David Bowie R.I.P

Josh Marshall!

But since then I’ve been struck by just how intense and widespread the outpouring of grief and memory has been. Much more than I would have expected - and from a much broader range of people that I would have imagined...

....But what I have thought a lot about in the last few days is the way Bowie seemed to embody a certain aspect of “the 60s”, albeit it one that really happened in the 1970s, which was his golden decade. This mid-late 20th century transformation, which is encrusted in so much cliche and mawk, had two broad components: one that was conventionally political and generally left, and a second which was broadly liberationist, sexual, a dream of being unchained from history, identity, confinement, open to a free field of self-expression and self-invention. It was out of this milieu and set of beliefs that much of the gay liberation movement emerged, a certain phase of women’s liberation, racial identity movements and much else.

If the radical economic politics that many associate with the 60s never panned out, this ethic of individual liberation and expression continued to pulse through our culture for decades and in some ways is flowering in new and triumphant ways even today, whether at the Supreme Court, at the City Clerks office or on boutique television shows on Showtime.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/liberation

At times, Mr. Pop said, it was like having “Professor Higgins say to you: ‘Young man, please, you are from the Detroit area. I think you should write a song about mass production.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/14/arts/music/david-bowie-iggy-pop.html?_r=0

whoa natalie cole is also in that clip veronica posted

and bowie presents her with a gold (?) record!

I put this on FB but this Tina Turner/Bowie duet of "Tonight" from 85 is fucking beautiful, they look so happy and it made me tear up

http://youtu.be/7icGpchTH4c

Check the King Crimson video I posted above for Fripp's brief, touching (and Frippish) comment.

I loathe the album version of that Bowie-Tina duet :(

the cod reggae

iggy nyt thing ;_;

“He wrote the [ chord ] progression on ukulele, and he said, ‘Call it “Lust for Life,” write something up.’”

: o

that whole piece is awesome

Tonight is his weakest album for me by miles.

I saw KC do that tune at the Town Hall in NYC that year and was thrilled…the video you posted appears on my end to only be the performance…do you mean that's the extent of Fripp's comment, TWUN?

The text accompanying the video on youtube (Fripp runs the DGM Crimson channel):

"During the interview with Robert Fripp for the BBC's "David Bowie: Five Years (2013)"
… a question was asked, answered, and edited out of the documentary.

"Q: Why was Bowie so influential? (paraphrase).
A: He spoke on behalf of what is highest in all of us."

reeves…

http://www.npr.org/2016/01/11/462692110/a-guitarist-remembers-david-bowie-just-wanted-a-good-laugh

Tonight is a disgrace. I can't think of a major artist -- even Dylan! -- in that period who released such a shambles: two original songs, a couple of dumb cowrites, covers, untested producer. Marcello otm: "There isn’t really the sense, listening through Tonight, that Bowie is even bothering to listen to himself, let alone commit to making a good or merely listenable record."

lol:

In Padgham’s case this appears to have meant, in dramatic contrast to Nile Rodgers’ use of space and air, a blundering maximalist approach, filling up the treble-heavy spaces with everything he can find, including entirely inapposite gated drums and the migraine-inducing “Borneo Horns” (essentially the same horn section heard on Let’s Dance, but far more reined in, as though tied to its paddock). Padgham sounds afraid of silence, and in the case of songs like “Tumble And Twirl,” despite the efforts of uncredited bassist Mark King, we are really not far away from the slapstick cod-exotica of “Illegal Alien.”

"He spoke on behalf of what is highest in all of us."

ok, mourning has jumped the shark

I've never been able to bring myself to listen to it

xp

Tonight is a disgrace. I can't think of a major artist -- even Dylan! -- in that period who released such a shambles: two original songs, a couple of dumb cowrites, covers, untested producer. Marcello otm: "There isn’t really the sense, listening through Tonight, that Bowie is even bothering to listen to himself, let alone commit to making a good or merely listenable record."

Oh man, you should hear the stories behind Union by Yes

"He spoke on behalf of what is highest in all of us."

ok, mourning has jumped the shark

― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius),

jump they say!

gooood you guys idgaf about the album, the video duet is great u should watch it

you think Tonight is worse than NLMD, Alfred? and I don't know in what sense "untested" could mean w/r/t Hugh Padgham in 1984.

