FEATURE:
The Man Who Fell to Earth
PHOTO CREDIT: Collection Christophel - Photothèque Lecoeuvre
David Bowie at Seventy-Five
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I am going to slot in…
PHOTO CREDIT: Stephen Shapiro
a couple of playlists, as the legendary David Bowie turns seventy-five on 8th January (of course, he sadly died on 10th January, 2016). I am going to pop in a few features, rather than concentrate on anything specific such as one of his albums or another aspect. I have written about bowie’s innovation, his fashion and the impact he has had on other artists. I did not want to pass his seventy-fifth birthday by without writing something. Before going on, this month, the BFI are presenting Bowie: Starman and the Silver Screen: a series of films featuring Bowie or about him, showing how magnetic he was on the screen.
“He was just a very disarming man with such power... a kind of charismatic power, a beauty and extraordinary talent and genius at what he did”
Martin Scorsese
As a performer David Bowie was magnetic on screen, and as a composer, innovator and artist his fascination for film fed an insatiable creative drive, write season co-programmers Rhidian Davis and Leïla Taleb TV made Bowie a star in 1972 when his glam-rock alter-ego Ziggy Stardust beamed alien sex-magic directly into Britain’s living rooms via Top of the Pops. His engagement with film, theatre and design forged his high-concept approach to pop stardom and supercharged the evolution of music video. Bowie’s big-screen acting ambitions were first realised in 1967, but it was in 1976 that brilliant casting made him The Man Who Fell to Earth. He was drawn to learn from great directors, and worked with Nic Roeg, Martin Scorsese, Nagisa Oshima, David Lynch and Alan Clarke. It can be hard to look beyond Bowie ‘the star’ to appreciate the characters he portrayed, but he was always more interested in personas than in the craft of naturalism. Five years on from his passing, Bowie’s star still sparkles brightly”.
Despite the fact I have discussed Bowie’s legacy before, it is worth mentioning it again ahead of what would have been his seventy-fifth birthday. Classic Rock History give us an idea and impression of Bowie’s influence and huge impact:
“Born David Robert Jones in January of 1947, Bowie’s legacy impacted countless people, spawning movements and genres of all kinds. He and Marc Bolan are credited with creating Glam Rock while Bowie was simultaneously inspiring the earliest incarnations of the punk scene. As the punk rockers rose to stardom, Bowie shifted, spurring his record company to adopt the slogan, “There is old wave, there is new wave, and there is Bowie”.
Sticking with music his influence can be felt in nearly every genre out there. Take hip-hop for example. Bowie’s music has been sampled by more artists and producers than you’d care to count. Names like Ice Cube, Public Enemy, Dr. Dre, Tribe Called Quest, P. Diddy, and Jay Z. are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to performers who have used Bowie’s work in their own. In fact, just after Bowie’s death Kanye West tweeted that “David Bowie was one of my most important inspirations, so fearless, so creative, he gave us magic for a lifetime”.
David Bowie was the first concert Madonna ever attended. He was a collaborator of the Rolling Stones and Iggy Pop. He produced Lou Reed and sang with Bing Crosby. He sang with Queen and composed for The Flaming Lips. In fact, the list of artists Bowie has collaborated with in some form or fashion is hundreds of entries long. It’s a staggering body of work.
Moving away from music though, Bowie is considered a fashion icon and David Bowie’s influence is still being felt. Clothes fit him well and his constantly changing persona allowed him to wear whatever caught his fancy but his style was his own, no matter how many times it changed. People noticed and their work was influenced by him. Go to any fashion show, be it the work of Dries Van Noten, Jean Paul Gaultier, or Emilio Pucci, and you’re bound to see some piece that oozes with Bowie’s style and stature.
Here’s a strange one. Video games. Bowie’s influence is all over the gaming world and in not so subtle ways. Hideo Kojima is known as the creator of Metal Gear Solid, one of the most popular games ever made but most people don’t know that Kojima’s game is a virtual tribute to Mr. Bowie. Levels are named after his songs. Plot lines are developed around Bowie-esque characters. An entire mercenary unit in the game is named the Diamond Dogs after Bowie’s hit song. In fact, Kojima’s claims that pretty much every character in the game is styled after a different Bowie persona. It wasn’t just Metal Gear either. Bowie himself appeared in the game Omikron: The Nomad Soul and the game Xenosaga’s main character is named Ziggy.
