S5 Ep9: Leah Kardos on Tin Machine 2 (Part One)

Tin Machine 2! Turkey or twizzler? It has to be said, full marks to Bowie and the boys for steaming ahead with their second album despite bemused reactions to the 1989 debut, Bowie gallivanting off around the world on the mammoth May - Sep 1990 Sound + Vision tour, being dropped by EMI (leaving DB without a record deal for the first time since 1966) and Reeves getting into the intricate properties of sex toys* - all of this conspired to create this, the occasionally brilliant, sometimes baffling, entirely peculiar Tin Machine 2. Bangers and clunkers come together in a far more focused way than the first album, a greater spectrum of songwriting and Reeves revels in the spacious soundscapes, aided and abetted by producer Tim Palmer. In this opening episode Leah Kardos and I get to grips with the background to the album, its long gestation and the first few tracks, swooning over our favourites and coming to angry blows over "If There Is Something". Come ahead and dive in! Many thanks to Leah as ever and also for her background intro music for this and all recent episodes - more information about Leah's many activities at *I feature Reeves Gabrels, taken from an earlier albumtoalbum episode - do check out his whole interview here! Tin Machine 2 is not currently available on streaming, but cheapish second hand copies abound on ebay and amazon. (Leah and I feel strongly it should be reissued)

You can listen to S5 Ep9: Leah Kardos on Tin Machine 2 (Part One) online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

S5 Ep9: Leah Kardos on Tin Machine 2 (Part One) is an episode from DAVIDBOWIE: ALBUMTOALBUM.

This episode is 78:21 long.

This episode was published on Jul 16, 2025.

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