David Bowie R.I.P

i hate to be that guy really i do but i kinda stop with scary monsters

As a kid I knew of Bowie from 'Let's Dance' and 'Labyrinth', then later in Tin Machine. So it was a shock in 1992 when I heard literally the last five minutes of a radio documentary and they played 'Rock'N'Roll Suicide' and I couldn't believe it, it sounded like nothing I'd ever heard. I went out to the record store the next day determined to buy the album with that track on it (Ziggy of course), went straight home and was blown away. Having grown up in the 80s I hated that decade by that time, so I sticked with the 70s albums - even to the point of being reluctant to pick up a copy of 'Lodger' (I did eventually and immediately kicked myself for having put off buying a copy for so long). Then as new albums were released in the 90s I bought them, but didn't buy 'Hours' as it's Bowie's second worst album (saved from being worse than NLMD because at least he sounds like he's awake half the time). Then I doubled back and listened to the 80s stuff. Three quarters of SM I like, but LD just sounds depressing to me, especially 'Modern Love'. It's like someone retreating into the past. Then there's 'Tonight', his third worst album (hey it's got 'Blue Jean' on it but on the other hand the cover of 'God Only Knows' is possibly the worst cover version of any song ever barring ones that have actual musical incompetence), and NLMD. Sometime in the mid 90s Bowie asked for 'Too Dizzy' to be removed from the track listing of subsequent releases, but IMHO he should have asked for the entire album to be deleted. 'Heathen' and 'Reality' are solid albums and I like them, but don't listen to them much, possibly because they remind me so much of the early 00s. A few years ago I heard his two 60s albums and the first one is charming enough - some themes that appear in later songs appear first here - but the second is better. His last two albums are great, and work really well as a complement to each other. Also, fuck Tin Machine.

Heh. From a FB post by a middle-school friend:

I was in middle school when Tin Machine's 'Baby Universal' single came out. I bought the cassingle and then both of their albums. It wasn't until some years later that I became aware that the lead singer was a guy named David Bowie who had also done some other stuff. I am the world's only Tin Machine fan.

I liked 'Baby Universal' but then heard a TM concert on the radio and thought, 'oh what a bunch of shit'. So I've never liked them. And that was before hearing 'Rock'N'Roll Suicide'.

It's taken me a long time to warm to Diamond Dogs because of the silly concept, but I made my peace with it; after all, I like Outside. Now I can appreciate the rich mix, Bowie's batshit craz lead guitar, and the sweep of the thing.

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, January 12, 2016 7:15 PM (16 minutes ago)

I had a copy of DD on tape and nearly wore it out, literally, through playing it constantly. But then I was 19 and more receptive to the dystopian future city silliness. Although even without that I still think it's a great album

but didn't buy 'Hours' as it's Bowie's second worst album (saved from being worse than NLMD because at least he sounds like he's awake half the time)

you're suggesting that bowie sounds awake on hours?

i hate to be that guy really i do but i kinda stop with scary monsters.

i'm that guy too BUT blackstar is the first thing since scary monsters that i truly enjoy all the way through. i liked a few cuts on heathen and reality and the next day, but blackstar's just outstanding all the way through

Always thought Tin Machine had a pretty decent sound, but went nowhere with it (apart from the amazing cover of "If There Is Something" on SNL -- studio version is way too slow).

these last two albums really are great, aren't they.

that tin machine post is great

Next Day great too, maybe a bit too long but I like all the songs

The "God Only Knows" cover is top ten worst of all time.

No lie, I reread this piece by Ned sometime last week: https://nedraggett.wordpress.com/2010/02/04/not-just-the-ticket-a-ticketless-show-of-note-tin-machine-late-august-1991/

xp Bowie sounds like a dead man on that song, which is a real contrast to how alive he sounds on 'Blackstar'.

TS: Bowie's version of "God Only Knows" vs "Dancing in the Street" video

Oh the video for that song is glorious. Bowie and Jagger trying to outdo each other in every single shot.

Whatever Happened to Baby Bo

how hard was it to find Bowie albums in the eighties before the Rykodisc reisues? After his RCA contract ran out and he signed to EMI, weren't they reissued? Yet I keep reading anecdotes about overjoyed fans stumbling on copies of Lodger in 1986 like it's the Dead Sea scrolls.

