Station to Station (Deluxe Edition)

David Bowie’s decision to embrace modern soul music (the album was originally released in 1976) and still keep the spacey detachment that made his Ziggy Stardust era such a hit makes Station to Station a brilliant, idiosyncratic album. Tunes such as “Golden Years,” the title track and the “TVC15” are as much tales of the times as they are great new dimensions in the world of Bowie, the Thin White Duke. The album came across as cold and paranoid back in the ‘70s, but now it sounds like a major influence on the post-punk that has been with us for decades. The live concert from March 23, 1976 at Nassau Coliseum on Long Island is a substantial one. Bowie rivets with “Station to Station” and old classics such as “Suffragette City,” “Changes” and “Rebel Rebel.” To think this music was once revolutionary and ahead of its time now seems impossible. So much of Bowie’s natural vernacular and artistic ideas have been co-opted everywhere. Yet, there’s nothing quite like the freshness of “Panic In Detroit” or the skeletal tension of “Fame.”