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Today's Shelf Pull: David Bowie, Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)

Sharp corners, generous melodies, very little sitting still

David Bowie makes the inviting and the awkward share a room on Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps). Read the full story from Kilmorna in Listowel.

David Bowie makes the inviting and the awkward share a room on Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps). This 1980 album has melodies you can settle into, but the angular guitars keep moving the furniture. Comfort is available, just not on particularly generous terms.

For today's vinyl shelf pull in Listowel, that friction is the attraction. The record brings a directness to its experimental impulses without tidying them away. Listen to how the sharp rhythms hold things together while the voice changes its distance from you.

There is theatre here, but also a useful resistance to grandeur. Bowie can sound detached and then exposed, sometimes making the shift feel like a change in the room's temperature. The hooks give you something solid to hold while that happens.

The catalogue places the album at a turn between Bowie's late seventies work and the decade ahead. That is helpful context, though it need not become homework. The more immediate question is how this music can be so approachable without sounding remotely at ease.

"It's No Game (Part 1)" opens the first side, and its counterpart closes the second. Those titles establish a frame before any larger interpretation is needed. Between them, the record keeps testing the space between a recognisable song shape and a more unsettled delivery.

"Up The Hill Backwards" and "Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)" put the guitar-led edge firmly in view. The useful thing to follow is the tension between forward motion and angular detail. The music moves, but it does not smooth the pavement first.

Then "Ashes To Ashes" and "Fashion" complete the first side. That sequence lets melody and groove become points of entry rather than exits from the album's unease. Familiarity with either song need not make the surrounding record any less strange.

"Fashion" is worth hearing for the way its jagged groove makes movement and discomfort compatible. The rhythm gives the ear a route through, while the edges remain conspicuous. It is possible to be drawn towards a song without finding it reassuring.

Side B begins with "Teenage Wildlife", a useful invitation to move beyond the two better-known songs that finish Side A. Listen for the emotional exposure beneath the theatrical delivery. Here, the album's restless surface is not the whole of its character.

"Scream Like A Baby" and "Kingdom Come" occupy the middle of the second side. Rather than treating them as a corridor towards the ending, keep the same attention on voice, rhythm and texture. The less familiar titles deserve more than a roll call.

"Because You're Young" follows, before "It's No Game (Part 2)" brings the sequence back to its opening name. That return gives a practical listening exercise: notice what the intervening songs have done to your expectations. A repeated title need not imply an unchanged perspective.

Across the album, the atmospheric synthesizer touches matter alongside the guitars. They give the sharper shapes a surrounding space rather than replacing them. Follow those textures for a while, then return to the rhythm; the balance is more interesting than a simple contest between instruments.

The LP's two sides also provide a modest discipline: five tracks, a pause, then five more. There is no need to make a ceremony of it. The break simply offers a moment to let the first sequence settle before "Teenage Wildlife" starts the next.

What makes this a rewarding shelf pull is not simply the presence of recognisable songs. It is the way those songs belong to a larger, pricklier mood, with melody offering company rather than an escape route.

For someone coming to Bowie through this album, the directness is welcoming without being a simplification. For someone returning, the useful move is to listen past the expected hooks and give the surrounding tensions equal room.

Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) leaves plenty to follow without requiring a theory for every turn. Start with the rhythms, stay for the shifting voice, and allow the awkward corners to remain awkward. They are doing useful work.

On the shelf today:

David Bowie - Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)

LP, 1980

Rock

EUR 34.95

Available from The Kilmorna Collection, Listowel

Buy or reserve: https://www.thekilmornacollection.com/vinyl/david-bowie-scary-monsters-and-super-creeps

Buying vinyl records in Ireland: https://www.thekilmornacollection.com/vinyl-records-ireland

On the shelf today

David Bowie - Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)

LP / Rock / 1980

EUR34.95 / Available now

Order / Reserve