Preview
DAVID BOWIE
Wednesday, January 21
Pengrowth Saddledome
"Hey Andrew," sez the editor, "How about 400 words on Bowie’s career?"
Sure, I’ll knock off half a page on fallout from the Treaty of Versailles while I’m at it.
So skip Space Oddity – you can hear it often enough late night on 66 CFR to fill any needs you may have. Which brings us right into the dynamic which defines Bowie’s career from then to now – the man needs an editor. The fey frock folk-rock of The Man Who Sold the World (1970) and Hunky Dory (1971) have their share of hits – "Changes," "Oh! You Pretty Things," "Is There Life on Mars" all drip catchy melodrama. But for every gem there’s some godawful caterwauling about magic space pixies from Venus. Patience is the required virtue for every Bowie fan.
Fortunately, a few things happen, and the next few years following Hunky Dory are as fertile as the best from the Stones or the Velvets. First, Bowie manages enough self-control to channel all his mojo through the sound that Marc Bolan built, and creates the ur-rock star. Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust was everything Jagger wanted and Presley couldn’t even imagine. Second, Mick Ronson, behind the scenes since Bowie’s second album, steps out from just arranging the strings and becomes a Teflon-coated guitar hero. The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust... (1972) is a perfect sound forever to this day, from the cabaret overture of "Five Years" to the classic rock gold of "Suffragette City" and the title cut. Aladdin Sane (1973) is as good or better, depending on your taste – "Panic in Detroit," "Time" and "The Jean Genie" could all fill half a greatest hits album. Too bad about "Let’s Spend the Night Together."
The live film Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars: The Motion Picture features the whole nine yards, from Ronson’s tongue-waggling during "Moonage Daydream" to all those glitter kids crying during "Rock and Roll Suicide." And of course, the big moment: "...And it’s the last show we’ll ever do", says Ziggy. That’s right folks – Bowie made what he wanted and got out before the shtick could get old. On his off days, he made Mott the Hoople stars with "All the Young Dudes" and kept a post-Velvets Lou Reed vital with Transformer, maybe the best glam rock album there ever was.
Now everybody, watch that man: glam was always just sauced-up R and B with bigger, hotter tubes in the guitar amps. Bowie got into R and B the way Mondrian got into landscape. Young Americans (1975) was a decadent Weimar tour of Motown described out of a textbook, and it worked. Somehow, the brittle space fairy had learned to dance. The best was yet to come.
For Station to Station (1976), the Thin White Duke finally stopped absorbing and translating everything around him, and came up with something brave and new. "It’s not the side effects of the cocaine/I’m thinking that it must be love," he sang on the title track, but all that blow was doing something. "Golden Years," "TVC 15" and "Station to Station" changed dance music and modern rock in equal, irrevocable measures – even his mortal enemy, rock critic Lester Bangs, liked it.
The Berlin albums with Brian Eno which followed are difficult but mostly rewarding – think Kurt Weil fronting King Crimson and… ah hell, that isn’t it at all. Low and Heroes from 1977 are the best, the title track from the latter up there with songs we’d all most like to hear live. In addition, he gave "Lust for Life" to Iggy Pop and ensured his retirement.
And then, the 1980s. People tell me that if I understand Scary Monsters (1980) I’ll get the rest of his career. For sure "Ashes to Ashes" and "Fashion" are good songs, but the change this time towards goth-proto industrial sounds would colour every coming disguise, from the bad ("Let’s Dance," "Tin Machine") to the really bad ("Outside"). In between, we have everything from Jim Henson to Trent Reznor. But whatever you thought about the sanitized drum ’n’ bass of Earthling, the man looked good on the cover of Raygun at age 50. Now, Bowie’s covering the Pixies, and Heathen and Reality were actually pretty good. I just hope he plays "Sound and Vision " when he comes to town. |
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