“Just about the best you can hear”
David Bowie was the subject of much praise on the first instalment of Danny Baker’s Great Album Showdown on BBC4 this evening.
Genius record producer Stephen Street (The Smiths, Blur) chose Ziggy Stardust as one of the albums that each of the three guests have to select from their own collections.
Explaining that the 1972 classic was the first LP he ever bought, he then went on to describe the record as life-changing. Street also pointed out that the musicians he has worked with over the years have a love of Bowie’s music in common.
Baker was in agreement with Street’s ‘life-changing’ theory when he suggested of Ziggy Stardust: “It seems absurd in these days to talk about an LP that could culturally change everything. But it did.“
Bowie was also mentioned favourably when the chat turned to Hunky Dory and when Street unveiled the third of his three albums, Lou Reed’s Bowie-produced Transformer.
This was the first of three shows and tomorrow’s broadcast looks to being even more Bowie-heavy, bearing in mind that Boy George is one of the guests.
The other guests joining Baker and Street this evening were Jeremy Clarkson and writer Kate Mossman, who certainly knows her stuff.
You can view the whole thing on the BBC iPlayer now, or on the BBC4 site.
Finally, check a very informative preview of the show on the BBC’s Art and Culture site, wherein Danny Baker relates a wonderful anecdote about how the young Ziggy was so near, yet so far for the schoolboy Baker.
The second of three instalments is on BBC4 tomorrow (Wednesday) at 21:00.