Tell David Bowie Where To Go

Anyhow Bowie should 1) Fire Reeves Gabrel 2) Concentrate on writing good hooks, it's the one constant throughout his prime and the reason people listened in the first place 3) Give up on having another big hit stateside - it ain't gonna happen and it compromises his efforts 4) it seems like maybe Momus pointed this out once, but I'd really like to see him record a genuine synth-pop album. His Eno albums flirt with it, I'd like to see him go full tilt Numan. 4) Tour w/ Iggy Pop - neither of you get to play anything post-1980 that doesn't stand up to the pre-1980 stuff.

Uh, he did. They haven't worked together for a few years now.

The real prob is that Bowie was never any good anyway, whether as the poor man's mod Anthony Newley, the faux-fey Dylan, or The Man Who Wasn't Marc Bolan/Iggy Pop/Lou Reed/Klaus Dinger/Kraftwerk/ad infinitum. How he ever got a generation of foppish Brit art school schmucks to go along with his wanker hijinks and trebly shrill shitty Broadway muzak and half-assed jive aesthetics - Kabuki make-up and space age alienation, sort of, I guess! Diamond Dogs - hee-hee! Coke zombie soulman Nietzschean Nazi gunning to be Hitler! Making Krautrock seem really shitty! Partnering with that other contemptible slime, Eno ... art whoring ... Tin Machine! What the hell was that anyway??? ... po-mo posturing ... uh-huh ... - for one cotton-picking minute has always amazed me. (Or not; we ARE talking about foppish Brit art school schmucks, aren't we?)

Now I'm thinking back to a thread here from a few days ago - yes, I occasionally look at this forum, and find little here that ever seems worth responding to, but what the hell - "why can't the Brits rock" or some such title. Well, my answer to that is ... D Bowie. Brits can't cause they've been gormandized for well nigh 3, maybe 4 decades by D Bowie's fakery/staggeringly substanceless irrelevancy, dragging the culture down to the point at which Albania makes Britain seem like a backwater.

At least the likes of Al Jolson and Liberace - more original and far superior talents to D Bowie, in any case - did not kid themselves or their audiences that what they were doing was anything more than shuck-jive minstrel show shenanigan.

Plus, D. Bowie is the worst lyricist to ever exist, period.

It's not much of a pain, though. He can't live forever, can he? Hopefully he'll be dead quite soon and the world can shrug indifferently.

(And I'd guess the Brits - and only the Brits - will canonize the talentless schmuck, ala Queen Victoria, Freddy Mercury, Lady Di or voting the Smiths the most important group ever.)

That really is the long and the short of it, isn't it? Something which for Dylan is simply a "return to his roots" would be a "retro" move on Bowie's part because (since he has always aligned himself more with trends than with a particular tradition) any move he makes is bound to be interpreted on fashionable terms.

While I'd stop short of backing up J Sutcliffe's "Bowie as Nadir of British Culture" proposition, his retrospective of the man's many phases seems dead-on. I've never been a devoted fan myself, but the same things which repulse Sutcliffe have always made him a curious figure to me, and I've come around lately to a real appreciation of a few records/phases.

I remember Bono (yes, I'm wincing now) saying --- no; offering, lucidly 'bon mot'-ing --- about Bjork in a documentary: "If she's shopping around, she's the Imelda Marcos of Good Ideas". What does that make Bowie?

Andy-- I thought of the Tom Waits example too. He presents the same difference as Dylan does, though; there's a tradition at work there to fall back on. Still it's so much less embarrassing to watch the progress (or pathetic eddies, however you see it) of a Tom Waits, whose appeal to his younger audience doesn't depend on any pretense of being part of their scene. There really are quite a few adult-type avant garde routes Bowie could explore though, aren't there. I'm sure he could ring Pauline Oliveros if he felt like it. Instead he's calling Pete Townsend and Dave Grohl. So we're in the realm of complete fantasy here, I know. I've only framed the question around the Avant Garde because a lot of people seem to have lost interest when he abandoned the Avant/Populist pose for the more or less just Populist.

And BowieBank? Eww... what's that?

I don't think Bowie has anything much to prove, really; he's made good records, he's been around, he's had a complete remastering of his back catalogue. Twice. I'm not sure he particularly needs to make another great record.

On the other hand, I like 1.Outside a whole lot. He should finish the Nathan Adler concept album trilogy with Eno, because that of course would be the most dignified thing he could do. Yes.

*dream gets TEN TIMES SCARIER*

Past a few Pye records tunes in the '60's, cite any evidence that Bowie *ever* considered "the avant-garde as intrinsically wrapped up in youth culture." Tell me what "youth culture" means anymore..we are in the second decade of hip-hop's pop domination, electronic music is not significantly different than that which was created in 1975 and punk is one of the most reactionary forms of music this side of bluegrass, only not as "real." This perpetual concern about the credibility of aging artists sounds like it is more your concern as a fan... Can you possibly maintain some mythical hip credibility (in a music newsgroup, no less...carpe fucking diem...) by liking new Bowie music? This kind of question was last relevant in 1983, by the way. Funny how white guys who are getting on a bit get the most perturbed by old white guys who are still trying to maintain themselves in this supposedly "youth culture."

