14 - Let's Dance
Welcome to day 3. I'm back at work, so the stream of posts is going to slow down to a trickle.
You could just say Let's Dance is Scary Monsters part 2, but it's not really. Bowie changed record labels, so while it is a continuation of Scary Monsters musically (it's actually a refocusing of Young Americans, now with Stevie Ray Vaughn), it's the start of the real 80s Bowie that i don't actually have physical copies of; youtube it is.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgfSRLUDoi5exYY6tvsG-M_Q5pacJ_odF
Critics say this is the last "old Bowie" album, but it's the first hit songs album. To say Bowie now had 17 million dollars is a misunderstanding of corporate finances.
EMI started a new ledger called "David Bowie" and allotted $17.whatever-million to it as working capital. Bowie's new job was to make a profit from that by being David Bowie. He hired Nile Rogers, said "Darling, make me some hit records" a lot, and most everyone thinks it's crap. I didn't invent my earlier Phil Collins comparison, that's exactly the name Bowie used to describe this period of his career.
They are still working with material from the Berlin period, and first on the list of hits is China Girl, from Iggy Pop's album. Nile assumed it was about doing speedballs (cocaine and heroin at the same time), so that's why Bowie's version sounds like a Studio 54 party. Iggy of course wrote it about an actual person, Kuelan Nguyen.
Why does he need hit records? Well nobody liked the "solo" albums he made, and the Tin Machine side project was just a tangential creative outlet to make himself happy. Bowie proper is it's own subsidiary corporation now. It's not 17M in Bowie's bank account, it's 17M to pay to producers and studios and musicians and marketing and TV time and fly around the world to do all this brand stuff. Every penny gets recouped before Bowie gets his first penny.
Obviously i'm at work and i can't really listen to it like the others at the moment, but none of this is bad in my opinion. It's undeniably 80s, or what the 80s would become, because Bowie actually lives 5 years ahead of schedule. I don't get the embarrassment about it, it might not sound like he wanted it to sound, but it's still listenable to me. Modern Love is a great song, and the faux disco vibes don't bother me at all.
Except for 1 thing. You know how Bowie's voice just kind of floats along in the verses of the title track, Let's Dance? Like he's not really connected anymore? That's the Bowie i don't like. That's what i hated about Heroes.
Honestly, i hear this as the right way to do "Heroes." I suspect, however, the next couple won't be as enjoyable for me, but i've been wrong a time or two. Who knows?
15 - Tonight
You could just say Let's Dance is Scary Monsters part 2, but it's not really. Bowie changed record labels, so while it is a continuation of Scary Monsters musically (it's actually a refocusing of Young Americans, now with Stevie Ray Vaughn), it's the start of the real 80s Bowie that i don't actually have physical copies of; youtube it is.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgfSRLUDoi5exYY6tvsG-M_Q5pacJ_odF
Critics say this is the last "old Bowie" album, but it's the first hit songs album. To say Bowie now had 17 million dollars is a misunderstanding of corporate finances.
EMI started a new ledger called "David Bowie" and allotted $17.whatever-million to it as working capital. Bowie's new job was to make a profit from that by being David Bowie. He hired Nile Rogers, said "Darling, make me some hit records" a lot, and most everyone thinks it's crap. I didn't invent my earlier Phil Collins comparison, that's exactly the name Bowie used to describe this period of his career.
They are still working with material from the Berlin period, and first on the list of hits is China Girl, from Iggy Pop's album. Nile assumed it was about doing speedballs (cocaine and heroin at the same time), so that's why Bowie's version sounds like a Studio 54 party. Iggy of course wrote it about an actual person, Kuelan Nguyen.
Why does he need hit records? Well nobody liked the "solo" albums he made, and the Tin Machine side project was just a tangential creative outlet to make himself happy. Bowie proper is it's own subsidiary corporation now. It's not 17M in Bowie's bank account, it's 17M to pay to producers and studios and musicians and marketing and TV time and fly around the world to do all this brand stuff. Every penny gets recouped before Bowie gets his first penny.
Obviously i'm at work and i can't really listen to it like the others at the moment, but none of this is bad in my opinion. It's undeniably 80s, or what the 80s would become, because Bowie actually lives 5 years ahead of schedule. I don't get the embarrassment about it, it might not sound like he wanted it to sound, but it's still listenable to me. Modern Love is a great song, and the faux disco vibes don't bother me at all.
Except for 1 thing. You know how Bowie's voice just kind of floats along in the verses of the title track, Let's Dance? Like he's not really connected anymore? That's the Bowie i don't like. That's what i hated about Heroes.
Honestly, i hear this as the right way to do "Heroes." I suspect, however, the next couple won't be as enjoyable for me, but i've been wrong a time or two. Who knows?
15 - Tonight
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