Promo film created by the BBC to go with the "The Laughing Gnome", when it was rereleased in 1973, without David Bowie's consent, and became a #6 UK hit.
The video uses an animation technique known as pixilation - I wonder if that came through associative-drift (gnome, pixie)
The belated success of "Laughing Gnome" is a bit like "Being Boiled" finally making the charts after The Human League's breakthrough. Or Adam and the Ants early tune "Young Parisians" going Top Ten after "Dog Eat Dog / Ant Music / Kings of the Wild Frontier".
There is so much to enjoy about the fact that the first-time-around flop became a post-Ziggy smash.
First, it must have infuriated and embarrassed the newly supercool star, having his naff past dredged up.
Second, because it's a deliciously silly single.
It slots into that category of novelty hits that you only ever get in the U.K. Less like something originally made by a would-be pop star and more like a single done by a famous TV comedian (Charlie Drake's "Puckwudgie" immediately springs to mind - indeed it was a near-hit the previous year).
Here's an opportunity to wheel out a cherished eccentric opinion: the first self-titled David Bowie is one of his most enjoyable records. It failed to achieve the goal of making him a star... but on its own terms, it's a complete success.
It's certainly much better than the second David Bowie album that followed two years later in 1969.
So what are the best Bowie albums IMHO?
1/ Low
2/ Hunky Dory
3/ Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)
4/ Lodger
5/ David Bowie (1967)
I won't volunteer my thoughts on the worst Bowie albums - too many to choose from!
But what are the most overrated? The ones that don't quite add up, or that have a few stunning things on them (often the singles), but are otherwise patchy or pretentious (but crucially, failed pretension)
1/ Station to Station
2/ "Heroes"
3/ Diamond Dogs
4/Young Americans
5/ The Man Who Sold The World
6/ Let's Dance
7/ David Bowie (1969)
Here "overrated" refers specifically to the size of the gap between the reputation and the reality. As opposed to an actual judgement on the overall quality and where the record might finally stand in a peak-to-puke descending list of his works.
(Acknowledging of course the sublime perfection within those albums, songs it would be impossible to overrate: "Golden Years", "'Heroes'", "Secret Life of Arabia", "Rebel Rebel", "Fame", "The Width of A Circle", "The Man Who Sold The World", "The Supermen", "Let's Dance", "Space Oddity" obviously...)
("Dodo" if we are counting the anniversary expanded edition of Diamond Dogs which we probably shouldn't)
As for those not mentioned in either chart....
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars is, I s'pose, objectively one of his best albums. But I've never really felt a feeling from it, as such. Apart from the title track. I mean, "Suffragette City" is a great tune but I don't have any sense of what it's about - what it's for. And there's a bit too much musical theater influence strewn through the album for my taste.
Aladdin Sane is an odd one - I've never really connected with it. The three-song run of title track / Drive-In / Panic is pretty darn exciting. "The Jean Genie" is a thrilling rip-off of the Yardbirds - sonically, a throwback to Happenings Eight Years Time Ago. But it's beaten at its own game by The Sweet's "Blockbuster", which has more or less the same riff.
Blackstar felt heroically daring and fearless and consummate at the time, but even then I suspected its stature would dim a bit in time... and the only thing that really lives with me is the title track, where he already sounds like a ghost.
The Next Day - again, the temptation at the time to overestimate was overwhelming... but it's not lingered.
Pin-Ups is the definition of a curio, a curate's egg... compelling wrong in its over-mannered reiterations of the too-recent past, perhaps. I cannot imagine the circumstances in which I would want to play it from start to finish.
The remainder?
Outside gets points for effort, if that ever cut any ice with listeners, which it doesn't.
I do genuinely love "Little Wonder" - just for his earnest attempt to keep up with the cutting edge, the effort he made to make a decent fist of the junglizm. But the rest of Earthling... And then there's his image at that time.
Actually, in the video, he looks like... not a gnome, but a goblin.
Funny thing, I never noticed there's a reference to "gnomes" in the opening verse:
Stinky weather fat, shaky hands
Dopey morning doc, grumpy gnomes
