the title track. The following day, Bowie recorded "We Are the Dead", after which he contacted Visconti for mixing advice. O'Leary writes "Rebel Rebel" was finished around this time. Recording was finished at Ludolph Studios in the Netherlands, where the Stones had just finished recording It's Only Rock 'n Roll (1974). Music and lyrics Diamond Dogs was Bowie's last album in the glam rock genre. Buckley writes: "In the sort of move which would come to define his career, Bowie jumped the glam-rock ship just in time, before it drifted into a blank parody of itself." The album has often been regarded as an "English proto-punk" record, according to the cultural studies academic Jon Stratton, who calls it "post-glam". The pop culture scholar Shelton Waldrep describes it as "wonderfully dark proto-punk", while the music journalist C. M. Crockford says it is "the goofy, abrasive place where punk and art-rock meet, dance a little, and depart". In the opinion of The Guardians Adam Sweeting, while "the music still has one foot in the glam-rock camp", the album marks the point in Bowie's career where he "began exploring a kind of Weimar soul music with lavish theatrical packaging", featuring Broadway-style ballads such as "Big Brother" and "Sweet Thing". Pegg describes the album as having "manic alternations between power-charged garage rock and sophisticated, synthesiser-heavy apocalyptic ballads". Biographer Christopher Sandford writes that beyond the overall concept, many of the songs delve into R&B. Pitchforks Barry Walters wrote that although the album is still primarily glam rock, it also contains elements of "Blaxploitation funk and soul, rock opera, European art song, and Broadway." Side one The opening track, "Future Legend", is a spoken word track that depicts a world riddled by an urban apocalypse. The writings of Burroughs, especially The Wild Boys (1971) inspire the visions of decay. Author Peter Doggett notes that unlike the opening of Ziggy Stardust, which announces the world will end in five years, the apocalypse of "Future Legend" could happen at any time. Bowie begins the title track by announcing, "This ain't rock'n'roll – this is genocide". The track introduces Bowie's newest persona, Halloween Jack, described as "a real cool cat" who "lives on top of Manhattan Chase" in the urban wasteland depicted in "Future Legend". He rules the "diamond dogs", who O'Leary describes as "packs of feral kids camped on high-rise roofs, tearing around on roller skates, terrorizing the