Bowie’s influence on our social mores is notable as well. Bowie was a gender bender at a time when homosexuality was not only uncool, it was still illegal. Bowie’s fluid sexuality and openly bisexual behavior made him a target but it also made homosexuality cooler and more acceptable to the mainstream. Thousands of young people struggling with their identities looked up to him as a beacon of hope and change. Bowie, the ultimate outsider, made them feel accepted.
Bowie influenced art as well, both as a performer and a visual artist. His appearances always walked the line between a musical concert and a performance art piece featuring pink poodles with TV’s imbedded in their bellies or giant puppet costumes just to name a few. As an artist himself his work has gained quite a bit of attention. His show “David Bowie Is” shattered attendance records at the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art.
Even the topic of death has not escaped David Bowie’s influence. His final album, Blackstar, was recorded as a good-bye, a final sign off by a man who knew he was losing a battle with liver cancer. The lyrics of the first single, Lazarus, are a haunting letter from the grave as David Bowie manages to turn his own passing into an art piece.
Suffice to say the world is a very different place because of David Bowie’s influence. I think the most poignant thing I’ve heard about his passing was in the form of a quote from actor and comedian, Simon Pegg, who said, “If you’re sad today just remember, the world is over 4 billion years old and you somehow managed to exist at the same time as David Bowie”.
Prior to finish up, I want to spend some time with Bowie’s eleventh studio album, Low. That turns forty-five on 14th January. There is debate as to which Bowie albums are the best. I think that Low should appear in everyone’s top ten of his (it is in my top five favourite Bowie albums). Prior to that, Far Out Magazine published an article a year ago that highlighted the best eight Bowie interviews. I have selected a few:
“Calling out MTV
Many videos circle the internet with Bowie offering a piece of advice or heralding a moment of the future his interviewers have yet to realise was possible. However, in this footage shared by MTV themselves, the iconic Starman takes aim at the network’s lack of diversity and asks VJ Goodman to explain on their behalf.
Bowie was in full promotion of his album Let’s Dance when he sat across from Goodman in 1983. The bottle blonde Bowie is sat with ease and comfort and perhaps suggested that Goodman had your run of the mill press junket answers already in the can. Bowie decided that now would be a good time to take on the newly formed network.
“Having watched MTV over the past few months, it’s a solid enterprise with a lot going for it,” Bowie said. “I’m just floored that by the fact that there’s so few black artists featured on it. Why is that?” It’s a stunning question to fire back at an interviewer and perhaps more impressively during the promotion of your new pop record.
It’s a tight spot for Goodman to get out of but he tries to defend those who write the cheques nevertheless: “I think we’re trying to move in that direction,” he said. The conversation continues as Goodman suggests that black artists wouldn’t be as welcomed in all of the states MTV can be viewed in and that an artist like “Prince” may not do well in a Mid-west state. “I’ll tell you what, maybe the Isley Brothers or Marvin Gaye means something to a black 17-year-old,” Bowie replied.
“And surely he’s part of America as well. Do you not find that it’s a frightening predicament to be in? Is it not possible it should be a conviction of the station to be fair? It does seem to be rampant through American media. Should it not be a challenge to make the media far more integrated?” The situation then seems to deteriorate with Goodman clearly on the ropes. The VJ continues to try and explain away the question posed and somehow ends up suggesting that white kids won’t want to listen to black music in 1983 as they did in 1967. It’s an unfathomably obtuse retort and places Goodman as ignorant at best. Cooly and calmly, knowing that Goodman has done his own damage, Bowie smirks and says: “Interesting. Thank you very much…I understand your point of view”.
“When Bowie predicted the internet
During his lifetime, David Bowie very rarely looked backwards and he never dwelled on his success. Every new invention or addition to his life was greeted with the same fascinated curiosity and willingness to embed it into his life. The same can be said for the introduction of that wondrous web of ugliness, otherwise known as the internet.
Bowie was an actor, a musician and a performer but, as well as all that, he was also a pioneer of all things online. BowieNet, launched on September 1st, 1998, was the Starman’s very own Internet Service Provider. The singer, with his expert vision, saw the blossoming of the internet as something precious and powerful at the same time. Considering he’d set up his own BowieNet as a private ISP the previous year, he was well placed to offer a clear opinion on the new-fangled technology.
