David Bowie

According to the conventional critical opinion of many old school rock writers, particularly in the British rock press, David Bowie should be celebrated as a genius at reinventing his rock persona, going from peak to peak, never repeating himself and always confounding expectations. At least, this was the perception of the Bowie career by the end of the 70's.

It is no doubt that true that Bowie has changed from album to album from Space Oddity through to Let's Dance and probably did confuse and disconcert his fans along the way. whether all the changed were in fact for the better I do not quite know.

My take on, and appreciation of, the Bowie oeuvre is undoubtedly conservative and perhaps a tad to purist.

"Starman" was quite a hit in South Africa yet I never heard anything else from the Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars album until I did my National Service in Voortrekkerhoogte in 1982 and one of my platoon mates during the Junior Leader course had a tape of the album.

"Jean Genie" was similarly a hit from a parent album I never heard in full until about 13 or 14 years later when I bought a budget priced re-issue of Aladdin Sane. Back in 1973 some of my high school class mates were fond of wandering around school with the album under their arms to show off how cool they were. The other cool albums to own at the time were Black Sabbath's Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath and Audience's House On The Hill, none of which I ever had an opportunity to listen to.

In about 1979 NME published an extract of the David Bowie: An Illustrated Record book by Roy Carr and in this extract, which dealt quite in depth with the Bowie albums to date, I read an intriguing account of The Man Who Fell To Earth and its cover of Bowie in a frock on a chaise longue. The music was described as heavier than Led Zeppelin both in conception and execution. When I saw this record, albeit with a completely different sleeve, in a record store in Port Elizabeth in 1979. I bought it. I was not totally blown away. The album felt like a piss take, or some half-conceived project that was too grandiose and pretentious for its own good. Even so I later bought the CD vision of the album that restored the Bowie in a frock cover. This album was stolen in 1993 and never replaced.

In the mid-Eighties I bought the budget re-issue of Aladdin Sane and a cassette tape album of Diamond Dogs. I used to see the record album cover in Sygma Records in Stellenbosch and was always intrigued by it but did not have the money to buy it and in any event, unlike say "Jean Genie" I did not know any of the songs from it.

I doted on "Knock On Wood" from David Live and it was long my cream to own this double album.  Station to Station, Young Americans, Low, ‘Heroes’ and The Lodger were mere blips on my radar. I read the fawning reviews of the last three albums in the NME and heard the singles from the albums on the radio. Neither words of praise nor the singles induced me to buy the records.

I knew all there was to know about the androgynous glam rock Bowie years and I thought that this was a fascinating way of presenting yourself. The Thin White Duke and Berlin years seemed less worthwhile. he main thing was that I preferred the more or less straight-ahead rock version of Bowie to the experimental, electronic version even if the latter represented a progression and an acceptance of new technology and new modes of expression.

My essential Bowie collection would include only the albums from The Man Who Sold The World to Diamond Dogs, with perhaps the two volume Greatest Hits compilation. On second thoughts, I might be persuaded to acquire Low and 'Heroes' too. I've listened to Young Americans and The Lodger and find both irritating and tedious, and that goes for just about everything Bowie has released since. Who now can reel off a list of Bowie's essential songs between 1983 and 2012. Maybe it is such a short list that it would not be difficult to remember them. I cannot conceive of such dedicated Bowiephiles, though, that they would have remained loyal and unswerving in their devotion over the last forty plus years.

I am a rock recidivist and, probably because I was a teenager in the Seventies, more of the rock from that era (and lately the funk, reggae and disco) resonates than any rock since. My three essential Bowie albums would simply be Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane and Diamond Dogs.  if Bowie’s career as "rock star" is theatre, these three acts present the purest form of the grand gesture. These records are the record of the strutting, posturing rock god that may have been a construct but that was a mighty construct. The rock is heavy, the pathos deep and the concept awe inspiring.

The “Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders from Mars” rock movie made about the last concert that band played and where Bowie announces the end of the Ziggy phase, was one of the first handful of rock music movies I ever saw, at the Labia Theatre in Orange Street, Cape Town, back in about 1985, in a scratchy print and with the tinny sound of the Labia sound system. It was quite interesting and yet also disappointing because the songs sounded so sloppy compare to the album versions, as if this band, for all its experience and expertise, were not quite up to the task. The theatrics were also not compelling and perhaps one should have been there at the time and stoned and/or drunk.

