I guess this is another episode of Don't Judge a Song by it's Cover. Brought to you by Nietzlawe, because he reminded me that this was a thing that I do.

Legendary Stardust Cowboy. I Took A Trip on a Gemini Spaceship.

oh man... where do I start? So this guy is known by us hu-mans as Norman Carl Odam and I guess he does this kind of like 1960s indie music. It seems he started making music in 1968 though, I'm not sure when this song was recorded, my research isn't coming up with a lot of specifics about this guy. The song was probably recorded in the early seventies. It's sort of a cover itself of a song called The only other thing I can say about him at this point, he looks like a serial killer. Not that there's anything wrong with that. To tell the truth, I've got mixed feelings about this song. Music, the music is interesting, but simple. Not sure how I feel about the guitar strumming, because I can hardly make it out most of the time. And the synthisizers! I guess the only reason to use synthisizers is for bleating high pitched whines. Whatever it is it sort of chirps and howls in the background. The vocals are, strange. He almost sounds like he's being ironic, like this whole song is some kind of dry joke. I sort of think that it might have to be. Did irony exist before the nineties? But everything I've read about him implies that he's a serious musician. This isn't a joke, and that's okay. His singing is not professional quality, but neither was Kurt Cobain's, Tom Waits or many other great vocalists. You don't need to be able to sing to sell a song is my point. But does he sell the song? His voice does have a certain charm to it... a robotic charm. He sounds like a space cowboy, I'm pretty sure that's what he was going for though. The one thing I don't have mixed feelings about... I love the drums, sure the tempo is crawling, but it's got plenty of drum fills and clashes that add a bit of energy to this laid back song.
Lyrics. The delivery seems kind of disinterested. I like how he says, "Juw-pit-ur"along with other words. A few lines make me laugh, "I shot my spacegun, and I thought about you!" The way he gives this wispy almost high pitched delivery. I'm not sure if this counts as falsetto, it's not that high and it's almost whispered. Like the last words the killer would whisper into your ear before they gut you. But that's probably just my damage. The content of the song is space crafts, flying saucers, feeling blue, more space crafts, space guns, walking in space, the moon and more spacecrafts. I'm still not sure whether I love or hate this song, but it certainly was a trip, that's for sure.

And now it's time for a cover.

There's only one man who has a right to cover this song, David fuckin' Bowie. It only makes sense, obviously this guy was a huge influence on Bowie. It's not a coincidence that Ziggy's last name is Stardust. It really isn't. I bet you didn't know David Bowie kept making music after the seventies. Well, this song is off an album he released in 2002. Oddly enough David Bowie is sort of looking like a serial killer in his album art here. Or maybe he's just possessed... either way both these guys are creeping me out today.
So it opens with a dance beat that's been put through some sort of phaser. And then I guess they put another dance beat over the first one. there's a chord progression here, but I could barely make out the chord progression in the original because the guitar was so muddied out. Is it the same? I don't really care about that. Because now Bowie's singing. He sounds just as expressive as Odam, but he's always had that kind of delivery. I guess you can see how The Space Cowboy's influenced him. But his delivery seems to have better timing then Odam. I kind of like the horns, I like the rhythm to the bass, the psychedelic guitar it's all pretty good, for a dance song.

But this processed dance music sort of undermines what the original seemed to be all about. This isn't the same song, I'm not even sure how to compare the two. And I kind of have mixed feelings about both. I mean I find myself grooving the Bowie's cover, but really... does Bowie really need another space themed song. Yeah, we get it David Bowie, you're pretty far out there. You're from another planet, don't need to remind us. We all get the message.
And the original, it's very interesting and it's not ear shatteringly bad. I kind of like it. The weird delivery just adds to the surrealness of the song. David Bowie's song sounds kind of generic. This has to be the first times I've heard David bowie make a techno dance song. But other then that there's nothing here I haven't already heard in Bowie song, and as for the dance elements there's nothing there I haven't heard in a dance song.
So in this case, the original wins.