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Baker's Dozen

Feel Like Dancin'? Jake Shears' Favourite Albums
Ian Wade , June 10th, 2020 10:16

We mark Pride month with sometime Scissor Sister Jake Shears as he guides Ian Wade through 13 favourite records, from Elton John to Bongwater, Ween, Mr Bungle, Aphex and Ike & Tina Turner

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David Bowie - Lodger
My three favourite Bowie albums are Lodger, Scary Monsters and Let’s Dance, and they came out in that succession. I got Lodger on cassette when I was eight and just became completely obsessed with it and listened to over and over again - it’s a record that I never get sick of. You can find some weird writing about Lodger where people can be dismissive of it - I don’t understand that at all. It opens with ‘Fantastic Voyage’ which is probably in my top three favourite David Bowie songs, ‘African Night Flight’ is so hectic and strange, and ‘DJ’ was the big single from this and ‘Look Back In Anger’ too, and ‘Boys Keep Swinging’ was the first – other than hearing Frankie Goes To Hollywood in the back of my mom’s car radio – thing that felt queer to me. ‘Relax’ had a queer energy but ‘Boys Keep Swinging’ felt almost more explicit to me, with that line “other boys check you out” and “you’ll get your share when you’re a boy’” I even named my book Boys Keep Swinging after it. This may sound weird but the week when he died was one of the best weeks of my life in a way. Ever since I was a kid I always knew that Bowie was going to someday die in my lifetime for some reason. You know, I knew that Bowie would die some day and I always wondered ‘where am I going to be?’ when Bowie dies, and then Blackstar came out that weekend, that Friday, and I was just pounding it and loving it and so into it, and then they announced his death on the Sunday night and there I was. I was experiencing that moment that I had thought about all my life. Not only that, I’d been enveloped in this masterpiece of a record. That Sunday night was a bummer and I was really upset, but the following week was nothing but Bowie parties and going into big clubs and getting to hear songs like ‘Blackout’ on massive sound systems. Hearing album tracks that you would never hear in a club, and then thinking of them in a new way. That was the week I got really obsessed with Heroes too, but anyway, he’s my number one. You know the record I nearly put in was Outside, I think it’s fucking amazing that album. Also the Lodger sleeve, what the fuck is going on with that sleeve? I feel like Lodger really makes my imagination run wild and I feel really fortunate to have found it in my life when I did. And found him in my life when I did.