Station to Station like you've never heard it ...

[uwe]

The Harry Maslin (= original producer) 2010 remix (not just remaster), originally 5.1, but now more conveniently available on CD with the "Who Can I Be Now?" Bowie-Box (in 2010, you only got the CD version of the Maslin remix if you bought the unaffordable super-duper-lavish-deluxe set with vinyl and all).

It's interesting to hear for its stark directness, kind of like you were standing in the studio while they reccorded Station to Station. Bowie albums are of course notorious for the added production ambience and this more naked mix does largely without it. You hear more of the individual components and less of the hazy cinemascocainic overall effect of the original. I'm not saying that this is better than the original mix (and the many remasters based on it during the last decades), because it has lost some of the "otherworldliness" that has always been Station to Station's charm and made that album sound - to my ears - unique when it came out in 1976 (I heard it knowing only the Diamond Dogs album on a hissy AGFA (or was it Kodak?) C90 cassette from Bowie's previous work, Station to Station was initially a shock, he had 100% unglammed his sound). Apparently though, Bowie had wanted a very dry mix at the time (after the dystopian-cavernous-echo'y Diamond Dogs), but it just didn't turn out that way back then.

[amptech]

Now this is nice. The vocals and drums really stands out, like it!

[gearHed289]

Listened to the whole thing yesterday. Love it! This album just moved up several notches as far as Bowie goes.

[uwe]

I was initially so disappointed when it came out, but over the decades it has become my favorite Bowie album, ousting Diamond Dogs, Aladdin Sane and Ziggy Stardust from the throne. In Bowie's wildly varied canon it stands out as something he never did before or ever again, it's a solitaire.

Interestingly enough, decades later he had no recollection whatsoever of the album's recording, he was coked out of his mind during the sessions and lived on a strange diet of fresh milk and red peppers (following the Station to Station tour, he would leave the US "I escaped LA as the then coke capital of the world with a horrible coke addiction to save my life and fled to Berlin of all places, the then smack capital of the world, but there was no cocaine there at the time and I didn't do smack"). He later on remarked that he liked the album when listening to it, but that it sounded to him "like it was recorded by someone other than me, an interesting fellow though".