Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) with guest Damon Linker, Senior Columnist for The Week. Read Damon’s work here and follow him at @DamonLinker on Twitter.

It’s not the side effects of the cocaine, Political Beats is thinking that it must be love as it throws itself into the whirlpool of David Bowie’s latter-Seventies career, taking our journey all the way up through Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) and one of the greatest one-off artistic collaborations between two musical giants during the rock era (hint: it’s not “Dancing In The Street”). David Bowie was an artistic giant all the way through his entire recording career, and was making stirring music up until the day he passed away — that will be addressed in our upcoming third part of this retrospective — but Jeff for one makes no secret of the fact that this era is his favorite by far. From songs about the lives of young Americans, girlfriend-eating television sets, new careers in new towns, and being heroes just for one day, to swingin’ along to the good life as a boy, sailing to the piratey hinterlands, or being hunted down like just another piece of teenage wildlife . . . this is the era where David Bowie traveled a vast yawning gap of artistic growth and transcendence. This is the sound of greatness.