Again: I asked this question in response to what seemed to be a commonly held opinion on the other Bowie threads a few days ago; that at x point in his career, he stopped meeting certain expectations. I attempted to paraphrase what these expectations were, and simply ask "what would you have him do differently in order to hold your interest?". I may have asked it rather badly, but it was answered in the spirit intended.

You've decided to ignore the fact that I've already stated quite plainly that I'm NOT a fan. My concern isn't with any personal disappointment in the Decline Of D Bowie at all, but with the inherent complexities of his chosen career path as he --- yes, sorry --- gets older (Did I say that I like finding this all a little difficult to reconcile? I don't. I distrust the idea that a Tom Waits should be easier for me to swallow, because it suggests that I'm content to retire everyone over 50 to some musical old-folks home in my mind, to be visited only when the mood for mothballs and creaky floorboards strikes me. I'm not. At the same time, I'd be lying if I said I could watch Mick Jagger perform defiant aerobics all over a stadium stage and think "Yeeeah! Still ROCKIN'!" Yes, I'm interested in sorting this out).

I'm not going to define "youth culture" for you. I share your concern with the term, but I use it here in its broadest and most problematic sense. The same goes for "avant garde" for that matter. Nor can I supply you with the contents of D Bowie's mind with respect to how those two things are intertwined. This is admittedly pure conjecture on my part, informed largely by heresay. This comment from the AMG site, though, seems to encapsulate some of the sentiment I thought I had picked up on:

"Bowie supported (Outside) with a co-headlining tour with Nine Inch Nails in order to snag a younger, alternative audience, but his gambit failed -- audiences left before Bowie's performance and Outside disappeared. He quickly returned to the studio in 1996, recording Earthling, an album heavily influenced by techno and drum'n'bass. Upon its early 1997 release, Earthling received generally positive reviews, yet the album failed to gain an audience, and many techno purists criticized Bowie for allegedly exploiting their subculture."

And no, I'm not one of those "techno purists". Still, your assertion that "electronic music is not significantly different than that which was created in 1975" would apparently be open to debate in some circles. To me it doesn't seem particularily relevant to * this* question at all, except in the sense that its appeal remains arguably--- again, sorry --- "youth oriented".

Incidentally, what happened in 1983 to nullify my question?

And if I appear to know more about D Bowie than I would like to know, that comes from having a former girlfriend who loved the old fraud to death, so all Bowie music from 1966 through 1981 is forever burned into my brain. I can even tell you what happened to him in 1983: "Let's Dance" (the so-called "sellout" record that even my superfangirl girlfriend hated with a passion), MTV stardom, yuppie acceptance and stadium tours, etc.

(Personally, I thought it was no better/worse or any more/less fraudulent and vacuous than what came before. Apparently, his fan base found that Bowie in yuppie guise was less appealing and significantly less hip than Bowie as a Nazi or Bowie as Noel Coward. And even though "Modern Love" sounds like Billy Joel, is it any less stupid than "Heroes" or "The Laughing Gnome" or the "gimme yer hands!" climax of Ziggy? (Why didn't he ever cover "Consider Yourself a Mate" from Oliver! anyway?)

Oh, and I've never taught humanities in my life. I teach philosophy and philosophy/film aesthetics.

Actual Mr Jones, EARTHLING is a pretty great record, and as someone pointed out (on my LODGER thread i think), it's dated LESS disastrously than a lot of actual real jungle

Stylistically, I think what he should do next is whatever he fancies. I have no problems with older artists taking on board new influences and he sounded pretty enthusiastic about current music when speaking on the Jonathon Ross show this morning. Namechecking fischerspooner, Godspeed You Black Emperor and 2ManyDJs/Soulwax - sounding scarely like he had been reading ILM at one point. I dunno if any of these would make a suitable launching off point to make more music but I'd like to hear it anyway - especially if he does all three at once. I don't even know what 'dignified musical route' means, and I hope Bowie doesnt either.

He was also keen on his forthcoming meltdown stuff.

Oh and just to clarify something. I never, ever post on here under any other names and I never, ever troll.

I don't either, come to think of it. As mentioned, I really did ask the question badly. Making a mental note now to keep "the reason I ask is..." asides to myself. And to not dig deeper holes by responding at length to jabs (what a sucker move THAT was. Damn. Brent? Brent? He's not coming back is he...).

mark s- You're right, it was Billy Dods who said that. I hated the bit I heard at the time, but I ought to give it another listen with that in mind. Say, are you home from your trip? I only ask because I like to imagine that you've tracked down the only quaint Welsh (wasn't it?) village in miles with an internet cafe, just to come to the defense of D Bowie. If you have, I'll go buy a copy of Earthling right now.