The Beatles - Station to Station (1976)
Following the back-to-back successes of Gouster and Oldies but Mouldies, the Beatles' next record would be made under tense conditions. Infighting had flared up again, similar to the Get Back sessions of 1969, no doubt due to the personal lives of most of the band's members being in shambles. John Lennon and George Harrison were fighting double heroin addictions, David Bowie basically depended on cocaine, and Ringo Starr was a functioning alcoholic. Only Paul McCartney stayed clean throughout the turbulent 70's, thanks to the help of his loyal wife, Linda. The band had initially decided to take a break from recording to pursue other ventures. Starr and Bowie pursued their film careers, starring in "Lisztomania" and "The Man Who Fell from Earth" respectively. McCartney spent time with his family, and Harrison spent more time out with his new friends from Monty Python. But it was Lennon's antics that made headlines. Still apart from his estranged wife Yoko Ono, he would regularly drink and party with his other musician friends, his favorites to hang with being Bowie and his close friend Harry Nilsson. These antics would not be a good look for the band, and Lennon's behavior would only get worse as time went on.
Thankfully, by the time the band reunited in December 1975 to record their next album, Harrison had kicked his drug habit, and Starr and Bowie were functional enough to record their bits well. Lennon, on the other hand, rarely showed up to recording sessions, and he contributed a single song throughout the three months of recording (and even that was mostly written by Nilsson). The band soldiered on without him, and by the sessions' end, they knew that they had made yet enough masterpiece.
The resulting album, Station to Station was released on April 1, 1976. Immediately, fans and critics alike lauded it as one of their best albums ever, if not their best. They specifically pointed out "Return of the Thin White Duke", Side B's only song, as the album's clear focus. The song follows a man that goes by The Thin White Duke as he goes on a journey to find fulfillment, with Jewish mysticism being used as a metaphor throughout. The Beatles celebrated yet another success, but this didn't end the band's tensions.
It all came to a boiling point on April 17, 1976, when Lennon sat down for an interview as promotion for the new album. Clearly drunk, he spent the interview destroying the band he had founded, calling it "a shell of its former self". He cited McCartney and Harrison as being extremely difficult to work with and saying that Bowie had "fucked over their sound". For the band, this was the final straw. And so, on April 26, not even a month after their latest album had released, it was announced to the public that Lennon had been kicked from his own band until he could kick his addiction. Lennon took it in stride, with him feeling a newly found sense of freedom. David Bowie, too, was at a crossroads, not only in his career but in his life. His cocaine addiction had overtaken him, leaving him a changed man. And now John Lennon, someone he looked up to, was at an extreme low point in his own life and had been kicked from the Beatles. Something had to change, and Bowie knew he had to be the one to initiate. And so, in May of 1976, Bowie announced that he would take an indefinite hiatus from the group to find himself, but everyone knew that he would be back eventually.
Now, with just Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, what is a band to do?
I've made a full mix for this album that you can listen to here:
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