Item Details

Aladdin Sane

Remastered release from 2013. Strutting glam rock never sounded so good as on Drive-In Saturday, Panic in Detroit, and, of course, the sublime The Jean Genie, a play on the equally sublime Jean Genet.

Learn more on the album in Bowie's own words which are below.

Track Listing:

1. Watch That Man (2013 Remastered Version)
2. Aladdin Sane (2013 Remastered Version)
3. Drive-In Saturday (2013 Remastered Version)
4. Panic in Detroit (2013 Remastered Version)
5. Cracked Actor (2013 Remastered Version)
6. Time (2013 Remastered Version)
7. The Prettiest Star (2013 Remastered Version)
8. Let's Spend the Night Together (2013 Remastered Version)
9. The Jean Genie (2013 Remastered Version)
10. Lady Grinning Soul (2013 Remastered Version)

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David Bowie on Aladdin Sane:

"Aladdin was a result of my paranoia with America at the time, I hadn't come to terms with it, then. I have now. I know the area I like best in America.

"I know the kind of people I like. I've been here a long time - since April. I've had a chance to clarify my feelings. And I'm quite happy over here. I found different people.

"But I ran into a very strange type of paranoid person when I was doing Aladdin. Very mixed up people, and I got very upset. It resulted in Aladdin...And I knew I didn't have very much more to say about rock'n'roll.

"I mean Ziggy really said as much as I meant to say all along. Aladdin was really Ziggy in America. Again, it was just looking around, seeing what's in my head." (September 1974)

"Aladdin is really just a title track. The album was written in America. The numbers were not supposed to form a concept album, but looking back on them, there seems to be a definite linkage from number to number.

"There's no order; they were written in various cities, and there's a general feeling on the album which at the moment I can't put my finger on.

"It's a feeling I've never yet produced on an album; I think it's the most interesting album that I've written. Drive-In Saturday is one of the more commercial numbers." (January 1973)

The title of the album was changed from Love Aladdin Vein to Aladdin Sane.

"That album is about the States in some kind of small concept. Originally, I felt Love Aladdin Vein was right, then I thought maybe I shouldn't write them off so easily, so I changed it. Also, in Vein, there was the drugs thing, but it's not that universal." (May 1973)

Aladdin Sane is followed by three dates: Aladdin Sane (1913 - 1938 - 197?)

"I was just trying to preface the song a little with feelings of imminent catastrophe, which, at the point in America when I was writing, I felt. It was the next jumping off point for disaster. I suppose I've felt like that since 1940 whatever it was." (1973)

"On Jean Genie I wanted to get the same sound the Stones had on their first album on the harmonica. I didn't get that near to it, but it had a feel that I wanted - that Sixties thing." (1972)

"I don't think Aladdin Sane is as clearly cut and defined a character as Ziggy was. Ziggy was meant to be clearly cut and well-defined with areas for interplay, whereas Aladdin is pretty ephemeral. He's also a situation as opposed to just being an individual. I think he encompasses situations as well as just being a personality." (January 1973)

Quotes from Bowie in His Own Words Book.

Sales:

No. 1 in the UK for five weeks in 1973. Sales (before his death): 4.6m

Key track: The Jean Genie.

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