David Bowie: An Appreciation
Apr. 22nd, 2016 04:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bedsitter23I realize this is way late, but as far as 2016 is killing everyone off, let's get this done.
I probably don't need to say anything about David Bowie, as certainly it all has been said, but he is on the short list of my all time favorite artists.
I wish I could quantify it, and I bet I could. I can't imagine there are too many artists I listen to more than Bowie. I have to admit I have a certain romance for a type of musical act- which is the mythical four piece who generally put together four or five albums and break up. This saves them from making albums like Cut the Crap or Kill Uncle and saves them in a certain light.
An artist like Bowie has 50 years of music. It is hard to take it all in. In that time, no artist can go without some blemishes on their career. Some moments that were not up to par. It's hard to sum up Bowie in a few words. When you look at Bowie's affect, it's new wave, it's goth, it's punk, it's industrial. It's Duran Duran and Morrissey and Bauhaus. It's glam. It's The Sweet and Numan, It's Britpop. It's Suede, and Kraftwerk and Sparks and Gary Glitter and Neu! and Japan. It's almost any time anyone wants to insert art into rock n roll. It's a list of influences where it's hard to say where Bowie starts and other legends begin like Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Marc Bolan, Roxy Music, Brian Eno and Trent Reznor. It's certainly Madonna and Kiss, UK glam and US glam, Lady Gaga and Bono, LCD Soundsystem and TV on the Radio,
It's Marilyn Manson and indie geekdom like Flight of the Conchords, but it's also Bowie on Soul Train, and the Bowie that was funky, and was sampled by Ice Cube, Jay Z, ODB and Public Enemy.
Bowie could have just inspired Peter Schilling's worldwide hit, and would have had a better career than most. Bowie's one line on Arcade Fire's Reflektor was way cooler than most artists discographies.
When I was in my formative years, Bowie was a pop star, in the same terms that Madonna or Michael Jackson or Wang Chung or Culture Club were pop stars.
Not knowing anything of Bowie than what was offered, "Blue Jean" was one of my favorite songs as a kid. "Let's Dance" another. This period is often ridiculed by people who think about this stuff too much. A teenage follower putting on mascara for the first time would only deliver a lyric with such sincerity as "the Serious Moonlight".
But Bowie at his most mainstream is amazing. Take those four top 20 singles (" Lets Dance", Blue Jean", "China Girl" and "Modern Love") and you have a Hall of Fame career. I probably should include the not so-terrible "Dancing in the Street" as well.
I think there are not too many pop songs better than "Let's Dance". I thought Craig David's remake would be a big hit (in the UK, it was), but alas.
The Bowie I got up as I grew into Serious Music Fan was Bowie at his worst in a lot of ways. At that point in time, Bowie was probably more known for his acting roles like Labryinth than his albums.
The Bowie I got was the one in Tin Machine. TM is of course a punchline now, but I am quick to completely dismiss it. If Bowie wanted to make a straight rock album in a band setting (which apparently he did), he could have done much worse. There are enough songs on the two TM albums that anyone should be proud of.
The Bowie I got was one who was mounting a comeback with the very sharp looking Black Tie, White Noise. Here he covered Morrissey (Morrissey's very Bowiesque "I know it's going to happen.." and even Mick Ronson showed up. I was excited. For the record, I think it is about the worst album ever.
But it wasn't the worst time to be a Bowie fan, There was a great hidden single - the guest vocal on Adrian Belew's "Pretty Pink Rose" and the re-emergence of a little song I had never heard before called "Under Pressure". It had been a minor hit, and yes, it was because of the Vanilla Ice sample, but has become a song that is way more popular every subsequent year than it was originally ever was.
But most of all, I was lucky to hit a time when Rykodisc was reissuing all things Bowie. So no surprise that I started with the Greatest Hits- which was an updated ChangesBowie with his 80s hits added. It of course, is a good point to start if you have to pick one, and some of those songs while already evergreen singles are songs that have grown over the years. Indeed, "Heroes" is more well known 30 years later due to some high profile covers.
It of course meant it led me to the reissue of Ziggy Stardust in 1990. What can I say about Ziggy- it's a towering moment of artwork, but more rarely, it's a piece of art that is still greater than even its lengthy reputation.
I know the album inside and out and it is one of my favorites. I can't say enough about it.
