Thoughts on David Bowie And his long-‐player from 1977, Low.
A presenta?on for The Album Club by Swedish Oxers (yes I’m a dork)
Backgrounder • 1950’s -‐ Artsy youth in a stoic English home; introduced to jazz by his f-‐
ed up brother Terry, first instrument was an alto sax • 1960’s -‐ Many releases, many record labels, liTle success
– Meets Lindsay Kemp, goes to mime school, joins “the circus” of Bohemia
– Manager/lover Kenneth PiT makes film Love You Till Tuesday
– Breaks up with first girlfriend, Hermione Farthingale, pushes Bowie into a deeper emo?onal space shown in songwri?ng on Space Oddity
– “Space Oddity” was released 5 days before Apollo 11 launch; became his first breakout hit but the album flopped
– Starts Beckenham Arts Lab with his lover/lodger, Mary Finnegan
– Leaves Mary for Angela BarneT; they marry within 1 year
"He lived on his emo:ons, he was a wonderful influence. His day-‐to-‐day life was the most
theatrical thing I had ever seen, ever. It was everything I thought Bohemia probably was. I joined the circus.”
1970’s Pre-‐Ziggy • Connects with Tony Viscon?
(producer) and Mick Ronson (guitarist)
• Departs from folk-‐rock sounds of Space Oddity on The Man Who Sold the World (1970)
• During US promo?onal tour for MWSTW he assumes and exploits full androgyny
• Meets idols Lou Reed and Iggy Pop; conceives idea for Ziggy Stardust based partly on Iggy
• Releases Hunky Dory, pays homage directly to idols (Warhol, Dylan, his new son Zowie)
Ziggy Stardust
He was once a scruffy, honey-‐haired folk singer. Then the foppish leader of a Beatles-‐prototype pop band, The Buzz. Then an adamantly bisexual balladeer. Then a spacey, cropped-‐red-‐haired androgynous guitarist backed by a band called the Spiders from Mars. Then a soul singer. Then a movie actor . . . David Bowie, it's safe to say, would do anything to make it. And now that he has made it, he'll do anything to stay there.
Cameron Crowe
• Declares he’s bisexual in 1972 in Melody Maker interview; first rock star to openly discuss his sexuality
• Announced his re?rement at the peak of his fame on the Ziggy Stardust tour
• Tours were spectacles on a new level – millions of dollars
The Thin White Duke • Moved to US, sound
changes direc?on toward soul, funk Diamond Dogs
• Cocaine addic?on, manorexia, paranoia
• Success becoming “black” like few white rockers had
• “Plas?c Soul” and Young Americans (1975) yields first #1 hit
• Introduces the thin white duke on Sta:on to Sta:on (1976)
• LA decadence • More cocaine addic?on in
Switzerland
Berlin Period
• Three years spent living in Berlin, producing the experimental electronic albums Low, Heroes, and Lodger. Known as The Berlin Triptych.