In this clip from 1999, the Thin White Duke talks about the internet within the music industry and suggests: “The potential of what the Internet is going to do to society, both good and bad, is unimaginable.” He continues with his vision of the future saying that rock ‘n’ roll had died and, “The internet is now, it carries the flag of being subversive and possibly rebellious. Chaotic, nihilistic,” as Bowie’s interrupted by a snort of derision from his interviewer, the singer puts him right, “Oh yes it is!”. During the interview, Bowie also talks about the “demystification between the audience and the artist” which he thinks is one of the internet’s most powerful tools.
Bowie suggests the “vocabulary of rock is too well known” and that it no longer acts as a conveyor of rebellion, Bowie also suggests the internet has taken its place, “I find that a terribly exciting area. So from my standpoint, being an artist, I like to see what the new construction is between artist and audience. There is a breakdown, personified I think by the rave culture of the last few years—where the audience is at least as important as whoever is playing. It’s almost like the artist is to accompany the audience.”
As Paxman continues to suggest the claims made around the internet are being wildly exaggerated, Bowie makes the respected journalist look a little silly with his responses. “I don’t think we’ve even seen the tip of the iceberg. I think the potential of what the Internet is going to do to society, both good and bad, is unimaginable. I think we’re actually on the cusp of something exhilarating and terrifying”.
“Introducing Ziggy Stardust
In one of Bowie’s little known interviews, he let slip the mask of pop production and accidentally gave a preview of his new creation, Ziggy Stardust, to an unwitting American radio host. “Could you explain a little more in-depth about the album that’s coming out—Ziggy?” the interviewer asks, likely thinking he would be given a fob-off response. But artists weren’t as media-trained back then and Bowie is happy to provide a preview of the star in waiting. “I’ll try very hard. It’s a little difficult,” began the singer, “but it originally started as a concept album, but it kind of got broken up, because I found other songs I wanted to put in the album which wouldn’t have fitted into the story of Ziggy, so at the moment it’s a little fractured and a little fragmented.
“So anyway, what you have there on that album when it does finally come out,” he continues, laying out the blueprint for one of his most treasured creations, “is a story which doesn’t really take place, it’s just a few little scenes from the life of a band called Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars, who could feasibly be the last band on Earth—it could be within the last five years of Earth.” Bowie is still bubbling with the creativity of the project and finds it somewhat difficult to piece it all together “I’m not at all sure. Because I wrote it in such a way that I just dropped the numbers into the album in any order that they cropped up. It depends in which state you listen to it in.”
Thinking about the meaning behind the album and the songs on it, Bowie is again a little unwilling to commit to a certain understanding: “The times that I’ve listened to it, I’ve had a number of meanings out of the album, but I always do. Once I’ve written an album, my interpretations of the numbers in that album are totally different afterwards than the time when I wrote them and I find that I learn a lot from my own albums about me”.
Whereas others will focus on different things concerning Bowie’s seventy-fifth birthday, I wanted to select specific things to discuss. Low is an album that many do not consider an absolute classic. I think that it features some of Bowie’s best songs. Sound and Vision is the biggest cut from the album, though songs such as Speed of Life and Art Decade are superb. This interesting article looks closer at a magnificent release that is forty-five on 14th January:
“On January 14th, 1977, David Bowie released his 11th studio album Low, the followup to 1976’s Station to Station. Low, whose working title was New Music Night and Day, was originally penned as the soundtrack for Bowie’s 1976 film, The Man Who Fell to Earth. Bowie’s proposed soundtrack was rejected by director Nicolas Roeg, who favored a more pastoral, folky sound. Despite this, Roeg would later describe Bowie’s rejected soundtrack as “haunting and beautiful.” As with Station to Station, the cover features a still from the film.
The album represents a stark contrast from the bombast and excess of Bowie’s career to date, featuring an A-side of paranoid pop gems and a B-side of deliciously moving instrumentals and mood pieces. The album title is a play on both Bowie’s mood and demeanor during the sessions, as well as an interest in keeping a more isolated profile, eager to distance himself from a flurry of negative press and to kick his destructive cocaine habit.
