David Bowie R.I.P

My current ranking from the classic period through '95 (as far as I've gotten in my recent voyage through his discography) would be:

Young Americans through Scary Monsters > Hunky Dory through Aladdin Sane > Diamond Dogs/Pin Ups >>> Man Who Sold The World > Outside > '80s soundtrack songs and 'Loving The Alien' and 'Blue Jean' > Let's Dance > '87-'93 (in roughly reverse chronological order) >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Tonight

I can't decide whether Outside is amazing or a mess. Maybe it's just an amazing mess.

It's like a peanut butter stack: you see it and think "omg that looks so good, I'm going to enjoy this" and you eat it and you're thinking "OMG this IS good, my dreams are real" but by the time you get to the end you think "OMG I am so STUFFED I feel SICK I never want another peanut butter stack again, I should just stick to those Snickers peanut butter cube things, they are so much smaller and less sickly".

http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/660/cpsprodpb/D513/production/_88074545_bowie.jpg

🗻

:/

I can't decide whether Outside is amazing or a mess. Maybe it's just an amazing mess.

I think this post, which I’ve been noodling on for most of the last week, is probably more relevant to this thread than the Outside one. But here goes:

A lot of has been written about Bowie’s legacy since his passing, but for me, the thing I keep coming back to is the fact, or perception anyway, that Bowie was the guy who spotted trends before they were trends and brought them into the mainstream. Outside very clearly—and very self-consciously—was designed to explore that side of Bowie's persona. Yes, it was a celebration of “outsider” art and the sordid characters that produce it, but even more than that, a tribute to Bowie's own mythology for championing, popularizing, consuming, and, ultimately, discarding those artists and movements before moving on to something else.

Candidly, I think Bowie understood the significance of that role—as Lester Bangs wrote about Young Americans, Bowie's best work often seemed to be when he failed at something so wildly that it became something else entirely—but don’t think he was ever entirely satisfied playing it. Deep down, Bowie really did wish he could be a pop hermit like Scott Walker or a performance artist like Chris Burden physically harming himself for his art. But as his copious interviews on the talk show circuit reveal, he also wanted to be loved, admired and appreciated.

I realize now that this is one of the reasons I have always found Outside so fascinating, because it not only self-consciously exploits that tension — but the project itself was consumed by it, transforming from the ambitious, careening, improvised opera about “outsider" art it was initially conceived as into a messy, overstuffed “gothic non-linear hyper-cycle” into an art rock concept album, the subject of which is "David Bowie."

That’s why, even tho PAotD judges Outside to be something of a failure … I’m not sure it actually is. The songs are great. The bootlegged Leon sessions that started it off are completely unique. The story is intentionally batshit and incomprehensible. Not everything works and some of it is baffling, but it’s never boring. As a result, the project as a whole feels like…pretty much everything Bowie ever did. And on those terms, I feel like it has to be judged as one of his most important releases.

Wow

Yeah, like I said, I'd been tossing that around for a week.

I have no trouble ranking 1. Outside as his best since the late seventies.

Digression but:

Bowie's best work often seemed to be when he failed at something so wildly that it became something else entirely

Thisis absolutely why I feel like Young Americans, as an album, is the true precursor of the class of 79 postpunkers: Gang of Four, PiL, The Pop Group, The Fall, The Slits, no wave...to my mind YA p much is the turning the point, the exact moment when the ebb of the 60s ended and the fliw of the 80s began...

The nature of art, right? William Carlos Williams started as an H.D. mimic. Keith Richards practiced Chuck Berry and they came out sounding wrong.

Yeah, thats true

Never in the history of art

Teenage Fanclub expressed this perfectly in an NME singles of the year panel in about 1996, re: Ocean Colour Scene. "They're too talented; they try to mimic something and they're so good they sound exactly like it, but it's when you try and fail that you make something new and interesting." Or summat to that effect.

Definitely, though I suspect some of the anti-pop weirdness of post-punk's take on dub and funk can be specifically traced back to Bowie's alien-ness and his strong misinterpretation of Philly soul

Teenage Fanclub expressed this perfectly in an NME singles of the year panel in about 1996, re: Ocean Colour Scene. "They're too talented; they try to mimic something and they're so good they sound exactly like it, but it's when you try and fail that you make something new and interesting." Or summat to that effect.

― Hey Bob (Scik Mouthy), Wednesday, February 3, 2016 6:49 PM (32 minutes ago)

Teenage Fanclub have never successfully replicated the sound of Big Star, The Byrds, Dinosaur Jr etc, they've always ended up sounding like themselves, even when they stole bits from others' songs

One might be tempted to say the same about Ocean Colour Scene... if one could remember what they sounded like.

haha ouch!

the local indie theater showed the ziggy stardust film the other night as a tribute and i went. just an amazing experience, great sound, with a totally packed theater cheering and clapping after every song. found myself tearing up a couple times. really did feel like everyone was somehow willing it to be the bowie concert experience we can't ever have again.

that sounds so great

Yup.