I suspect the Rykos helped turn the critical tide. They got a huge advertising push in SPIN, Rolling Stone, etc, and were probably music listeners' first exposure to Bowie.

I thought Bowie, Ronson & Co. were good students of Jeff Beck Group (several early line-ups of which, better live of course). And here they are with the man himself on a 12 minute-plus medley of "Jean Genie/Love Me Do/Round & Round," cut from or condensed in official release, I think, so get it while you can:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONTsm_03ECA This is the sound he initially won hearts and minds with, in my boogie boondocks, and many others (those were different times).

Bowie vinyl seemed plentiful in the 80s, but I've never seen a Bowie RCA CD anywhere, ever.

And yep, EMI reissued everything sans bonus tracks.

xp

Did EMI handle those Ryko reissues outside the US? My Young Americans is on EMI, copyright 1991, and has the bonus tracks.

EMI later reissued some of the bonus tracks on special Deluxe editions of a few albums.

Yes I think so, my Hunky Dory with bonus tracks is on EMI.

Actually my Ziggy Stardust CD has bonus tracks as well, and is also on EMI. Both from 1990.

The Sound and Vision box was really huge, but I think it's worth remembering the massive tour he put together with it.
The tour was promoted as a way for Bowie to 'retire' his hits. I saw the Pensacola date which was pretty life-changing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound%2BVision_Tour

HA: The NME, in response to the telephone poll, ran a spoof campaign, Just Say Gnome, in an effort to have "The Laughing Gnome" included in the set-lists.[2][13] Bowie had considered playing "The Laughing Gnome" "in the style of The Velvets or something" until he found out the voting had been perpetrated by the music magazine.

I've unfairly thought of the back half of Low as a little perfunctory in the past, but listening to 'Warszawa' just now and I realize both that I know every note of it as well as I know his more obvious hits and that it sounds absolutely magical.

I always wonder how Ryko ended up with the contract. Like, they must have had some genius who was able to sweet-talk both Bowie and the Jimi Hendrix Estate into giving them master tapes. Ryko was a cool label imo but it's hard for me to imagine they'd've had the kind of big advance I'd imagine Bowie would have wanted for those records

Ryko was pretty baller then: locking down Bowie, Zappa, and Costello in the space of a year or so.

In hindsight, it's ridiculous that I'd gloss over the Low instrumentals, as I glove Eno's instrumental stuff and I more generally love a ton of non-Bowie music that sounds like this. I guess it just wasn't what I was looking for or expecting from Bowie back in the day.

I unconditionally love the second side of Low, whatever that is that sounds like a marimba in Weeping Wall ( I think?) sounds so cool.

Ryko got Costello a few years later, in 1993. But he signed on specifically because of how Ryko had handled Bowie's catalog.

xxp

2nd side of low still sounds pretty shocking to me

i haven't listened to a lot of bowie much in recent years but last summer i did spend a lot of time with young americans. "win" is such a beautiful masterpiece"

xp the thudding pub band of "be my wife" exits stage and cluster takes over for the next twenty minutes

Those Ryko Bowie and Costello reissues were like the peak of listening to music for me. It just didn't get any better.

xpost Yeah, precisely. My first exposure to Low was pre-Cluster et al but this fits my ears like a glove now.

Ryko gave a damn about remastering and packaging after the initial CD hysteria had worn off.

A commenter on one of yesterday's Slate stories grumbled that Eno did the lion's share of the work on Low, which is bullshit: look at the instrumental and songwriting credits. It's only on "Heroes" where he rolls up his sleeves.

I liked the first Tin Machine a lot, iirc. Sales Brothers rule. Like, this is pretty good!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XaJXkqP7gc

And I like the Lennon cover:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqvr_YR9GxA

Don't like Reeves' playing, though, I think he's what brings Tin Machine down. And also doesn't help "The Next Day."

xpost I think it's telling that Eno gets a co-write credit on the song "Heroes." Also "Once in a Lifetime," fwiw.

I kind of love Tin Machine.

Though whoever decided Hunt should sing TWO songs on the second record...oof

Always thought 'Heroes' had some sonic similarities to 'Here Come The Warm Jets'.

"Goodbye Mr. Ed" is OK.

"Heaven's in Here" was OK for a couple of minutes until Gabrels stinks up the room.

