the bowie thread

droid · Jan 12, 2016

lol, yeah, 'Exegesis'. He's very defensive about that 'funny religious cult' in his book.

rubberdingyrapids · Jan 12, 2016

I think I saw you in an ice-cream parlour
drinking milk shakes cold and long
Smiling and waving and looking so fine
don't think you knew you were in this song

i quite like those lines. they just read like good pop lyrics. the last one makes it interesting.

edit - by good, i just mean, teenagery, 1950s R&R, kind of throwaway-romantic.

droid · Jan 12, 2016

I think that last line is the best in the whole song. The first verse is appalling though.

baboon2004 · Jan 12, 2016

I always took the line as a reference to a real person, but I can't find that verified anywhere

Corpsey · Jan 12, 2016

Listened to adam buxton's radio doc about Bowie yesterday and heard ''Ashes to Ashses'' for the first time ever. Absolutely love it.

Corpsey · Jan 12, 2016

Bit premature considering I've not listened to much yet but are there any good books about Bowie? Seems like a fascinating story regardless of my level of appreciation of his music.

droid · Jan 12, 2016

I would say Strange fascination is a good all rounder.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/74298.Strange_Fascination

The Marc Spitz book is workmanlike, but solid.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6376464-bowie

Moonage daydream (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17056.Moonage_Daydream) is a good look at the ziggy period and Bowie in Berlin https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1836545.Bowie_In_Berlin the same for low/heroes/lodger

Also worth checking out the Eno, Visconti and Iggy ('Open up and bleed' is the one Ive read) bios.

And Ive plugged this guy a couple of times already, but its a great site to dip in and out of:

https://bowiesongs.wordpress.com/

Corpsey · Jan 12, 2016

cheers droid

here's the adam buxton doc with the music taken out

Mr. Tea · Jan 12, 2016

Four pages of discussion on an epoch-defining icon and not one willfully controversial statement from luka. This place sure ain't what it used to be.

droid · Jan 12, 2016

Woebot said:
theoretically at least - yes - dylan, mccartney, jagger/richards. but i simply can't imagine getting upset at any of their passing.

blackstar is really extremely good isn't it. i heard it last week too.

Finally plucked up the guts to watch the Lazarus video. It really is an incredible piece of work. Clouded by allusion, reference and metaphor but still a completely uncompromising shout into the abyss. Almost unique as an artistic expression of impeding death. Most stars slip off in a clinic somewhere after months or years of silence, but somehow he managed to make his own death a work of art. What struck me when listening to it last week was the sincerity and power of his voice. Like a devoted gospel singer, the emotion and belief shines through.

Apparently he nearly collapsed after it was shot. Good piece on blackstar here:

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/n...the-greatest-musician-ive-ever-heard-20160111

And here:

http://bitterempire.com/bowies-perfectly-managed-exit/

droid · Jan 13, 2016

Corpsey said:
Bit premature considering I've not listened to much yet but are there any good books about Bowie? Seems like a fascinating story regardless of my level of appreciation of his music.

Completely forgot about this. Its not a biography, more some general musings, and its really good.

I have some of these in digital if you want em.

rubberdingyrapids · Jan 13, 2016

i have this one but never read it properly. not really for serious music criticism though.

have to say i found it nauseating that bowies death was at the top of the news headlines on monday. there could have been a terrorist attack and it probably would still have been first on the agenda. and if you want to see someone so hyperbolic about his music that it might almost make you hate the man, it's will gompertz 25 mins into this programme -
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b06z1hm3/david-bowie-sound-and-vision

droid · Jan 13, 2016

There's been the usual glib OTT mass media cash in stuff, but overall the commentary has been pretty amazing I think - crossing generational & gender lines. Seemingly endless tributes from musicians too. Ive seen some comparisons to Diana which I think are way off the mark, but also many fans expressing dismay at their own reactions.

droid · Jan 13, 2016

Also seen some dismissals of the praise for Bowie as 'rockist', which may be true in terms of Bowie coming from that world, but also completely false in the sense that Bowie, almost singlehandedly destroyed the concept of authenticity in music - the very foundation of rockism.

Critchley:

The point is that during the 1970s, especially from 1974 onward, Bowie was able to mobilize an artistic discipline that is terrifying in its intensity, daring, and risk. It is the very opposite of rock-star complacency. It is as if Bowie, almost ascetically, almost eremitically, disciplined himself into becoming a nothing, a mobile and massively creative nothing that could assume new faces, generate new illusions, and create new forms. This is weird and rare. Perhaps it is unique in the history of popular music...

...Bowie’s truth is inauthentic, completely self-conscious and utterly constructed. But it is still right, es stimmt as one can say in German, or it has the quality of feeling right, of being stimmig. We hear it and say “yes.” Silently, or sometimes out loud. The sound of Bowie’s voice creates a resonance within us. It finds a corporeal echo. But resonance invites dissonance. A resonating body in one location—like glasses on a table—begins to make another body shake and suddenly the whole floor is covered with broken glass. Music resounds and calls us to dissent from the world, to experience a dissensus communis, a sociability at odds with common sense. Through the fakery and because of it, we feel a truth that leads us beyond ourselves, toward the imagination of some other way of being.

Bowie’s genius allows us to break the superficial link that seems to connect authenticity to truth. There is a truth to Bowie’s art, a moodful truth, a heard truth, a felt truth, an embodied truth. Something heard with and within the body. The tone of the singing voice and music is felt in the tonus or musculature of the body. Musical tension is muscular, rising or falling, in progressive wave-beats of pleasure.

Corpsey · Jan 13, 2016

I almost picked up a copy of the Metro on my commute the other day, due to it featuring Bowie on the cover.

Then I remembered that the Metro is owned by the Mail, is a complete rag of a publication and basically stands for everything that I'd imagine Bowie was against.

I keep feeling choked up when reading people's eulogies for Bowie, because as I've said before I have never been a fan. I'm now listening to a lot of his music on Spotify and enjoying a lot of it too. I think I'm touched by how much he meant to people, particularly to people who felt like outsiders.

droid · Jan 13, 2016

Corpsey said:
I keep feeling choked up when reading people's eulogies for Bowie, because as I've said before I have never been a fan. I'm now listening to a lot of his music on Spotify and enjoying a lot of it too. I think I'm touched by how much he meant to people, particularly to people who felt like outsiders.

I think the eulogies are maybe the saddest things.

Dont read this: http://iamjamesward.com/2016/01/13/conversation-piece/

rubberdingyrapids · Jan 13, 2016

i quite liked this tribute from momus -

Mr. Tea · Jan 13, 2016

Bowie’s genius allows us to break the superficial link that seems to connect authenticity to truth. There is a truth to Bowie’s art, a moodful truth, a heard truth, a felt truth, an embodied truth.

What's that line about how fiction - or is it art in general? - is "a lie that tells a truth"? It's Wilde, isn't it? Or is it an idea that's been articulated by writers/artists/performers since the year dot?

Edit: Picasso, apparently.

Music resounds and calls us to dissent from the world, to experience a dissensus communis...

!!!

Sectionfive · Jan 13, 2016

Struck by the amount of people with stories in which he comes across very well. Not the usual recently-deceased-was-also-a-lovely-bloke variety but genuinely both extraordinary and ordinary encounters people had.

Leo · Jan 13, 2016

Sectionfive said:
Struck by the amount of people with stories in which he comes across very well. Not the usual recently-deceased-was-also-a-lovely-bloke variety but genuinely both extraordinary and ordinary encounters people had.

i liked that he was married to iman for 25 years, after 10 with angie. that strikes me as someone who's a proper committed, responsible partner.

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