In either 2005 or 2007, on an overseas holiday, I bought the double album of the music from the movie, the soundtrack, if you will, and was again disappointed by the quality of the performance. The music lacked the power and toughness of the studio recordings of these Bowie classics. I've always liked live albums yet this one was not the goods I would have hoped it would be and I've hardly ever listened to it. My lack of appreciation is illustrated by my decision, in April 2012 in Salisbury, England, to walk away from the DVD of the Ziggy Stardust movie on sale at a bargain price at an Oxfam shop, because I was not sure I would ever want to sit through the movie again, even if the quality of the image would have been much improved.

Having said, I experienced my usual last-minute frenzy of CD buying at the HMV at Heathrow duty free on the way home after this recent English holiday, where several desirable CDs were offered at ₤8,95 for two rather than the two for ₤10 offers in the rest of the country. In addition, this HMV ran a “Best of British” special inspired by the imminent 60^th Jubilee celebrations of Elizabeth II and the slightly more distant yet also imminent Olympic Games. Amongst the wares on offer were albums by Queen, David Gray and Adele, all of which held no interest for me. What was of interest were a couple of classis Rolling Stones albums (Beggar's Banquet and Let It Bleed) and the Bowie albums Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars and Live: Santa Monica 1973. These were four of the albums I bought at the airport.

My first exposure to the complete Ziggy Stardust (and Ogden's Nut Gone Flake) was to a tape of the album I mate of mine had in Voortrekkerhoogte, where we shared a bungalow during our junior officers' training course. The music was astounding, mostly because it was in general heavy and exciting rock and roll.  “Suffragette City” was my top favourite. It was good, solid bottom-heavy rock and roll that was a long way away from the pop hits Bowie had with “Starman” or “Sorrow” and a bit of an eye opener

PART TWO

Somewhere in either 1978 or 1979 the NME published a supplement which was essentially the print copy of a book called Bowie the Illustrated Record, by c couple of NME writers, part of a series of such books on the then important British rock acts. It was an overview of Bowie's career whit emphasis on his records to date and the in-depth discussion of the albums was very interesting for someone like me who did not know all that much about the man's work. The piece on The Man Who Sold the World was perhaps the most eye opening in that the description of the music was this weird amalgam of science fiction and fantasy in the manner of HP Lovecraft combined with heavy music which was contrary to the way I'd perceived Bowie's music. The radio hits he'd had were not heavy metal and even “Jean Genie”, though bone crunching, was not heavy metal as I understood it.

The album was also controversial for its original front cover showing Bowie reclining on a chaise longue dressed in a frock.

In late 1979 I went on holiday on my own to Port Elizabeth.  I spent one morning exploring the CBD and was not mightily impressed though I did find one interesting record shop where I found The Man Who Sold the World with a completely different sleeve to the controversial one. I bought the album purely because of the NME's recommendation that it was a heavy rock album.

In fact, it was not particularly heavy. “The Width of a Circle” did have the heavy riffing the NME boasted of but the overall sound was melodic, atmospheric rock and the lyrics sounded a tad twee to me. Perhaps it would have been meant as serious by the very young Bowie and the kind of people who really liked The Lord of the Rings and thought HP Lovecraft was a literary genius bur for my part I believed this was the vaunted Fifth form poetry NME so often derided. Of course, given that it was Bowie, these songs had to mean more than the surface suggested and perhaps it was an exercise in arch fantasy in advance of the glam movement Bowie was soon to spearhead.

I quite enjoyed The Man Who Sold The World but I did not think of it as work of genius. There were good songs and there was, to my mind, a great deal of filler.

This album was also the first Bowie CD I ever bought, as part of a series of re-issues of the classic albums with some bonus tracks. the cover was the notorious one with Bowie in a frock and the insert had a history of the various album covers around the world forced on the record company by the mores of local populations. the CD was stolen from my flat in 1993 during a robbery when I lost half of my then quite small CD collection.

