[Bowie] has preferred throughout his recording career to immerse himself in carefully contrived roles and personae through which he has sought to elaborate his various concepts and futuristic visions. He has established a reluctance to adopt any kind of intimate, confessional stance and a determination to assimilate a multiplicity of styles and techniques which has led his detractors to conclude that he has no real or substantial identity of his own.

That argument has, however, become less persuasive and has lost much of its credibility since Bowie made public his confusion and desperation with the audaciously conceived "David Live", an album of documentary intensity. Bowie, it seemed, had become less concerned with the manipulation of fantasy and, on that album, was approaching his work with an hitherto unexpressed directness. With "Young Americans", released early last year, Bowie established a mode of expression which made it possible for him to explore the anguish of his isolation with articulate insight.

"Young Americans" was a protracted examination of a particular predicament (the loneliness of stardom etc.); much of his earlier work, though expressing similar strain or melancholic despair, has been less specific. The appeal of "Young Americans" was, however, limited by its insularity. It is difficult, after all, to sympathise with such privilege. Bowie may have been suffering all kinds of confusions, but he, at least, had the material benefits of his stardom to alleviate his pain if the going got too tough. All that, though, has gone out the window with "Station To Station".

The album has all the desperate and immediate drama of, say, Neil Young's "Tonight's The Night". And, while it bears certain stylistic similarities to "Young Americans", this record is entirely devoid of the luxurious and exotic arrangements which graced much of its predecessor….

The significance of the lyrics remains elusive [on the title track], but there's a terrifying anxiety here which runs through all the subsequent compositions, even "Golden Years". It's as if Bowie is performing with the knowledge of the fact that there is, as R. D. Laing once wrote, "nothing to be afraid of", because outside our own private self there exists nothing else. If anything, it's this kind of cosmic anguish which forms the emotional centre of "Station To Station"….

The second side of the album offers some respite from the psychic turmoil. "TVC 15" is, on the surface, hilarious….

I realise that I might check my enthusiasm, but I must say that I find "Station To Station" to be not only the most important recorded statement Bowie has ever made, but also one of the most significant albums released in the last five years. I don't pretend to understand completely the complications and paranoia of Bowie, but as a commentary on the spiritual malaise of this decade it is as powerful as anything by Thomas Pynchon, and in rock it stands alone.