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★ ~ The David Bowie Thread ~ ★

skinny

Nigh
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May 30, 2010
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Not before time ~ an artist before, within and yet outside his time. I give you David Robert Jones. Share your own personal interpretation of the man and his work. There's a lot to talk about. Let's do it here to spare the What Music?~ians our obsession.

will be released officially in three days on Bowie's birthday. The critics who should know better have been pretty strong in their praise. Here's the Wiki's summary so far.

At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from critics, the album received an average score of 83, which indicates "universal acclaim", based on 6 reviews.[11] Rolling Stone critic David Fricke described the album as "a ricochet of textural eccentricity and pictorial-shrapnel writing."[15] Andy Gill of The Independent regarded the record as "the most extreme album of his [Bowie's] entire career," stating: Blackstar is as far as he's strayed from pop."[12] Reviewing for Q magazine, Tom Doyle wrote: "Blackstar is a more concise statement than The Next Day and a far, far more intriguing one."[2]
Gotta love Fricke. The man has vocabulary. But from that adjectival pepper I do wonder a bit if that means he actually likes it. Critics do tend to throw their nails into the dartboard from a great distance sometimes. Fricke's a lot closer to the action, so I look forward to reading his full review (here link). Heading:
The arty, unsettling 'Blackstar' is Bowie's best anti-pop masterpiece since the Seventies
Sincerely, yay!~! Just what I need to kick off life 2.0! I've swept my mp3 player and my car clean of all detritus.

Only Bowie and The Dubliners for me this year. I've had on rotate for a month now. I adore the music, I adore the lyric, I adore the film, and I adore the ambiguities most of all. With this work of art you get what you deserve, as it is with any work of poignancy and deeper magic in the expression.

Indulge me my brief essay, which is filled with ironies. Bowie's often been hectored about his impatience with journalists during interviews. He stopped suffering the fools ten years ago, and yet he can still work with vitality and create beauties like this without the need for any exposition whatsoever. That's what I mean by outside his time. All of these effete twee darlings of the popular Surface are slaves trapped inside the public consciousness of this 'smart'phone generation, this homo consumeriens. It seems to me he's more principled than punchy. Bowie only lets you in if you let yourself out. I love that. So I'm hoping will be a clarion call that frees more minds and pushes those denser entities further from the source. I peddle a faith of sorts by saying this, but what the hell. He ain't the best around, but he's important.
 
So... you're a fan?

It's always worth keeping an eye on Bowie. If not always relevant, he's never irrelevant. I'll check out 'Blackstar' with hopeful anticipation. Coincidence; as I started typing this watching some Top of the Pops compilation on BBC4, 'Starman' came on.
 
v I think that is what I am. Today, anyway.
So... you're a fan?

It's always worth keeping an eye on Bowie. If not always relevant, he's never irrelevant. I'll check out 'Blackstar' with hopeful anticipation. Coincidence; as I started typing this watching some Top of the Pops compilation on BBC4, 'Starman' came on.
Spooky, isn't it. There'll be more of that over the next few weeks, to be sure. "Never irrelevant" ~ that's a good way to put it. I think though that the relevance starts where he is, not where I am. The fact that it reaches so far into me may be an artefact of my exposure over the decades. It's a kind of gift.


Bowie released Black Tie White Noise (Wiki link) on his 46th birthday. I have a plan for mine. I call it 92up.

Of recording the album, Bowie said:
I think this album comes from a very different emotional place [than previous albums]. That's the passing of time, which has brought maturity and a willingness to relinquish full control over my emotions, let them go a bit, start relating to other people, which is something that's been happening to me slowly - and, my God, it's been uphill - over the last ten or twelve years. I feel a lot freer these days to be able to talk about myself and about what's happened to me, because I've been able to face it. For many years, everything was always blocked out. The day before was always blocked out. I never wanted to return to examine anything that I did particularly. But the stakes have changed. I feel alive, in a real sense

My thoughts precisely.

 
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I know it's late in the UK, but I'm just up and hoping there's some love for this thread. Perhaps if I pose an easy question it might prompt some responses.

What's your earliest memory of Bowie music? I was captivated by tv viewings of Ashes to Ashes in 1980 (I was 9) long before my puberteen rock n roll revolution. That work evokes my childhood both visually and aurally. It isn't the only music that does that, but it's fairly primary.
 
Starman Skinny, released in September '72 - Loved it from the first. Finally saw him in Adelaide in '78, with the Angels supporting Him - can't remember first song but Heroes was the second on his set list (with the aid of some prime Thai sticks - mind blown).

Loved all subsequent Lp's after The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars Skinny, but 'David Live' with it's punkish influence would have to be the most memorable for me - the death of Ziggy came from left field.
 
