowie began a sporadic acting career, starring in the cult film The Man Who Fell to Earth. The following year, he further confounded musical expectations with the electronic-inflected album Low (1977), the first of three collaborations with Brian Eno that would come to be known as the “Berlin Trilogy”. “Heroes” (1977) and Lodger (1979) followed; each album reached the UK top five and received lasting critical praise.

After uneven commercial success in the late 1970s, Bowie had UK number ones with the 1980 single “Ashes to Ashes”, its parent album Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps), and “Under Pressure”, a 1981 collaboration with Queen. He then reached his commercial peak in 1983 with Let’s Dance, with its title track topping both UK and US charts. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Bowie continued to experiment with musical styles, including industrial and jungle. Bowie also continued acting; his roles included Major Celliers in Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983), the Goblin King Jareth in Labyrinth (1986), Pontius Pilate in The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), and Nikola Tesla in The Prestige (2006), among other film and television appearances and cameos. He stopped concert touring after 2004 and his last live performance was at a charity event in 2006. In 2013, Bowie returned from a decade-long recording hiatus with the release of The Next Day. He remained musically active until his death on 10 January 2016, just two days after the release of his final album, Blackstar.

Young Americans is the ninth studio album by English musician David Bowie, released in 1975. For the record, which showed off his 1970s “obsession” with soul music, he let go of the influences he had drawn from in the past, replacing them with sounds from “local dance halls”, which, at the time, were blaring with “lush strings, sliding hi-hat whispers, and swanky R&B rhythms of Philadelphia Soul”. Bowie is quoted describing the album as “the squashed remains of ethnic music as it survives in the age of Muzak rock, written and sung by a white limey”. Because of the strong influence of black music on the album, Bowie used the term “plastic soul” (originally coined by an unknown black musician in the 1960s) to describe the sound of Young Americans. Although Bowie was an English musician bringing up touchy American issues, the album was still very successful in the US; the album itself reached the top ten in the US, with the song “Fame” hitting the #1 spot the same year the album was released.

Track listing

All songs written by David Bowie except where noted.

Side one

1. “Young Americans” – 5:10
2. “Win” – 4:44
3. “Fascination” (Bowie, Luther Vandross) – 5:43
4. “Right” – 4:13

Side two

1. “Somebody Up There Likes Me” – 6:30
2. “Across the Universe” (John Lennon, Paul McCartney) – 4:30
3. “Can You Hear Me?” – 5:04
4. “Fame” (Bowie, Carlos Alomar, Lennon) – 4:12

Personnel

Musicians

• David Bowie – vocals, guitar, piano
• Carlos Alomar – guitar
• Mike Garson – piano
• David Sanborn – saxophone
• Willie Weeks – bass guitar (except on “Across the Universe” and “Fame”)
• Andy Newmark – drums (except on “Across the Universe” and “Fame”)

Additional musicians

• Larry Washington – conga
• Pablo Rosario – percussion on “Across the Universe” and “Fame”
• Ava Cherry, Robin Clark, Luther Vandross – backing vocals
• John Lennon – vocals, guitar, backing vocals on “Across the Universe” and “Fame”
• Earl Slick – guitar on “Across the Universe” and “Fame”
• Emir Ksasan – bass guitar on “Across the Universe” and “Fame”
• Dennis Davis – drums on “Across the Universe” and “Fame”
• Ralph MacDonald – percussion on “Across the Universe” and “Fame”
• Jean Fineberg – backing vocals on “Across the Universe” and “Fame”
• Jean Millington – backing vocals on “Across the Universe” and “Fame”