All 11 David Bowie Albums From the 1970s, Ranked

There’s a chase to cut to. Things must be kept brief. David Bowie released a ton of albums in the 1970s, which was his strongest decade, in terms of his music. And critically speaking, since the 1980s was good for him commercially, largely thanks to Let’s Dance being as big as it was. And the 1980s might’ve been stronger for Bowie, the actor, since he was in Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, Labyrinth, and The Hunger that decade.

But the music… the 1970s was where it was at. Bowie did a bit of everything this decade, and he adopted different personas throughout, also switching up genres with just about every new album. There are 11 albums to get through, which makes this a bit more of an endeavor, as far as typing goes, than the usual top 10, but this decade for this artist is worth it.

11

‘Pin Ups’ (1973)

Well, before getting to the good stuff, there is Pin Ups. Maybe Pin Ups shouldn’t entirely be categorized as belonging among the “bad stuff,” yet it isn’t particularly great. It’s a covers album, basically. That makes it a bit less interesting, by default, since with the other David Bowie albums of the 1970s, you get pretty much nothing but originals that showcased Bowie’s songwriting abilities on top of his singing skills.

It’s just singing here. Bowie tackles a bunch of songs from the 1960s, and some of them don’t sound terrible, but little here feels impressive or essential. You’ll inevitably listen to Pin Ups if you’re a completionist, and feel compelled to hear it all, but if you’re not at that high a level of the David Bowie fandom, you don’t really need to give this one a spin, in all honesty.

10

‘Young Americans’ (1975)

Before anyone gets too concerned about this being only one place higher than Pin Ups, it has to be stressed that Young Americans is still good. This is where the good stuff starts; the fun begins. It is only the second-worst of the 1970s, for Bowie, because his 1970s was just so good. Or maybe too good.

If there’s a complaint to make here, or a justification as to why this isn’t ranked higher, it kind of starts and ends amazingly (thanks to the title track at the beginning and “Fame” being the closing track), but the rest of the album between those points is… not bad. Just not as good. It’s like a sandwich where the bread is somehow tastier than the filling. In this sandwich, the only ingredient you kind of need to take out is “Across the Universe.” It’s Bowie doing a cover of a great Beatles song, but he sort of mangles it. It’s probably worse than most of the covers on Pin Ups, which isn’t great.

9

‘Lodger’ (1979)

Bowie’s Berlin Trilogy concluded with Lodger, which sort of feels like a warm-up for Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) (1980). Now, that album is pretty incredible, and was Bowie’s best non-1970s album until Blackstar came out in 2016, and probably exceeded it in quality, which is no small feat. That’s a bit of a distraction, though. Sorry. It could be a result of it feeling hard to know what to say about Lodger.

It is a pretty solid album, and it is admittedly more consistent than Young Americans, though that also means it doesn’t quite have the highs. The whole thing moves along well, and is more than listenable from start to finish, with the new waviness of it all being forward-thinking, as a 1970s release that sounds pretty darn ‘80s. “Look Back in Anger” is the closest thing to a highlight, though it feels like the album is, overall, screaming out for just one or two more proper/soaring highs.

8

‘Diamond Dogs’ (1974)

Bowie took some influence from Nineteen Eighty-Four when developing Diamond Dogs, and one of the tracks here is even called “1984.” It’s not like a full-on adaptation, though, even if that might’ve been the original plan. Diamond Dogs has some other influences, too, and is a generally offbeat and kind of eerie album at times, though it does have the undeniably catchy “Rebel Rebel” on it.

Actually, calling “Rebel Rebel” catchy and leaving it at that is doing it a disservice. The song’s immense, and one of Bowie’s very best albums. It can’t help but tower over most of the other tracks here, though the titular song here is also memorable. You get a couple of highlights, and then most of the rest of the album is generally some level of pretty good, or very interesting, or even a bit of both at the same time.

7

‘The Man Who Sold the World’ (1970)

If you’re after David Bowie albums that are growers, Low is probably the best of them, or the one that sounds the most different (in a good way) after a certain number of listens. But something similar can be said about The Man Who Sold the World. This one sounds fine for a while, and might not really feel all that worth digging into repeatedly, yet doing so does pay off.