• A response to “always crashing in the same car” – Los Angeles was a downward spiral for Bowie. He was shut away
and hiding from celebrity-‐obsessed culture, suffering from coke-‐fueled paranoia, reading about black magic and fascism
• ATracted to the austerity and anonymity of Cold War Berlin – “Find some people you don’t understand and a place you don’t
want to be and just put yourself into it.” – A retreat from fame; space to re-‐invent his music again – Poli?cal/social tensions influenced the edgy, experimental,
alienated music
A New Musical Language
“I got :red of wri:ng in the tradi:onal manner that I was wri:ng in while I was in America, and coming back to Europe I took a look at what I was wri:ng and the environments I was wri:ng about and decided I had to start wri:ng in terms of trying to find a new musical language for myself to write in. I needed somebody to help with that because I was a bit lost and too
subjec:ve about it all.” (1978)
Château d’Hérouville
• For a chateau, not that old (1740). Decamped there aker Sta?on to Sta?on tour to record Iggy Pop’s The Idiot
• A lab for trying new things, making new noise • Mastered in Berlin’s Hansa Studio, where later Depeche
Mode, Siouxie and the Banshes, Nick Cave, and U2 recorded Achtung Baby
An Experiment
• Recorded with no promise that it would be released – a true experiment
• Thought they’d end up with demos, not an album
• Tony Viscon? recorded everything, and surprised Bowie with songs that sounded album worthy
• Viscon?’s Event Harmonizer that “fucks with the fabric of ?me” – influenced drumming forever
• A synth housed in a leather briefcase and manipulate by a joys?ck
• A symphony of rejected instrumenta?on
• Many collaborators, many instruments – Personnel: David Bowie (vocals, guitar, cello, strings, harmonica, saxophone, horns, piano, chamberlin,
keyboards, ARP synthesizer, vibraphone, xylophone, percussion); David Bowie (various instruments); Iggy Pop (vocals, piano, organ, background vocals); Mary Hopkin (vocals); Eduard Meyer, Eduard Meyerm (cello); Roy Young (piano, organ, Farfisa); Peter Himmelman (piano, ARP synthesizer); Roy Young (piano); George Murray (bass guitar); Brian Eno (vocals, guitar, piano, chamberlin, keyboards, synthesizer, mini-‐Moog synthesizer, Moog synthesizer); Mary Viscon? (vocals, background vocals); Ricky Gardiner, Carlos Alomar (guitar); Dennis Davis (percussion).
About Low • Low profile, low mood • Influence of Krautrock • Cover taken from The
Man Who Fell to Earth • Manic synth-‐pop songs,
chilly atmospherics, brooding electronic instrumentals
• Eno gets a lot of credit but only co-‐wrote “Warszawa”
• Sound and Vision was the “hit” single
What it Sounds Like
• Mental struggle, anguish; imploded aggression – The music, while guitar-‐based and harsh and aggressive, never rocks out.
• A demented soul record, a future sound
“The rhythms of Low some-mes emulate factory floors and chemical labs. Drums crash like steam shoo-ng from a vent pipe; the bass
burbles lightly like a toxic substance in a glass beaker being purified over a Bunsen burner. The guitars come in cold and impossibly mellow and the misfit synthesizers, especially on the more modal second side, float every empty sonic space like a new pollu-on. It all shakes and
bends like it’s being played by hand and not machines but feels riveted together, a modern machine. “
-‐Marc Spitz
Close Read: “A New Career in a New Town”
• 2 minutes and 52 seconds of mania – down up down and up again
• Starts moody, confused, unsure. Drumbeat paTers irregularly. Synths are haun?ng, whining, momentarily distorted and off kilter.
• 36 seconds in, the sun pokes through the clouds, the mood changes, the key goes major, becomes almost celebratory with a wailing, yearning harmonica and tenta?vely op?mis?c chords
• Harmonica is the purest instrument on the album
• 1:22 returns back to dark place. Wondering, can I do it?
• 15 seconds later, returns to the op?mis?c chorus and stays
• Scary but you can do it! Glimmers of light
• Steady, almost jovial bass-‐line
• Fades out, as if the fight con?nues
• Does it make me happy or sad? I’m not sure
• Sad music makes me feel my spleen
• Many say it’s about his experience in LA, but could also be about his Berlin period
The Response
• RCA didn’t like it: “Please make another Young Americans!”. – RegreTed leaving him unsupervised for so long – Issued a best-‐of instead (ChangesOneBowie)
• Finally released in January 1977, a week before his 30th birthday
• Cri?cs gave mixed reviews, some were baffled. Later hailed as a masterpiece.
• Musical Impact – Use of synthesizers influenced genera?on of
post-‐punk bands: Joy Division, Magazine, Gang of Four, Wire
– Synths took a front seat for the first ?me even though viewed with a s?gma by rock purists
– Provoked genera?on to explore new sounds – Raised the bar for all musicians to pioneer
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