Music critics and writers throw the word “genius” around too much on such medicore or unproven talents (Beck, Madonna and Eric Clapton especially) that it renders the word practically meaningless. Overuse aside, it is an appropriate moniker for The Thin White Duke since he has never stood still and continued to experiment musically. Unlike his contemporaries in age, when he releases a new record it’s actually pretty good and not an excuse to gouge everyone with the more lucrative tour, aka The Rolling Stones or Paul McCartney with nothing very memorable since the mid Eighties. I also feel he changes his look, music, etc., because he sincerely is working in a direction that leads to these differences. I don’t think he “reinvents” himself to keep drawing attention as Madonna has always had to do.
Ten years ago, he performed a concert in NYC in celebration of his 50th birthday (it took place the day after). I wish that it would be made into an album and/or DVD. He chose the bands to perform with him too. The label who was distributing him then (Virgin) requested him to invite the tried and true artists the average person would recognize, Tina Turner and Mick Jagger for example. It was really their way of saying, we want you to cater to the aging Boomer crowd that stopped buying new music. He refused and went with contemporary artists he liked and probably influenced: Frank Black, Billy Corgan, Lou Reed, Robert Smith, Foo Fighters, Placebo and Sonic Youth (I didn’t say it was a perfect line up). Good move. After 10 years, all of them are still working and haven’t been forgotten.
I wasn’t always a fan of Bowie’s work. My initial opinion of him was colored by my parents’ huge dislike of him when I was a little kid. The first time I had ever seen him was on that Bing Crosby Christmas special which spawned the famous duet you hear on the radio every year. (Somara researched it last month and it’s considered to be one of the first and most famous mash ups in history, all because Bowie told the producers how much he hated “Little Drummer Boy.”) I just remember the dread coming out of my parents’ mouth when Bing greeted him in the skit preceeding their song. The words “fruit, freak and queer” were used by my mother. Unfortunately, children (including myself) are impressionable so their prejudice got embedded into my opinions from 1977 until 1987. Between those years, we had moved to Houston where I learned about his larger body of work on KLOL and he then released Let’s Dance which became his most “accessible” album for the American masses. When I got to college, my musical tastes widened thanks to friends, adversaries and WMUR. By the end of my freshman year, he had released one of his least favorite albums, Never Let Me Down yet I was impressed enough to finally purge the last remnants of my parents’ bad mouthing. Then a guy from paint crew loaned me the incredible Sound + Vision CD boxed set. I have been hooked on his stuff ever since. I can only hope my friends with children try to be more open minded with contemporary performers that have as promising futures. All those shallow female singers made with cookie cutters like Jessica Simpson or Hillary Duff remain fair game for ridicule.
This year promises to be pretty interesting for him. He will be appearing as a character in an upcoming episode of Spongebob Squarepants, he’s the voice of the villain in Jean-Luc Besson’s Arthur and the Invisibles currently being advertised to death and the ten-year bonds on his first 25 albums will expire, thus he will now collect the royalties from all his (older) music again. I am more optimistic about him releasing one more album since I think he’ll probably do something silly such as retire.