I'd go as far as saying that Eno was most active on Lodger out of the three "Berlin" albums...

Yet it's the one he likes least. Go figure.

His manager at the time, Ken Pitt, had a tape of the Velvets' before the first album before had even been released. Which didn't stop Bowie mistaking Doug Yule for Lou Reed when they met.

― Narayan Superman (Tom D.), Tuesday, 12 January 2016 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

LOL

x-post:

Strange, some days it's the "Berlin" record that I love the most! I've always felt that Lodger was one of the most underrated albums of Bowie's classic period. I think there's some great ideas on it, and I love every song on there, even the 'Sister Midnight' re-write ('Red Money') ... the only bad thing I can really say about it is that sonically it feels a little flat compared to the previous two. I know that Visconti blames himself/his drug consumption at that time for what he perceives to be flat mixes.

wonder when it'll be possible to find bowie cds again -- i wanted to surprise my mom with copies of all of his 70s albums, but amazon's out of stock on almost everything.

was desperately hoping to avoid running into any "bowie is problematic" thinkpieces but already starting to see one or two pop up in my feed. should probably just avoid twitter for a few days.

interesting to see all the recent canonization of Low (which I like, but don't adore).
not sure when it happened exactly, but I guess that's the interesting thing about culture, and an important asterisk as we go through another season of the years-best.

LOL

― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, January 12, 2016 4:08 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol indeed:

http://www.davidbowie.com/news/david-and-lou-first-meeting-34496

Is it true that David Bowie came to one of the shows on your 1971 UK tour, and started talking to you under the assumption you were Lou Reed?

"That was actually in New York, at the Electric Circus, upstairs at the Dom. I remember the incident well. England was one of the prime sources of rock'n'roll back then, of course, and we were all Anglophiles to some degree. So I remember this English kid coming backstage, and I was holding forth as if I was somebody, feeling very self-important as the leader of this band. He came in, and obviously assumed I was Lou Reed, and so I had to explain that Lou wasn't there. It was only a few years ago that I heard the story back from someone else, and realised that the English kid was David Bowie. In 1971, I'd never heard of him!"

Here is David's original quote regarding the meeting:

"I'd come back from New York, having caught one of the last performances of The Velvet Underground, a band I had admired tremendously since around 66/67. One of that tiny bastion of Velvet Underground fans in London at the time, before they were generally known. And I'd gotten into the Electric Circus to see the gig. I watched the entire show, and there were not that many people in the audience because their star had begun to dim in New York. The whole band were there with Lou Reed singing the songs and I thought it was just tremendous.

"I was singing along with the band, stuck right there at the apron of the stage. 'Waiting For The Man', 'White Light/ White Heat', 'Heroin'...All that kind of stuff. And then after the show, I went back stage and I knocked on the door, and I said "Is Lou Reed in? I'd love to talk to him, I?m from England, cos I'm in music too, and he's a bit of a hero to me." This guy said "Wait here". And Lou comes out and we sat talking on the bench for about quarter of an hour about writing songs, and what it's like to be Lou Reed, and all that...and afterwards I was floating on a cloud, and went back to my hotel room.

"I said to this guy that I knew in New York: "I've just seen the Velvet Underground and I got to talk with Lou Reed for fifteen minutes", and he said, "Yeah? Lou Reed left the band last year, I think you've been done." I said, "It looked like Lou Reed" and he said "That's Doug Yule, he's the guy that took over from Lou Reed." I thought what an impostor, wow, that's incredible. It doesn't matter really, cos I still talked to Lou Reed as far as I was concerned. Coming back to England, one of the memories I brought back with me, was all that. So I wrote Queen Bitch as a sort of homage to Lou Reed."

gotta make way for the homo superior

was desperately hoping to avoid running into any "bowie is problematic" thinkpieces but already starting to see one or two pop up in my feed. should probably just avoid twitter for a few days.

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Tuesday, January 12, 2016 4:10 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

me too...the guy's barely two days dead...frankly i'm surprised i saw absolutely nothing but love yesterday

my musical coming of age, so to speak, was right in the middle of the tin machine period. i remember the SNL appearance (host: macaulay culkin!) to this day. i remember thinking it was kind of noisy:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xai74j_tin-machine-baby-universal_music

bowie was looking particularly beautiful then, wasn't he?