The record was produced by Tony Visconti, and includes a variety of musicians, such as the guitarist Carlos Alomar, who became one of Bowie's most frequent collaborators, and the backing vocalists Ava Cherry, Robin Clark and then-unknown singer Luther Vandross.

[9] In early 1974, Bowie met the funk guitarist Carlos Alomar, an Apollo Theater session musician who had played with James Brown, Chuck Berry and Wilson Pickett.

[1][10] While in Pennsylvania, Bowie visited Sigma Sound Studios in Philadelphia to work on recordings with the American musician Ava Cherry.

Mike Garson (piano), David Sanborn (saxophone) and Pablo Rosario (percussion) were retained from the Diamond Dogs Tour, while Earl Slick was replaced by Alomar on guitar.

At Alomar's suggestion, Bowie hired Andy Newmark, a former member of Sly and the Family Stone, and Willie Weeks of the Isley Brothers to replace Tony Newman and Herbie Flowers on drums and bass, respectively.

[17] Cherry, Alomar's wife Robin Clark, then-unknown singer Luther Vandross, Anthony Hinton and Diane Sumler performed backing vocals for the sessions.

It was agreed early on to record as much of the album as possible live, with the full band playing together, including Bowie's vocals, as a single continuous take for each song.

"[14] Bowie's cocaine addiction heightened at a rapid pace during the period; he often stayed awake day and night recording while the band slept.

The shows were heavily altered and no longer featured elaborate set-pieces, due to Bowie's exhaustion with the design and wanting to explore the new sound he was creating.

Visconti, who believed the album was completely finished, returned to London to record string arrangements for "Can You Hear Me", "Win" and "It's Gonna Be Me" at AIR Studios,[25] while Bowie remained in New York, working on separate mixing with in-house engineer Harry Maslin.

[36][37] Ashley Naftule of Consequence of Sound described the album as a cross between Bowie's "artsy rocker tendencies" and the "warm earnestness" of soul and R&B.

The line "I heard the news today, oh boy" was taken from the Beatles' song "A Day in the Life" (1967), acknowledging Lennon's influence on Bowie and their imminent collaboration later on the album.

[e][5][42] Doggett cites elements in the novels City of Night (1963) and The Occult Reich (1974) as inspirations for the title,[44] while David Buckley writes that it reaffirms the 'strange fascination' motif of Bowie's track "Changes" (1971).

The call and response between Bowie and the backing singers "lends an air of immaculate sophistication to the lyric's paean to positive thinking", according to the biographer Nicholas Pegg.

According to Pegg, another rejected idea was a full-length portrait of Bowie in a "flying suit" and white scarf, standing in front of an American flag and raising a glass.

[29] RCA released "Young Americans" as the lead single to the album on 21 February 1975, with the Ziggy Stardust track "Suffragette City" (1972) as the B-side.

[70][72] Bowie's November 1974 performance of the song on The Dick Cavett Show was used as promotion, airing on the BBC's Top of the Pops on 21 February 1975.

[76] It stayed on the UK Albums Chart for 17 weeks, peaking at number two,[77] being kept off the top spot by Tom Jones's 20 Greatest Hits.

"[87] In early November, he became one of the first white artists to appear on ABC TV's Soul Train, where he gave mimed performances of "Fame" and his new single "Golden Years".

[95][96][34] Rolling Stone's Jon Landau praised the title track and thought that the remainder of the album "works best when Bowie combines his renewed interest in soul with his knowledge of English pop, rather than opting entirely for one or the other".

[95] In The Philadelphia Inquirer, Jack Lloyd called Young Americans a "gem" and a "triumph" filled with "superb" songs aside from the "pretentious" title track, but felt "Across the Universe" and "Fame" were out of place.

He nonetheless appreciated Bowie's renewed "generosity of spirit to risk failure" following the disappointments of Diamond Dogs and David Live.

"[99] In Phonograph Record, John Mendelsohn criticised the lyrics, Bowie's vocal performance, found the melodies "as good as non-existent" and the overall album very weak.

[100] In the NME, Ian MacDonald felt the record was more of a transitional one, created out of a confused state of mind not knowing where to take his career next.

[101] In Melody Maker, Michael Watts praised the backing band but found the record too "pastiche" to be credible and Bowie's worst release up to that point.

[1] Daryl Easlea summarised in Record Collector: "While all rock'n'roll was based on white men's appropriation of black popular music, very few artists had embraced the form wholesale, to the point of using the same studios and musicians, as Bowie [did].

[72] In subsequent years, artists who experimented with funk and soul after Bowie included Elton John, Roxy Music, Rod Stewart, the Rolling Stones, Bee Gees, Talking Heads, Spandau Ballet, Japan and ABC.

[35] Young Americans has received mixed reviews from critics and fans in later decades,[19] being dismissed as a purely transitional record[33] and an inauthentic excursion by an artist whose talents lay elsewhere.

[122] Mark Beaumont of The Independent argued: "Those rock historians who dismiss the album as a white elephant among Bowie's 1970s output [...] underestimate its significance.

[132] The 2007 reissue, marketed as a "Special Edition", included an accompanying DVD containing 5.1 surround sound mixes of the album and Bowie's November 1974 interview and performances on The Dick Cavett Show.