Bowie produced enough songs for an album during those sessions (reportedly titled "The Gouster" or, more cynically, "Shilling the Rubes")âalthough it would have been a far cry from the Young Americans of today. Its most daring move would have been "John, I'm Only Dancing (Again)," a reworked and remixed version of a snarling, homoerotic glam-rock hit from three years before. (Bowie did not release "John, I'm Only Dancing (Again)" until 1979; it was a modest success in the United Kingdom and was included on his Changestwobowie collection.) The song "Young Americans" was a mash-up of contemporary soul (the Vandross-led backup singers were all over it), the hyper-emotive '50s singer Johnnie Ray, andâanother recent Bowie obsessionâthe up-and-coming New Jersey songwriter Bruce Springsteen, whose song "It's Hard to Be a Saint in the City" Bowie covered at Sigma Sound. Additionally, it was timely: Bowie sang "Do you remember President Nixon?" in the midst of a song he'd begun recording three days following Nixon's departure.
Reprints [edit]
RCA released the album on CD in 1984, followed by Rykodisc/EMI in 1991 with three extra songs.
[82] For one week in April 1991, this reissue peaked at number 54 on the UK Albums Chart. [83] EMI reissued the album in 1999 with 24-bit digitally restored sound and no additional songs. [84] The 2007 release, dubbed the "Special Edition," contained a DVD with 5.1 surround sound mixes of the album and material from The Dick Cavett Show. The album was remastered in 2016 for the box set Who Can I Be Now? (1974–1976), which also contains an earlier, rawer-sounding draft of the album named The Gouster. [85] It was published on CD, vinyl, and digital platforms, both as part of and independently from this collection. [86]
David Bowie had hinted at a move toward R&B during the Diamond Dogs tour, but the full-fledged blue-eyed soul of Young Americans came as a surprise. By surrounding himself with top-notch session musicians, Bowie creates songs that sound like Philly soul and disco but stay distant from its sources; even at his most emotional, Bowie sounds like a commentator, as if the whole album were a genre exercise. Nonetheless, the distance does not detract from the album; it lends it a particular taste, and its plastic, robotic soul influenced subsequent generations of synthetic British soul. What does detract from the album is a dearth of excellent songwriting. While "Young Americans" is a classic and "Fame" has a rhythm so funky that James Brown ripped it off, only a few tracks ("Win," "Fascination," and "Someone Up There Likes Me") come close to matching their excellence. As a consequence, Young Americans is more engaging as a stylistic excursion than as a cohesive album.