It’s hard to explain it beyond that. Potentially, it’s Bowie going for a real rock sound for the first time, and succeeding incredibly well, because this does sound like a more confident album than the two he released in the 1960s. Well, nothing here is quite as good as “Space Oddity,” which is far and away the highlight of his second album, but this third album of his is one that’s strong from start to finish, and it houses some of his most underrated songs, too (the opening track perhaps most of all: “The Width of a Circle”).

6

‘Heroes’ (1977)

This was the second album in David Bowie’s Berlin Trilogy, recorded in… yeah, where you’d expect. Heroes is also the second one being mentioned here, in this ranking, meaning it’s kind of obvious that the first album in that trilogy is going to rank the highest. If you’re being pessimistic, or kind of blunt, then yeah, the Berlin Trilogy did technically get weaker with each album.

However, the title track on Heroes isn’t just the best of the songs on any of these three albums, but it might well be the single best song David Bowie ever recorded. It’s almost like nothing else matters when “Heroes” is as good as it is, yet there are some other solid rock songs here, alongside the more ambient/instrumental songs on the album’s back half. It’s the same thing he did structurally on the first Berlin Trilogy album… but more on that one in a bit.

5

‘Aladdin Sane’ (1973)

Sorry, Aladdin Sane. You are so very good, but there are four other David Bowie albums from the 1970s that are so very… gooder? Better. They’re even better, somehow. This is one of those albums that feels like it would be a peak album from any other artist, and not just any normal artist, but any genuinely strong artist. Aladdin Sane would be a respectable peak for most good-to-great artists.

It’s just one of several masterpieces from Bowie’s most fruitful decade, though. Again, consistency is key to this one being so good. It’s hard to pick highlights when everything feels like it could be, you know, a highlight. There are no lowlights; that much can be said comfortably. Highlights might well depend on the mood you’re in, because “The Jean Genie” is phenomenally energetic, “Time” is sweeping and moving, and then “The Prettiest Star” is rather romantic.

4

‘Low’ (1977)

Low was the first Berlin Trilogy album, and it’s not too hard to see why it initially proved divisive. It was a massive change of pace for Bowie, being more experimental than the other albums he’d done up until that point, and a bit mellower overall, too. Tracks like “Sound and Vision” and “Be My Wife” are still quite energetic, but Low has a second half that’s dominated by ambient and generally instrumental songs.

That’s where you can really feel Brian Eno’s influence, as a collaborator, since ambient music was something he’d been doing after leaving Roxy Music. And the music here is odd to try to comprehend upon a first listen, and maybe even after a dozen listens. Yet eventually, it clicks, and once it does, Low is fantastic. It’s not even in the top 3 here, sure, but most artists would kill to have their very best album (like, of all time) be even nearly as good as Low is.

3

‘Hunky Dory’ (1971)

It would make sense if David Bowie went from The Man Who Sold the World to something like Aladdin Sane, or the very strong album that came right before Aladdin Sane (it’ll be covered shortly), but no, there was a bit of a detour. That detour was Hunky Dory, which has its share of rock songs on it, sure, but it’s also a bit quirkier, and sometimes a good deal poppier. Yet calling it pop doesn’t feel quite right.

Hunky Dory is one of the more enigmatic and distinctive David Bowie albums, but at the same time, it’s also one of his most instantly engaging. Unlike with The Man Who Sold the World and Low, it’s appealing immediately, and contains so many perfect songs (especially “Changes,” “Life on Mars,” and the somewhat underrated “Quicksand”). It’s expertly paced, and eclectic while never running the risk of feeling inconsistent or messy. It’s uncannily, almost eerily good, and, as album #4, marked the first time Bowie recorded an outright masterpiece.

2

‘Station to Station’ (1976)

Before Low and the other Berlin Trilogy albums, David Bowie made Station to Station, which is probably his most bizarre and challenging album of the 1970s. Then again, it’s weird, yet it’s also easy to like some of the songs here, even on a first listen. There is a sense that most of them feel a little too long at first, because this is a 30-minute album with only six tracks… yet things do thankfully start clicking before too long.

Once you’ve listened to this a few times, you might well find yourself thinking that the title track, at 10 minutes, isn’t long enough. Bowie was in a bad place when he wrote and recorded Station to Station, by his own admission, though he did manage to make a brilliant piece of art during such a troubled time. It’s another difficult album to properly do justice with words, and commentary only goes so far. It does sound undeniably incredible, and unlike pretty much anything else out there, stylistically and musically.