You little wonder
Happy birthday, David Bowie
Sixty years old today. Sometimes I get blase about how important to me David Bowie is, then I remember. I was asked to write 450 words on his musical legacy for today's Independent, which appears to have been printed as written. This is pleasing to me, as my excursions into national newspapers are rare. They asked me to pick five great tracks from his 30-plus years in music, and if you can't be bothered to read the whole piece, here they are:
Life On Mars? (from Hunky Dory, 1971)
Cosmic, piano-led, Ronson-arranged epic, inspired by My Way and one of the most lyrically obtuse pop hits of all-time ("from Ibiza to the Norfolk Broads"?)
Five Years (from Ziggy Stardust, 1972)
Show-stopping, chest-beating vocal performance over ascending, string-assisted apocalyptic ballad. Oh, and it opens the album.
Station To Station (from Station To Station, 1976)
Kraftwerk-acknowledging ten-minute trans-European mutant symphony that introduced the Thin White Duke alter-ego
Ashes To Ashes (from Scary Monsters And Super Creeps, 1980)
A bonfire of his own vanities ("Major Tom's a junkie"), this bendy number one only went and invented the New Romantic movement [They changed this to "helped invent" in the Independent]
Little Wonder (from Earthling, 1997)
Drum'n'bass-driven cut-up rocker with an unnervingly conventional widescreen chorus and a lovely cockney vocal ("I'm gettin' there")
Any favourites to add? I'm also mad about Be My Wife from Low but five choices, that's all we've got.
posted by Andrew Collins @ 10:44 AM
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33 Comments:
My fave has got to be Queen Bitch, but I'm also big on Starman, Space Oddity, Sorrow and Rock n Roll Suicide. Early Bowie is best Bowie, I feel.
I think I'm ten years too young to be mad about Bowie, but he's clearly a genius songwriter.
My fave Bowie track is Modern Love. The stunning recent low-fi cover by The Last Town Chorus shows just how the song has stood the test of time.
Justin, Bath
I'm always moved by Kooks. Bowie is far from a writer of domestic scenes, but this is the definition of cool but warm parenthood.
See, I know Bowiephiles slate his mainstream 80s period, but I thought Let's Dance was up there with Sledgehammer as one of the best pop songs of the 80s. That bass line, the harmonies. I liked Slow Burn from Heathen, Suffrajette City is perfect in a nightclub, and Oh you pretty things has that great piano intro.
From the Dame's latter period I would plump for Thursday's Child, from the earliest stuff, there's a track called When I'm Five, which is quite naive, very sweet. Life On Mars is pretty much perfect. You can't beat a bit of Bowie!
I love his stuff from the early seventies most. We had a few much listened to and warped RCA tapes at home when I was a child.
Favourites remain... Black Country Rock, The Width of a Circle & The Man Who Sold the World (all from the latterly named album) plus Diamond Dogs & Rebel Rebel (from the formerly named album).
I'll always think of him in his codpiece for that Labyrinth film though...
Bowie at 60? Amazing. Personally if I had to pick 5 tracks I'd plump for the underrated "Absolute Beginners", the sublime pop hit "Sound & Vision", "Hello Spaceboy" (the Pet Shop Boys mix of course), the gorgeous "This Is Not America" and "Underground".
Only joking about the last one. I meant "Heroes".
Nice piece in the Indy Andrew! 'Ziggy' was my first ever album purchase - £2.18 from Boots in Doncaster.
The 'Station to Station' tour gigs at Wembly Empire pool in May '76 was my first taste of live music, and I've stayed with DB the whole way through...
But surely I'm not the ONLY person in the world who dares to like 'Tin Machine' ??? 'Heaven's in Here' is a STORMING opening track!
Happy Birthday David!
John in Chester. A mere 46.
Can I give an honourable mention to the seemingly little-loved 'Lodger' album - admittedly the most conventional of the Berlin trilogy - and to my personal favourite, 'DJ'. A right old bump-and-grind nod to burlesque, with Bowie on splendidly unhinged vocal form. Give me a feather boa and I'll dance like a fool to this one. Bless The Dame.
And enjoyed your piece, AC.
The Laughing Gnome. Of course.
Ooh, a little Bowie-centric desert island discs!
Moonage Daydream - superb when played at MAXIMUM VOLUME as instructed
Rebel Rebel - for the incessant riffage if nothing else.
Young Americans - ..ain't there one damn song that can make me break down an cry?
Boys Keep Swinging - you can't beat a bit of camp.
Is that 4 already? 5 is far too few! I'll skip the Serious Moonlight era and go for:
Strangers When We Meet - an excellent middle-aged rockstar effort
I think I know where I'll be tuning my iPod as I walk home tonight...
I have to admit that I do have a soft spot for the stuff he did on the Deram lable. Even in these early days he displayed a wide palette of styles ranging from the jauntiness of Love you Til Tuesday & Maid of Bond Street (where he did little to disguise the influence of Anthony Newley) to the darkness of London Boys and the bitter-sweet stories of Unlce Arthur and the Little Bombardier. The only track of this era for which I may (but not always) press skip on the ipod is The Laughing Gnome.
Perhaps it's my age but I think Hunky Dory takes a lot of beating and that has to be my favourite album of his.
Happy birthday David!
Limiting to five is very difficult and your list are all wonderful, but I think that I'd have to go for these:
1)Lady Grinning Soul - Aladdin Sane is full of beauty, but this piano heavy, seductive one always appealed to me.
2)Lady Stardust - because I had a crush on Marc Bolan at the same time as Bowie and I always hoped it was about him. It was Lou Reed, wasn't it?