Yes. At least NLMD is entertaining and scowl-inducing: a freak like Bowie attempting a Springteen-ian AOR crossover with Peter Frampton -- and he tried! Tonight he didn't try at all.

For all of the split opinion about Never Let Me Down, Tin Machine and even some of Bowie's '90s works, it's rather telling that Tonight is one of the Bowie albums that gets talked about the least. At least Never Let Me Down, Tin Machine etc. still provoke a reaction... Tonight just sits there in his discography, gathering dust and being forgotten about. For good reason, too, it's a woeful record and undoubtedly one of his lesser works, if not his worst. To think it was the follow-up to Let's Dance, too, which may not have been to the tastes of those that loved the artist leanings of his 1976-1980 work and even before, but I could never consider it to be a bad record.

*artier

(essentially the same horn section heard on Let’s Dance, but far more reined in, as though tied to its paddock)

This is why I adore Marcello right here

Some Bowie 80s Movie Singles Poll

apologies if this was already linked, ctrl-f "Star Special" not found

https://youtu.be/ATSTjjEMmuk

In May 1979, David Bowie did a two hour radio show called Star Special in which he played some of his favourite records.

is Anthony Newley on it?

I can't think of a major artist -- even Dylan! -- in that period who released such a shambles:

Ever heard Down In The Groove? If not, count yourself lucky.

Xpost Mekons are on it.

just realized that blackstar is the only album cover of his that doesn't feature his image (something which wikipedia confirmed, though i thought i was sooooo clever)

I had three thoughts.

http://nedraggett.tumblr.com/post/137233893492/i-didnt-pitch-any-sort-of-general-appreciation

http://nedraggett.tumblr.com/post/137244312272/for-my-second-of-three-thoughts-today-i-move-into

http://nedraggett.tumblr.com/post/137248587797/my-final-extended-bowie-thought-at-least-for

untested producer

wait, padgham was an "untested producer"?

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/david-bowie-planned-post-blackstar-album-thought-he-had-few-more-months-20160113

but yeah bowie's movie singles in the late '80s were all unbelievably superior to the records. including single "when the wind blows," which is awesome and which i hadn't heard before this week

actually:

absolute beginners
cat people
underground
as the world falls down
when the wind blows
this is not america

^^^ would've been a great bowie album

Ever heard Down In The Groove? If not, count yourself lucky.

― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat)

I have and it's marginally better.

wait, padgham was an "untested producer"?

― HYPERLINK TO RAP GENIUS (BradNelson),

I think he meant the aptly named Derek Bramble.

always have a soft spot for underground. a minor bowie single im sure but a pleasant, melancholy tune.

I think he meant the aptly named Derek Bramble.

oh yeah i have no idea who that is

he played bass in heatwave?

belew part two: https://www.facebook.com/AdrianBelew/posts/10150589290144995

xxpost What Mekons record did Bowie play?
Fun facts, or quotes and snapshots anyway (keep scrolling past massive etc. for chunks of text)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3397384/David-Bowie-kept-feet-ground-say-cousins-Yorkshire.html

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/23/TheManWhoSoldtheWorld.jpg

i don't think this album has gotten enough attention (apart from the title track.) what a banger width of a circle is

i used saviour machine on my college radio show to bridge a lumerians song with a neu! song. everyone went wild i imagine

width of a circle though.... "So I cried for all the others till the day was nearly through, for I realized that God's a young man too"

all the madmen might be kind of juvenile as a mission statement -- what was bowie the, 21? -- but those synth arpeggios, stately yet urgent, was there much that sounded like it in 1970?

Anyone returned to Never Let Me Down? "Day In Day Out" remains a horror, and the second side is disgusting (anyone who claims Bowie didn't care should note he plays lead guitar on "New York's in Love" and "'87 and Cry"), but "Time Will Crawl" works despite the choice of vocal performance and "Beat of Your Drum" compensates for its wtf chord changes and hellish lines ("I like the smell of your FLESH") with enthusiasm; it's Bowie doing "Glory Days."

not used to you piling on to critically maligned 80s albums by 60s/70s artists -- it and 'tonight' must be *really* bad