It was only in the mid-eighties that I finally ought, in more or less the same period, Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane and Diamond Dogs, the latter only as cassette. I still thing of these records as the absolute pinnacle of Bowie's work. The continuous shape shifting and restless search for change and innovation that followed on Diamond Dogs never moved me because I absolutely was not into electronic music and disco at the time, and though I still liked the radio playlist tunes off Low and 'Heroes', the product he delivered in the Eighties left me old. 

Aladdin Sane and Diamond Dogs were the two unknown entities and I was pleasantly surprised at how heavy Aladdin Sane was. “Jean Genie” had been a top favourite for many years and most of the rock songs on the album matched it stroke for stroke in visceral excitement and overall it is streets ahead of Ziggy Stardust, which on listening to it again, is pretty much just a pop album with some rock shapes. On Aladdin Sane the band kicked out the jams. The approach of Diamond Dogs echoed Ziggy Stardust in that the rock was not as heavy and the concepts were high fantasy and sci fi. Great songs and great execution. Diamond Dogs is a favourite album and, for me, is a fitting finale to the rock era Bowie.

"Sorrow" had been a giant hit in South Africa and remained a nagging favourite.  The NME gave the parent album Pin-Ups a glowing review. this along with Bryan Ferry's These Foolish Things, were part of a mini trend of Seventies British acts looking back to their pop fan pasts to revive an revitalise some songs from their youth. Bowie had always liked the Velvet Underground, doing "White Light, White Heat" and "Waiting for the Man" live on stage, and on Pin-Ups he also delved back into British beat music history. It is great album, full of enormously energetic and vibey performances and though it does not have any Bowie songs, it fits right in with those other three masterpieces. I bought the CD of the album somewhere in the late Nineties mostly because it was cheap.

For one reason and another, due to lack of availability and lack of serious interest, I never bought the CDs of the other three albums. Von-Mari owns a greatest hits collection, possibly a double album, that covers the ground between “Space Oddity” to the late Seventies hits.  For me, one needs no more Bowie than that. I lost interest in his music from Young Americans onward.  I thought his Eighties output was crap and if critics regard his later work as being as excellent as, and on par with, his best, so be it.   

There is only one other Bowie album I’ve ever wanted to own, and which I did eventually own as a scratchy second hand double LP with a distressed cover that someone gave me, is David Live (1974), with songs taken from a post Diamond Dogs tour, where Bowie sports the Young Americans type of stylish disco look and is backed by a larger band than during the Ziggy Stardust phase, which has a AOR approach and sound compared to the brute power of the earlier band.  “Knock on Wood” from this set was a bit of a hit in South Africa and one of my favourite tracks from 1974, along with “It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll” and “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg” by the Rolling Stones.  Where the new sound works quite well for “Knock on Wood,” I’m more dubious about the, to me, softening of the effect on the older rock tunes that come across as show versions, almost ersatz renditions, of songs that were once much tougher.   It’s not a bad album, and is quite listenable despite my misgivings but I’m not so sure I still want to own it, or even have it on the same playlist as those Bowie albums I rate so highly.

I suppose it’s terrible to abandon an artist at an early stage of his career and refuse even to listen to the rest of his output, especially where, in Bowie’s case, the rock period of the 6 albums between The Man Who Sold the World and Diamond Dogs is a mere fraction of his very lengthy musical career, but nothing I’ve heard throughout the following 30 years of Bowie music ever compelled me to investigate further. He turned to AOR and MOR, as far as I’m concerned and coasted on former glories with rock critics seemingly prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt with every new release and to maintain the mythology.

Interestingly it’s only with Tin Machine, the hard rock band Bowie formed with Reeves Cabrels and the Sales brothers in the late Eighties, and whose debut album Tin Machine (1989) I was very fond of, that the critics excoriated Bowie. The music may not be prime Bowie but I thought it was more entertaining and engaging than any of his preceding Eighties albums. Perhaps I’m out of step here though I’m quite happy to trust my ears and my perception of the music.

I don’t care whether Bowie is a constantly reinventive genius or just a very accomplished song writer and facile showman who was too restless to craft and stick with a long lasting persona.  I like what I like and if it’s a limited appreciation, it’s also a very excellent, unimpeachable selection of classic records.