Diamond Dogs is the eighth studio album by the English musician David Bowie, released on 24 May 1974 through RCA Records. Bowie produced the album and recorded it in early 1974 in London and the Netherlands, following the disbanding of his backing band the Spiders from Mars and the departure of the producer Ken Scott. Bowie played lead guitar on the record in the absence of Mick Ronson. Diamond Dogs featured the return of Tony Visconti, who had not worked with Bowie for four years; the two would collaborate for the rest of the decade. Musically, it was Bowie's final album in the glam rock genre, though some songs were influenced by funk and soul music, which Bowie embraced on his next album, Young Americans (1975).
Conceived during a period of uncertainty over where his career was headed, Diamond Dogs is the result of multiple projects Bowie envisaged at the time: a scrapped musical based on Ziggy Stardust (1972); an adaptation of George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949); and an urban apocalyptic scenario based on the writings of William S. Burroughs. The title track introduces a new persona named Halloween Jack. The Belgian artist Guy Peellaert painted the controversial Cover art depicting Bowie as a half-man, half-dog hybrid, based on photos taken by the photographer Terry O'Neill.
Preceded by the lead single "Rebel Rebel", Diamond Dogs was a commercial success, peaking at number one in the UK and number five in the US. It has received mixed reviews since its release, many criticising its lack of cohesion; Bowie's biographers consider it one of his best works and, in 2013, NME ranked it one of the greatest albums of all time. Bowie supported the album on the Diamond Dogs Tour, which featured elaborate and expensive set-pieces. Retrospectively, Diamond Dogs has been cited as an influence on the Punk rock revolution in the years following its release. It has been reissued several times and was remastered in 2016 for the Who Can I Be Now? (1974–1976) box set.
During the Pin Ups sessions, he told reporters that he wanted to create a musical, using various titles such as Tragic Moments and Revenge, or The Best Haircut I Ever Had. His guitarist Mick Ronson recalled: "Bowie had all these little projects... and wasn't quite sure what he wanted to do." As Ronson began work on his solo album Slaughter on 10th Avenue, Bowie and his wife Angela Bowie moved out of Beckenham's Haddon Hall because of harassment by fans. They moved initially into an apartment in Maida Vale, rented to them by the actress Diana Rigg, before moving into a larger house on Oakley Street, Chelsea. According to Buckley, David Bowie's manager Tony Defries prevented this move initially, citing the house as "too extravagant". Despite RCA Records estimating Bowie's album and single sales in the UK at over two million copies combined, Defries said that sales did not provide Bowie with enough income to afford the house. In spite of Defries, Bowie bought the house and it was here the Bowies spent time with Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood of the Faces, Mick Jagger and his then-wife Bianca Jagger, and the American singer and model Ava Cherry, with whom Bowie had an affair during this time.
Along with recording Pin Ups, Bowie participated in other musical ventures in 1973. He co-produced and played on Lulu's recording of "The Man Who Sold the World", which was released as a single in January 1974, contributed to Steeleye Span's Now We Are Six, and formed a trio called the Astronettes, comprising Cherry, Jason Guess and Warren Peace. The group recorded sessions at Olympic Studios in London but the project was ultimately shelved in January; a compilation album titled People from Bad Homes (later The Astronettes Sessions) was released in 1995. Bowie reworked songs from these sessions in subsequent years. Buckley writes that the songs he recorded featured a blend of glam rock and Soul music, which proved to be the direction Bowie took in 1974.
The Ziggy Stardust musical fell through, but Bowie salvaged two songs for Diamond Dogs he had written for it—"Rebel Rebel" and "Rock 'n' Roll with Me". At the end of 1973, George Orwell's widow, Sonia Orwell, denied Bowie the rights to use the novel. The rejection annoyed Bowie, who lambasted her for it in Circus magazine a few years later. She refused to allow any adaptation of her late husband's work for the rest of her life. No adaptations were possible until after her death in 1980. Unable to adapt the novel, Bowie decided to create his own apocalyptic scenario inspired by the works of Burroughs. Songs from this scenario included what would become the album's title track and "Future Legend".