3)All the Madmen - I'm not quite right at all, am I?
4)Quicksand - melancholy and beautiful.
5)Wild Eyed Boy from Freecloud - so epic, I can't say I listen to it every day, but I do still love it.
"Nurse, is that you?"
Sound and Vision
Quicksand
Rock and Roll Suicide
Loving the Alien
and the Italian language version of Space Oddity
Probably.
Shamefully my knowledge of Bowie is down purely to tv and radio but for what it's worth my faves are probably:
Ashes to Ashes, Let's Dance, Heroes, Strangers When We Meet. Not sure I deserve five choices.
My cousin's boyfriend's uncle was the bloke who poked him in the eye in the playground which led to his wonky eye colours. How's that for a claim to fame which should never be uttered. Wild is the Wind is a great song, although better by people who are not him.
Well I am going to stick my neck out and suggest New Killer Star from Reality. Runs away quickly...
You forgot Bombers! And while I'm here I'll put a word in for Rebel,Rebel and Kooks. Doubly so on the 'Bowie at the Beeb' versions where you get John Peel in between tracks, in the days before he dropped his 'BBC' accent, ahhhh.
Scary Monsters - "She 'ad an 'orror of rooms"
'Allo Spashe-boy - not the PSB mix "This chaos is killing me!"
Bewlay Brothers "I'm starving for me graaavy"
Sweet Thing - I suspect this song may be rude
Heroes - Overused but unmistakable
Five Years - "that's ALL we've got!"
I always hated Young Americans though
Andrew
Did you hear Mark Radcliffe's programme on DB last Sunday? Some good comments from assorted Bowie fans, I thought, (although the perplexing issue of how to pronounce the surname - Bowie, Boughie? - remains unresolved.)
Pedant's postcript
Much as I admire and envy your literary style, you have one little habitual 'tic' that crops up occasionally in your writing - viz, using 'obtuse' when you mean 'obscure'. We, the listeners, are 'obtuse' if we don't understand a lyric; the lyric itself is 'obscure' if its meaning is not immediately apparent. (Phew - got that off my chest at last.)
Happy New Year!
I would like to put in a tiny mention of "London Bye Ta-Ta" which has moved into heavy rotation for me lately.
My favs would look something like -
'This Is Not America' with The Pat Metheny Group.
'Hallo Spaceboy' The Pet Shop Boys remix.
'Buddha Of Suburbia' Surprised more people haven't mention this track!
'Everyone Says 'Hi''
'Thursday's Child'
I'm a stickler for the Low period so:
'Always Crashing in the Same Car' - it could be my anthem
'Be My Wife' - that sarf London drawl and brazenly naive romanticism, Morrissey obviously took note
a bit earlier:
'Cracked Actor' - out-Iggys Iggy himself with the oral sex references in the chorus
'Changes' - sure it's been said a zillion times before but it sums the guy up to a tee and the piano stuff's great
'TVC15' - epitomises the Berlin period for me, a song always about to go over the edge of sanity
I'd be terrified to have to choose just 5 tracks from that amazing repertoire, and it's hard to argue with anyone's list, but I do wish "Outside" was mentioned more. There couldn't be a more perfect sound and narrative for 1995 than "The Heart's Filthy Lesson", "Hallo Spaceboy" or "We Prick You". Rock on David. Like sex and drugs, no adolescence would be complete without you.
Not a huge Bowie fan but here goes
1 Andy Warhol
2 Sound and vision
3 Subterraneans
4 Heroes
5 Fashion
For me collaborations with Eno Fripp and Glass stand out.
Which reminds me - did you know you'd registered on Robert Fripp's radar? (scroll down http://www.dgmlive.com/diaries.htm?entry=5608)
Quicksand - Studied nihilism, but I still love it for it's drama.
Look Back In Anger - Sublime chorus, nonchalent delivery of fragment like lyrics also a hi-light.
Sound & Vision - Re-playing the LA years from the safety of Berlin
The Man Who Sold The World - Weird poetry, completely oblique. To my ears anyway. Wonderful guitar hook as well.
Starman - Somewhere Over The Rainbow for the Moonshot generation.
I'd have included Station To Station too, but Mr Collins beat me to it.....
;)
Happy Birthday Dave.
Andrew, a bit off topic, but are you working on some BB post or something? Just noticed yr last BB post has disappeared.
Just being nosey.........
Cheers!
Email me privately (click on Contact Me, above) if you want to know, Ill Man.
Andrew - not like you to be so quiet - hope everyhing's OK!
Send him an email, he'll tell you why.
Totally agree with you on Ashes to Ashes and Life on Mars. Other than that, Sound and Vision has to be way up there just for the sublime, sparkling sounds and The Man Who Sold The World in all its twisted glory.
David Bowie was the first person I saw in concert (my Mum invented a hospital appointment to get me off school as she thought Bowie to be essential education)
It was the most amazing day and introduction to live music (it was the Glass Spider Tour - very theatrical)
My top 5 Bowie songs (in no particular order):
1. Unwashed & Somewhat Slightly Dazed - "I got eyes in my backside"
2. All The Madmen - "Day after day, they take my brain away"
3. It's No Game - "Put a bullet in my brain and it makes all the papers" Crazy Japanese woman gives me shivers!!
4. Five Years - "I kiss you, You're beautiful, I want you to walk...."
5. Heathen - "Steel on the skyline, Sky made of glass, All things must pass"
Controversial? Hell yeah!!
Scott Clark
25
Glasgow Scotland
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