I picked up other albums Lodger and Station to Station. I don't really like Lodger (It's reputation seemingly putting it on a pedestal in the last decade) though it has what may be my favorite Bowie song "DJ" and another keeper "Boys Keep Swinging". Station to Station, on the other hand, was a real hidden gem. (I also watched "The Man who Fell to Earth" a bit difficult art movie, but Bowie nailed the part perfectly, leaving a deep impact on anyone who viewed it.)
From then, it has been a dive back into the catalogue. Surely, nothing as good as Ziggy or Station. I dont appreciate Low as much as many do. But man, there are some great singles in there- "Man who sold the world", "Oh You Pretty Things", "Sound and Vision", "Life on Mars"., "Heroes" (even more grand in its album version) and many more, The last album of Bowie's I have recently "discovered" is Scary Monsters- an album of Bowie being influenced by new wave, while making the perfect new wave album.
The truth is Bowie was also back on the upswing. The recent attention given to Bowie betrays to me what I think are a fine string of albums. Indeed a decade of music that would make anyone as proud to have a career. Outside, Earthling, Hours, Heathen, Reality
Of these, Earthling and Heathen are my favorites. Earthling sounded like it was not going to age well even as it was released (and it hasn't), but it is one of my favorite end-to-end listens of its time. All the albums have plenty to advise them, but Heathen seems to be the most solid of all. Sort of no nonsense in its way, as if Bowie finally got his Tin Machine idea right.
With The Next Day, Bowie finally got the critical acclaim he had been missing. I agree. I thought it was a tremendous album. Blackstar would be his farewell, and I feel a bit blasphemous calling it anything less than a masterpiece. In any case, the conventional wisdom now is that Blackstar is the masterpeice, and the Next Day wasn't all that good to begin with. I disagree. I think blackstar is good, not great, but I can understand the sentimentalism.
It's sad to see Bowie go for many reasons. Even if his career started in the 90s, I would still say it was worthwhile. The one thing that did come out of Bowie's death was an outpouring of people sharing memories and meeting people you didn't know that knew his music so well.
Music is always about the next generation, but even as the 90s on, he should have been fading into the background, he was still in the midst of the forefront. One hopes there's a Johnny Cash-sixed archive that is left to be discovered. We can hope.
I am going to close here knowing I likely left something out. That was the nature of how talented he was.
I probably don't need to say anything about David Bowie, as certainly it all has been said, but he is on the short list of my all time favorite artists.
I wish I could quantify it, and I bet I could. I can't imagine there are too many artists I listen to more than Bowie. I have to admit I have a certain romance for a type of musical act- which is the mythical four piece who generally put together four or five albums and break up. This saves them from making albums like Cut the Crap or Kill Uncle and saves them in a certain light.
An artist like Bowie has 50 years of music. It is hard to take it all in. In that time, no artist can go without some blemishes on their career. Some moments that were not up to par. It's hard to sum up Bowie in a few words. When you look at Bowie's affect, it's new wave, it's goth, it's punk, it's industrial. It's Duran Duran and Morrissey and Bauhaus. It's glam. It's The Sweet and Numan, It's Britpop. It's Suede, and Kraftwerk and Sparks and Gary Glitter and Neu! and Japan. It's almost any time anyone wants to insert art into rock n roll. It's a list of influences where it's hard to say where Bowie starts and other legends begin like Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Marc Bolan, Roxy Music, Brian Eno and Trent Reznor. It's certainly Madonna and Kiss, UK glam and US glam, Lady Gaga and Bono, LCD Soundsystem and TV on the Radio,
It's Marilyn Manson and indie geekdom like Flight of the Conchords, but it's also Bowie on Soul Train, and the Bowie that was funky, and was sampled by Ice Cube, Jay Z, ODB and Public Enemy.
Bowie could have just inspired Peter Schilling's worldwide hit, and would have had a better career than most. Bowie's one line on Arcade Fire's Reflektor was way cooler than most artists discographies.
When I was in my formative years, Bowie was a pop star, in the same terms that Madonna or Michael Jackson or Wang Chung or Culture Club were pop stars.
Not knowing anything of Bowie than what was offered, "Blue Jean" was one of my favorite songs as a kid. "Let's Dance" another. This period is often ridiculed by people who think about this stuff too much. A teenage follower putting on mascara for the first time would only deliver a lyric with such sincerity as "the Serious Moonlight".