The pianist Mike Garson and the drummer Aynsley Dunbar returned from the Pin Ups sessions, Tony Newman also played drums while Herbie Flowers, who had played previously on Space Oddity (1969), was recruited to play bass. Alan Parker of Blue Mink played guest guitar on "1984" and "augmented" Bowie's riff on "Rebel Rebel", although he was only credited for "1984". Bowie's longtime friend Geoff MacCormack, now known as Warren Peace, sang backing vocals. Diamond Dogs reunited Bowie with Tony Visconti, who provided string arrangements and helped mix the album at his studio in London. Visconti would go on to co-produce much of Bowie's work for the rest of the decade.
Before the Nineteen Eighty-Four project was denied, Bowie worked on "1984", recording it on 19 January 1973 during the sessions for Aladdin Sane. Initial work on Diamond Dogs began in late October 1973 at Trident Studios in London, where Bowie and Scott recorded "1984" in a medley with "Dodo", titled "1984/Dodo"; once they had mixed the track, this session marked the final time the two worked together. According to O'Leary, this session was also the last time Bowie worked with Ronson and Bolder. The medley had already made its public debut on the American television show The 1980 Floor Show recorded in London on 18–20 October 1973. A cover of Bruce Springsteen's "Growin' Up", with Ronnie Wood on lead guitar, was also recorded during this time. Recording for the album at Olympic officially began at the start of 1974. Bowie had started to work on "Rebel Rebel" during a solo session at Trident following Christmas 1973. On New Year's Day, the group recorded "Candidate" and "Take It In Right", an early version of "Can You Hear Me" from Young Americans (1975). Following the final sessions with the Astronettes, recording continued from 14 to 15 January, with the group recording "Rock 'n' Roll with Me", "Candidate", "Big Brother", "Take It In Right" and the title track. The following day, Bowie recorded "We Are the Dead", after which he contacted Visconti for mixing advice. "Rebel Rebel" was finished around this time. Recording was finished at Ludolph Studios in the Netherlands, where the Stones had just finished recording It's Only Rock 'n Roll (1974).
Multiple biographers cite the suite of "Sweet Thing/Candidate/Sweet Thing (Reprise)" as the album's highlight. Pegg describes Bowie's vocal performance, which he believes to be one of his finest, as a croon. "Sweet Thing" paints pictures of decay, with sex being a "drug-like commodity" while "Candidate" contains references to Charles Manson and Muhammad Ali, with Bowie being "consumed by the fakery of his own stage creations". "Rebel Rebel", cited by Pegg as Bowie's most covered track, is based around a distinctive guitar riff reminiscent of the Rolling Stones and was his farewell to the glam rock era. According to Pegg, Parker "added the three descending notes at the end of each loop of the riff". The song features a character who predates 1970s punk rock and gender-bending lyrics ("You got your mother in a whirl / She's not sure if you're a boy or a girl"). Some commentators praised the song itself but felt it did not contribute to the overall theme of the album. Doggett, however, writes that the song acts as the "musical continuation" of the "Sweet Thing" suite.
"1984" was the signature number for Bowie's planned adaptation of Nineteen Eighty-Four. It has been interpreted as representing Winston Smith's imprisonment and interrogation by O'Brien. The lyrics also bear some similarities to Bowie's earlier song "All the Madmen" (1970)—"They'll split your pretty cranium and fill it full of air." AllMusic's Donald A. Guarisco wrote: "Bowie's recording of "1984" fully realizes the song's cinematic potential with a dramatic arrangement that utilizes skittering strings and a throbbing Wah-wah pedal guitar line that effectively mirrors the song's clipped, militaristic rhythms." Originally recorded during the Aladdin Sane sessions, the rerecording's Wah-wah pedal guitar is reminiscent of Isaac Hayes's "Theme from Shaft". Guarisco and Pegg felt the song's funk and soul nature fully predicted the direction Bowie would take on Young Americans.
According to Pegg, the theme of "Big Brother" is "the dangerous charisma of absolute power and the facility with which societies succumb to totalitarianism's final solutions". It was a possible contender to close Bowie's adaptation of Nineteen Eighty-Four. Featuring synthesisers and saxophones, the track builds to a climax that Buckley considers reminiscent of The Man Who Sold the World. The track segues into "Chant of the Ever Circling Skeletal Family", a variation on "Two Minutes Hate" from Nineteen Eighty-Four. It is a chant in 5/4 and 6/4 time, with a distorted guitar loop. On the original LP, the word brother repeats in a "stuck-needle effect", similar to the ending of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967).