Great to hear from you, Mungo. I have 'Live' on vinyl. What a band. Where did he play? Apollo?
 
I never got to see him live. My bestie did on the Reality tour ten odd years ago and says it was better than anything on his illustrious concert-going list. He's seen Clapton several times (he's a disciple of EC, not a fan) and claims it was better than any of those concerts of his.

The Angels were probably the best pub band I ever saw (sans satin). Experienced them once in 1988 at The Bridgeway, Pooraka where I got booted off the stage by bouncers while I was peaking on speed and got my head knocked about a bit more when I protested the umpire's decision. That was a wake-up call I ignored and repeated at their gig at The Tivoli in Pirie St the following year. Got my head busted up a bit more often than not back then. Some good acts around at the time, notably John Swan in an outfit called Mickey Finn, Don Walker's long defunct Catfish, and a band called The Pogues who I saw at the Old Lion Hotel in 1989 on their If I Should Fall From Grace With God concert. That was the best of a very good lot.

Wish I'd gone to Reality while I had the chance. A wee snifter from that album here. God I love Gail Ann Dorsey.Btw, this video has an arse-kicking version of Modern Love on its tail.

 
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Never seen him. I remember collecting pictures of him as a teenager - I'd never seen such a beautiful man.

Got into him at Uni when I met people who had the ALBUMS rather than the singles. Oh my goodness!
 
He was definitely a knockout, imagewise. Favourite song / album, Frides?
Never opted for compilations of his singles myself. Much prefer those obscure gems from deep behind the covers.

eg
 
Fully sick mate, Modern Love bangs!

He does change his works, doesn't he - seems to relish and then ravish them, allways leaving me sweaty, out of breathe, and feeling slightly slutty.
 
He does change his works, doesn't he - seems to relish and then ravish them, allways leaving me sweaty, out of breathe, and feeling slightly slutty.

:eek:

(but I know exactly what you mean)
 
Quicksand - it's early. I think.
Superb lyrics on that. Probably his most obviously esoteric lyrics. The Supermen also works well from that album's outtakes - reanimates Neitzsche's demons.

To Hunky Dory. My favourite Bowie album. Oh! You Pretty Things
From the Wiki
Thematically, the song has been seen as reflecting the influence of occultist Aleister Crowley and philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche,[1][3] and heralding "the impending obsolescence of the human race in favour of an alliance between arriving aliens and the youth of the present society".
Not as friendly a message as the jaunty melody intimates.
 
I remember this at school discos and wondering if people had actually listened to it!

I must have been a right wet blanket :rofl:
 
I very much doubt that.

No, really. I was Miss Prim and Proper at school, electively mute with my blood parents and climbing out of my bedroom window after homework and An Early Night in order to go and ride motorbikes, drink Newcastle Brown and sing Meaningful Lyrics while doing both down the main streets of blameless County Durham villages :oops:

and as no one will recognise me.....

I'm long dark hair, very pale skin, to the right in both of these.... pushing hair back with left hand in the first and looking very worried in the second!
 

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Gotcha. Rather advanced for your age. I suspect you still are.
 
I climbed out of the window too. No booze or bikes, but pretended those things just as well while roaming the dead streets in the witching hour.
 
No, really. I was Miss Prim and Proper at school, electively mute with my blood parents and climbing out of my bedroom window after homework and An Early Night in order to go and ride motorbikes, drink Newcastle Brown and sing Meaningful Lyrics while doing both down the main streets of blameless County Durham villages :oops:

and as no one will recognise me.....

I'm long dark hair, very pale skin, to the right in both of these.... pushing hair back with left hand in the first and looking very worried in the second!


I really can't imagine the extra-curricular activities that you describe Frideswide, especially when I see your photo's - looking at both photos, I would've thought that you were more comfortable with G. J. C's campaigns in Gaul than Newky Broon pet!
 
It seems to me that pretty much every album Bowie has released post Tin Machine has been hailed by the critics as being his best release since the 70s but turns out to be merely OK in a patchy sort of way.

It's a sign of how utterly bland and corporate the current pop scene is that critics still salivate in Pavlovian response to the prospect of Bowie putting another half decent album out.
 
I really can't imagine the extra-curricular activities that you describe Frideswide, especially when I see your photo's - looking at both photos, I would've thought that you were more comfortable with G. J. C's campaigns in Gaul than Newky Broon pet!

Aye hinny that was the fun of it (well, part of the fun of it ;) ) to be such a good girl on the one hand and such a bad girl on the other! Well, not really bad, in retrospect I think I was more of a mascot than anything else :oops:

and I always preferred the Newky Amber to Brown so I really was a lightweight!

PS having divided Gaul into three parts he attacked fiercely at dawn.....
 
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