But Bowie at his most mainstream is amazing. Take those four top 20 singles (" Lets Dance", Blue Jean", "China Girl" and "Modern Love") and you have a Hall of Fame career. I probably should include the not so-terrible "Dancing in the Street" as well.
I think there are not too many pop songs better than "Let's Dance". I thought Craig David's remake would be a big hit (in the UK, it was), but alas.
The Bowie I got up as I grew into Serious Music Fan was Bowie at his worst in a lot of ways. At that point in time, Bowie was probably more known for his acting roles like Labryinth than his albums.
The Bowie I got was the one in Tin Machine. TM is of course a punchline now, but I am quick to completely dismiss it. If Bowie wanted to make a straight rock album in a band setting (which apparently he did), he could have done much worse. There are enough songs on the two TM albums that anyone should be proud of.
The Bowie I got was one who was mounting a comeback with the very sharp looking Black Tie, White Noise. Here he covered Morrissey (Morrissey's very Bowiesque "I know it's going to happen.." and even Mick Ronson showed up. I was excited. For the record, I think it is about the worst album ever.
But it wasn't the worst time to be a Bowie fan, There was a great hidden single - the guest vocal on Adrian Belew's "Pretty Pink Rose" and the re-emergence of a little song I had never heard before called "Under Pressure". It had been a minor hit, and yes, it was because of the Vanilla Ice sample, but has become a song that is way more popular every subsequent year than it was originally ever was.
But most of all, I was lucky to hit a time when Rykodisc was reissuing all things Bowie. So no surprise that I started with the Greatest Hits- which was an updated ChangesBowie with his 80s hits added. It of course, is a good point to start if you have to pick one, and some of those songs while already evergreen singles are songs that have grown over the years. Indeed, "Heroes" is more well known 30 years later due to some high profile covers.
It of course meant it led me to the reissue of Ziggy Stardust in 1990. What can I say about Ziggy- it's a towering moment of artwork, but more rarely, it's a piece of art that is still greater than even its lengthy reputation.
I know the album inside and out and it is one of my favorites. I can't say enough about it.
I picked up other albums Lodger and Station to Station. I don't really like Lodger (It's reputation seemingly putting it on a pedestal in the last decade) though it has what may be my favorite Bowie song "DJ" and another keeper "Boys Keep Swinging". Station to Station, on the other hand, was a real hidden gem. (I also watched "The Man who Fell to Earth" a bit difficult art movie, but Bowie nailed the part perfectly, leaving a deep impact on anyone who viewed it.)
From then, it has been a dive back into the catalogue. Surely, nothing as good as Ziggy or Station. I dont appreciate Low as much as many do. But man, there are some great singles in there- "Man who sold the world", "Oh You Pretty Things", "Sound and Vision", "Life on Mars"., "Heroes" (even more grand in its album version) and many more, The last album of Bowie's I have recently "discovered" is Scary Monsters- an album of Bowie being influenced by new wave, while making the perfect new wave album.
The truth is Bowie was also back on the upswing. The recent attention given to Bowie betrays to me what I think are a fine string of albums. Indeed a decade of music that would make anyone as proud to have a career. Outside, Earthling, Hours, Heathen, Reality
Of these, Earthling and Heathen are my favorites. Earthling sounded like it was not going to age well even as it was released (and it hasn't), but it is one of my favorite end-to-end listens of its time. All the albums have plenty to advise them, but Heathen seems to be the most solid of all. Sort of no nonsense in its way, as if Bowie finally got his Tin Machine idea right.
With The Next Day, Bowie finally got the critical acclaim he had been missing. I agree. I thought it was a tremendous album. Blackstar would be his farewell, and I feel a bit blasphemous calling it anything less than a masterpiece. In any case, the conventional wisdom now is that Blackstar is the masterpeice, and the Next Day wasn't all that good to begin with. I disagree. I think blackstar is good, not great, but I can understand the sentimentalism.
It's sad to see Bowie go for many reasons. Even if his career started in the 90s, I would still say it was worthwhile. The one thing that did come out of Bowie's death was an outpouring of people sharing memories and meeting people you didn't know that knew his music so well.
Music is always about the next generation, but even as the 90s on, he should have been fading into the background, he was still in the midst of the forefront. One hopes there's a Johnny Cash-sixed archive that is left to be discovered. We can hope.
I am going to close here knowing I likely left something out. That was the nature of how talented he was.