The artwork was controversial as the full image on the gatefold sleeve showed the hybrid's genitalia. RCA had the genitalia from the sleeve used for most releases. Some original uncensored copies made their way into circulation at the time of the album's release. According to the record-collector publication Goldmine price guides, these albums have been among the most expensive record collectibles of all time, selling for thousands of US dollars for a single copy. Other changes to the artwork included the substitution of the freak show badge "Alive" with the word "Bowie"; Bowie was credited simply as "Bowie", continuing the convention established with Pin Ups. Rykodisc/EMI restored Peelaert's original uncensored artwork for the album's re-release in 1990. Subsequent reissues have included a rejected inner gatefold image featuring Bowie in a sombrero cordobés holding onto a ravenous dog with a copy of Walter Ross's novel The Immortal at his feet. Rolling Stone ranked the cover the 51st best album cover of all time in 2024.
RCA issued Diamond Dogs on 24 May 1974 with the catalogue number APLI 0576. The album was a commercial success, peaking at number one on the UK Albums Chart and number five on the US Billboard Top LPs & Tape chart. A $400,000 advertising campaign featuring billboards in Times Square and Sunset Boulevard, magazine ads, subway posters declaring "The Year of the Diamond Dogs" and a television commercial, one of the first of its kind for a pop album according to Pegg, boosted its sales in the US. In Canada, it repeated its British chart-topping success, hitting number one on the RPM 100 national albums chart in July 1974, remaining there for two weeks. RCA released the second single, "Diamond Dogs", on 14 June 1974, with a rerecorded version of Bowie's 1971 single "Holy Holy" as the B-side. It was Bowie's least-successful single in two years, peaking at number 21 on the UK Singles Chart and failing to chart in the US. In July, "1984" was released as the third single in the US and Japan, but failed to chart. Reviewing the single the following month, Billboard described "1984" as Bowie's "most commercial cut ... in a long time".
In early September, director Alan Yentob filmed a documentary that depicts Bowie on the tour in Los Angeles, using a mixture of sequences filmed in limousines, hotels and concert footage, most of which was taken from a show there at Universal Amphitheatre on 2 September. Broadcast on BBC One in the UK on 26 January 1975, Cracked Actor is notable as a primary source of footage of the Diamond Dogs Tour, and for showing Bowie's declining mental state during this period because of his growing cocaine addiction. After seeing an advanced screening of the film, the director Nicolas Roeg immediately contacted Bowie to discuss a role in The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976).
Bowie played all of the album's songs except "We Are the Dead" on the tour, performances of which have been released on three live albums: David Live (1974), Cracked Actor (2017) and I'm Only Dancing (The Soul Tour 74) (2020). "Rebel Rebel" featured on almost every later Bowie tour, "Diamond Dogs" was performed for the Isolar, Outside Tour and A Reality Tours, and "Big Brother/Chant of the Ever Circling Skeletal Family" was resurrected in 1987 for the Glass Spider Tour, which itself was heavily influenced by the Diamond Dogs tour. The Diamond Dogs Tour has had a lasting legacy. Sandford says the tour turned Bowie from a "novelty act" into a "superstar". Spitz writes it was highly influential on future tours with large and elaborate set pieces, including Parliament-Funkadelic's Mothership Connection tour, Elvis Presley's Vegas period, the 1990s tours of U2 and Madonna, and 'N Sync, the Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears and Kanye West's 2008 Glow in the Dark Tour.
Melody Makers Chris Charlesworth called the album "really good" and compared it to Phil Spector's Wall of Sound method of production and noting the similar level of excitement and praise Bowie's albums were beginning to receive as the Beatles did in the 60s. Robert Christgau was more critical in Creem, suggesting that Bowie performs a pale imitation of Bryan Ferry's "theatrical vocalism". He also dismissed the lyrical content as "escapist pessimism concocted from a pleasure dome: eat, snort and bugger little girls, for tomorrow we shall be humanoid – but tonight how about $6.98 for this piece of plastic? Say nay." Ken Emerson of Rolling Stone gave the album an extremely negative review, calling it, "Bowie's worst album in six years". He criticised Bowie's choice of direction, the absence of Ronson, describing Bowie's guitar playing as "cheesy" adding "the music exerts so little appeal that it's hard to care what it's about". Despite the album's mixed reception, John Rockwell of The New York Times found it inoffensive and "surrealisticnihilistic".