Had no idea backing vocalist Robin Clark and Carlos Alomar were a couple. She has some charming photos from Young American sessions posted on her Twitter feed. Got me a wee bit choked up again for some reason.

oh no way, that's so sweet

so

so

so

hi :/

keep coming back to the laughing gnome, this cover from the buxton thing is great

https://soundcloud.com/sweeping-the-nation/scott-walker-the-laughing

So funny that the Laughing Gnome has become sort of this running Bowie joke.

Bowie in on it too!

https://youtu.be/-0nn-35Tt-Y

ILM's collective blood boils
http://pitchfork.com/news/63321-listen-to-amanda-palmer-and-jherek-bischoffs-david-bowie-covers-ep-featuring-neil-gaiman-john-cameron-mitchell-anna-calvi/

we could have pre-covered that one if they had warned us...

hey btw isn't it kind of interesting how Errol Brown from Hot Chocolate sounds real bowie-esque?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFYOHrwi-W8

His singing on A Reality Tour is pretty great throughout isn't it? Listening to the line album for the first time rn

Live album

Yup.

Had no idea backing vocalist Robin Clark and Carlos Alomar were a couple. She has some charming photos from Young American sessions posted on her Twitter feed. Got me a wee bit choked up again for some reason.

On a similar note, I was surprised Tony Visconti married May Pang (Lennon's lost weekend GF) AND she's one of the dancers in Bowie's Fashion video.

Hmm, from Mary Hopkin to May Pang!

On a similar note, I was surprised Tony Visconti married May Pang (Lennon's lost weekend GF) AND she's one of the dancers in Bowie's Fashion video.

― Darin, Friday, February 5, 2016 11:27 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah that blows my mind, they had a couple kids, too.

Hmm, from Mary Hopkin to May Pang!

With that bgd singer he kissed by the Berlin Wall in between.

He trots that story out in literally every interview about the making of "Heroes." But I suppose I would, too...

i know i'm late to the game, but yes, the five years doc is really good.

but man, robert fripp is annoying as hell. he does that thing where he asks a leading question to himself, stares at you inquisitively for 5 seconds or so, his eyebrows slowly rising to acknowledge what he imagines is the viewer's dawning realization of his point, mercifully ending with the spoken point which was already self-evident to anyone paying attention. everything he says is a version of that game, so it's nice that he's only featured in the doc maybe 3-4 times.

And when he refers to his own work as "very out"... he's like a strange smug 'do you see' gnome stuck in a 70s timewarp.

Aw c'mon, Fripp is hilarious.

in bed, not in this film

Fripp is an odd duck and I noted the tone of that comment as well. But you shouldn't let it obscure his underlying point: Bowie allowed his players to play things that no other star of his magnitude would – and was comfortable bringing avant garde performers to light that might otherwise have toiled in obscurity.

Fripp's sister has had a horrifying influence on his manner of speaking publicly, but he's still an interesting guy. And still the the country lounge jazz guitarist he started as, occasionally amazed at what he's gotten away with over the years.

fripp was hilarious in that doc xD

Fripp also often refers to himself as Fripp, which is very funny, too. But yes, he does have a point. Remember, by the late '70s King Crimson had been disbanded for several years, and he was mostly working as this peripatetic session man dipping his toes in punk and new wave: Talking Heads, Peter Gabriel, Blondie, Roches, that Daryl Hall record. But Bowie was a huge superstar, filling arenas, so the idea of letting him cut loose on stuff like "Fashion" is pretty cool, though yeah, also a tad disingenuous on Fripp's part to claim it as particularly outre, given he was all over "Heroes" (the album and song) already.

Speaking of which, I just learned this existed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABEqQKlWLC0
Featuring Fripp playing off-stage.

Fripp also often refers to himself as Fripp, which is very funny, too.

I don't think he's done the "this Fripp" thing in 30 years. Still uses the 3rd person, but usually referring to himself as the Old Goat or RHVL (ruthless heartless venal leader or something like that). It's interesting that he pretty much stopped updating his online diary about the time the current KC revival got going -- I hope he's channeling that writing time into something that sees print someday.

I think his point tho is that "Fashion" represents a particularly outre performance on a single. Most of his particularly angular work on "Heroes" is on album cuts like "Beauty and the Beast" and "Blackout" which weren't going to be on anybody's idea of Top 40 radio.

xpost oof, Harry unsure about if/how to dial down her dryness. Not a good choice.

Beauty and the Beast was a single. Sense of Doubt on the B-side, I think. Played it to death on my brother's stereo.

sounds like a pretty killer 7" too