The album marks the beginning of a fruitful three-album collaboration with Roxy Music keyboardist-turned-avant-garde-ambient-pioneer Brian Eno, which would include “Heroes” (1977), and Lodger (1979). Despite kicking off the “Berlin Trilogy,” much of Low was recorded in France at Château d’Hérouville, with final sessions tracked at the Hansa Studio by the Wall in West Berlin. The record’s A-side features the incredible talents of his soul-era band, including guitarist Carlos Alomar, drummer Dennis Davis, bassist George Murray, and keyboardist Roy Young, who balance the fractured pop experiments with short bursts of crystallized funk, many of which, like the surreal, yet catchy “Breaking Glass,” fade soon after taking flight. Low’s A-side also features two instrumentals, the short-yet-sweet “Speed of Life” and the nostalgic “A New Career in a New Town,” a homage to “Groovin’ With Mr. Bloe” that evokes more with harmonica than most can express with words. It’s impossible to neglect both the icy “Always Crashing in the Same Car,” (this writer’s favorite song on this side of the dividing line) and “Be My Wife,” a disjointed love song with more than just romanticism bubbling underneath its catchy surface.
While the later albums in the Berlin Trilogy featured high-profile guest collaborations, there are only two to be found on Low: backing vocals by Iggy Pop on the jittery “What In the World,” and lead guitar by Ricky Gardiner, who also would perform on Iggy’s Lust For Life, recorded shortly after Low‘s release.
Low‘s highly influential B-side was composed entirely by Bowie and Eno, utilizing an array of synthesizers and electronic instruments, as well as a set of Oblique Strategies, a small deck of cards featuring cryptic remarks to help guide the creative process. Influenced heavily by both Kraftwerk’s pioneering electronic experiments as well as Bowie’s interest in Polish folk music and fantasies of Eastern European decay, Low‘s B-side is often imitated and very seldom topped, and is a religious experience when listened to as a stand-alone piece of music. It’s also worthy to note that while Eno provided much of the creative spark and tools for experimentation on both sides of Low and beyond, he is often erroneously credited as producer. Instead, Bowie’s long-term producer Tony Visconti would again sit at the mixing desk, shaping the sessions into the gorgeous soundscapes we all know and love.
While the album was extremely polarizing upon its release, it has since earned critical acclaim as a pioneering and influential record. At the time of its release, the album alienated many of Bowie’s glam-rock devotees and new American fans, yet it gave birth to a new era of disenfranchised punks, who followed Bowie down the rabbit hole to find salvation in the album’s experimental shades. Low (as well as its sister record “Heroes”) helped pave the way for much of post-punk’s bleak, futuristic outlook. U2’s Bono would emulate much of Bowie’s Berlin-era arc, recording at Hansa studios with Brian Eno for Achtung Baby and Zooropa. Even more notoriously, Joy Division’s scrappy punk beginnings pulled their name from the apex of Low‘s B-side, the evocative and powerful “Warszawa,” which Bowie penned after a short train overlay in war-ravaged Poland.
Upon Bowie’s death, Joy Division/New Order drummer Stephen Morris spoke with The Quietus and shared a brief memory of the band’s early days, asking the producer of An Ideal for Living to make his drums sound like “Sound and Vision,” the chilly-yet-euphoric gem that’s since become one of Bowie’s most celebrated numbers. Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor also expressed his admiration for Low during the creation of The Downward Spiral, and performed “Subterraneans” with Bowie on stage for much of their 1995 tour. Robert Smith of The Cure has also revealed his love for the album, and claimed that the record changed the way he saw sound.
Meanwhile, Low‘s influence could be noticeably heard across most key records in the blossoming post-punk landscape, including Ultravox’s Systems of Romance, The Sound’s Jeopardy, The Human League’s Reproduction, Magazine’s Secondhand Daylight, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark’s Organisation, and early Simple Minds, just to name a handful”.
There will be a lot of mixed emotions as we mark what would have been David Bowie’s seventy-fifth birthday on 8th January. He died only two days after his fifty-ninth birthday in 2016. The world was not expecting such devastating news! The master’s influence and genius will never wane. From his amazing film appearances to classic albums and his incredible interviews, there is so much to be thankful for. David Bowie’s wonderful spirit, huge legacy and incomparable talent…
CAN never die.