David Bowie had dropped hints during the Diamond Dogs tour that he was moving toward R&B, but the full-blown blue-eyed soul of Young Americans came as a shock.
Surrounding himself with first-rate sessionmen, Bowie comes up with a set of songs that approximate the sound of Philly soul and disco, yet remain detached from their inspirations; even at his most passionate, Bowie sounds like a commentator, as if the entire album was a genre exercise.
Nevertheless, the distance doesn't hurt the album -- it gives the record its own distinctive flavor, and its plastic, robotic soul helped inform generations of synthetic British soul.
What does hurt the record is a lack of strong songwriting.
"Young Americans" is a masterpiece, and "Fame" has a beat funky enough that James Brown ripped it off, but only a handful of cuts ("Win," "Fascination," "Somebody Up There Likes Me") comes close to matching their quality.
As a result, Young Americans is more enjoyable as a stylistic adventure than as a substantive record.
| Title/Composers | Performer | Listen | Time | Size | Size | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Young AmericansDavid Bowie | David Bowie | Play | 05:14 | 11 MB | 36 MB |
| 2 | WinDavid Bowie | David Bowie | Play | 04:45 | 10 MB | 30 MB |
| 3 | FascinationDavid Bowie, Luther Vandross | David Bowie | Play | 05:47 | 13 MB | 41 MB |
| 4 | RightDavid Bowie | David Bowie | Play | 04:18 | 9 MB | 28 MB |
| 5 | Somebody Up There Likes MeDavid Bowie | David Bowie | Play | 06:32 | 14 MB | 46 MB |
| 6 | Across the UniverseJohn Lennon, Paul McCartney | David Bowie | Play | 04:31 | 10 MB | 32 MB |
| 7 | FameCarlos Alomar, David Bowie, John Lennon | David Bowie | Play | 04:17 | 9 MB | 28 MB |
| 8 | Can you here me | David Bowie | Play | 05:05 | 11 MB | 33 MB |
| 40 mins | 92 MB | |||||
| 40 mins | 276 MB | |||||
| Artist | Job | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Carlos Alomar | Composer, Guitar |
| 2 | David Bowie | Composer, Guitar, Keyboards, Mixing, Primary Artist, Producer, Vocals, Vocals (Background) |
| 3 | Ava Cherry | Vocals (Background) |
| 4 | Robin Clark | Vocals (Background) |
| 5 | Dennis Davis | Drums |
| 6 | Jean Fineberg | Vocals (Background) |
| 7 | Michael Garson | Keyboards |
| 8 | Mike Garson | Guest Artist, Keyboards |
| 9 | Kevin Herron | Tape |
| 10 | Anthony Hinton | Vocals (Background) |
| 11 | Mike Hutchinson | Tape |
| 12 | Emir Kassan | Guitar (Bass) |
| 13 | Eddie Kramer | Engineer |
| 14 | John Lennon | Composer, Guest Artist, Guitar, Vocals (Background) |
| 15 | Harry Maslin | Engineer, Mixing, Producer |
| 16 | Paul McCartney | Composer |
| 17 | Ralph McDonald | Percussion |
| 18 | Jean Millington | Vocals (Background) |
| 19 | Andy Newmark | Drums |
| 20 | Carl Parulow | Engineer |
| 21 | Warren Peace | Vocals (Background) |
| 22 | Pablo Rosario | Percussion |
| 23 | David Sanborn | Guest Artist, Saxophone |
| 24 | Earl Slick | Guest Artist, Guitar |
| 25 | Ray Staff | Mastering |
| 26 | Diane Sumler | Vocals (Background) |
| 27 | Kevin Thoener | Tape |
| 28 | Luther Vandross | Composer, Guest Artist, Vocals (Background) |
| 29 | Tony Visconti | Mastering, Mixing, Producer |
| 30 | Larry Washington | Percussion |
| 31 | Willie Weeks | Guitar (Bass) |
| 32 | David Whitman | Tape |
| Quality | Format | Encoding | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| CD Quality | FLAC | 16bit 44.1kHz | FLAC is an audio coding format which uses lossless compression. Digital audio in FLAC format has a smaller size and retains the same quality of the original Compact Disc (CD). |