The record has attracted positive reviews. Pitchforks Barry Walters described the album as "a bummer, a bad trip, 'No Fun' – a sustained work of decadence and dread that transforms corrosion into celebration". He also believed it foreshadowed Bowie's Thin White Duke persona. For punknews.org, C. M. Crockford wrote that Diamonds Dogs is Bowie's "utterly most distinctive work: melodramatic, raw, challenging, and ambitious even when crammed with catchy songs". Crockford ultimately called it one of Bowie's essential releases and argued that he would "never make an album that was so obviously his own again". In a 2013 readers' poll for Rolling Stone, Diamond Dogs was voted Bowie's fifth-greatest album.
In subsequent decades, Bowie biographers have described Diamond Dogs as one of Bowie's greatest works. Cann writes: " Diamond Dogs is arguably Bowie's most significant album, a pivotal work and the most 'solo' album he has ever made." Although Spitz calls it "no fun", he states it was Bowie's "best-sounding, most complex record to date, and it still pulls you into its romantic and doomed world three and a half decades on". Trynka calls it "a beautiful mess", while Buckley says the album proved that Bowie could still produce work of "real quality" without Scott or the Spiders. Doggett writes it anticipated the "sonic audacity" of Low and "Heroes", while it simultaneously "capsized the vessel of classic rock". Perone argues that "Chant of the Ever Circling Skeletal Family" predated Talking Heads' exploration of African rhythms and experimentation in the late 1970s. Pegg writes that with tracks like "We Are the Dead", "Big Brother" and the "Sweet Thing" suite, the album contains "some of the most sublime and remarkable sounds in the annals of rock music". He further states that Bowie's new voice on the record, a " basso profundo", particularly evident on "Sweet Thing" and "Big Brother", was a major influence on gothic rock bands in the 1980s. It ranked number 447 in NMEs list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time and number 14 in Rolling Stones list of the 74 Best Albums of 1974.
In 2004, a 2-disc version was released by EMI/Virgin. The third in a series of 30th Anniversary 2CD Editions (along with Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane), this release included a remastered version of the album on the first disc. The second disc contains eight tracks, five of which had been released previously with the Sound + Vision box set in 1989 or as bonus tracks on the 1990–92 Rykodisc/EMI reissues. In 2016, the album was remastered for the Who Can I Be Now? (1974–1976) box set. It was released on CD and vinyl, and in digital formats, both as part of this compilation and separately.
Technical
+1974 weekly chart performance for Diamond Dogs
!Chart (1974)
!Peak Position | |
Australian Albums ( Go-Set) | 1 |
Australian Albums (Kent Music Report) | 3 |
Canadian Albums ( RPM) | 1 |
Finnish Albums (Suomen virallinen lista) | 5 |
French Albums (SNEP) Note: user must select 'David BOWIE' from drop-down. | 4 |
Italian Albums ( Billboard) | 9 |
Italian Albums ( Musica e dischi) | 16 |
Norwegian Albums (VG-lista) | 8 |
Spanish Albums (Promusicae) | 11 |
Swedish Albums (Kvällstoppen) Note: Kvällstoppen combined sales for albums and singles in the one chart; Diamond Dogs peaked at the number-four on the list in the 1st week of June 1974. | 3 |
US Billboard Top LPs & Tape | 5 |
West German Media Control Albums (GfK) | 40 |
Yugoslavian Albums (Radio TV Revue & Studio) | 10 |
+1990 weekly chart performance for Diamond Dogs
!Chart (1990)
!Peak Position |
+2016 weekly chart performance for Diamond Dogs
!Chart (2016)
!Peak Position |
+2024 weekly chart performance for Diamond Dogs
!Chart (2024)
!Peak Position | |
Hungarian Physical Albums (MAHASZ) | 17 |
+1974 year-end chart performance for Diamond Dogs !Chart (1974) !Position | |
Australian Albums (Kent Music Report) | 20 |
Canadian Albums ( RPM Year-End) | 15 |
French Albums (SNEP) | 11 |
UK Albums (OCC) | 6 |
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