David Bowie “Scary Monsters” released on this date, September 12th, 1980. It hit #1 in the UK and #12 on the US album chart; RCA promoted it with the tagline “Often Copied, Never Equalled” – which pretty much remains the description of Bowie to this day.

The title track, “Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)” is gothically dark, vaguely industrial and amazing. “Up The Hill Backwards,” the last single released off of Scary Monsters, has an awesome Diddley-esque intro (Bowie had challenged guitarist Robert Fripp to “imagine he was playing a guitar duel with B.B. King where he had to out-B.B. B.B., but do it in his own way”). The first single which Bowie released prior to the album, “Ashes To Ashes,” is an art rock experiment in surreal new romanticism. It became Bowie’s second #1 hit in the UK and its video was renowned for being the most expensive to make up to that time. And “Fashion” has always been one of my favorite tracks (I blogged about the 12″ just after Bowie’s death this past January), its vibe icy cool detachment to pop culture. “Scream Like a Baby,” the b-side to “Fashion,” was originally slated to have the title “Laser” – and instead of singing “scream like a baby” the line was going to be “I am a laser” – which makes me laugh with the image of a baby shooting laser beams from his mismatched colored eyes.