Musical Magpie

 I am lucky enough to Live in London. London is one of the world's great cities and one of the thing that makes it great is the museums and exhibitions that you get to see. last week I got too see the David Bowie exhibition at the Victoria and Albert (V&A). The exhibition is called 'David Bowie is', and it is a huge collection of memorabilia and multi media going through his career.

That amount of stuff they have to listen to, watch and look at is amazing. We were there for about 90 minutes and scratched the surface. As a bowie fan, it was great. lots of good songs with the original costumes, things like original handwritten lyric sheets. Talks with collaborators on Album covers, set design , guitarists and all of the other people in between.

The most interesting part for me was a series of three essay like pieces that you could listen to going through the different periods of the music. The Ziggy years. the Berlin era and then what could be described as after that. In the first part of it, and indeed in a lot of the exhibition it talked about Bowie soaking up influences from his surroundings. The writer of the piece and presenter, Howard Goodall, pointed out that the guitar in Rebel Rebel is quite similar to that of a Rolling Stones riff and that it could be pointed out by some that as the Rolling Stones were the biggest band in the world at the time , arguably given Led Zeppelin obviously, that this was not coincidental. He then went to pains to point out that there was no way that Bowie would have copied or borrowed a style.

But then he had to say that didn't he.

Here it it

A great deal of the exhibition went on and on about how much a trail blazer that Bowie was (actually it also tried to say is, but I will get to that later). Do we agree with this? Well it is a little complicated isn't it.

There is no doubt that he had a different style from the main stream at the time. Although let's not forget that when Space Oddity came out it was 1969, and an androgynous man was not that unusual. Indeed like so much of the image of Bowie, it is taken very much from the theater and the many actors that are listed as inspiration by Bowie himself.

Still a good song though - seen through modern eyes here

Let's also not forget that when Ziggy was actually 'born' in 1972 we had subsequently had 2 years of T-Rexsity and 'glam' was fully underway.

You see where I am going here. It isn't that original really. It isn't a new idea. It is a similar idea with a couple of quirks taken from other sources thrown in and packed up for the masses. That, you see is my point here. Like so many other very successful artists that are considered trial blazers, what they actually do is scoop up the underground, mix it with some other influences and re-package it. because they are famous , people see it as the new trend. They are branded as heroes for it

A poor link , but I enjoyed it.

You can make very similar arguments for the Berlin era and the post Berlin, pre Tin Machine albums. The electronic and more industrial sounds were already coming out of Germany. Let's be honest here, Bowie didn't throw a dart at Europe, hit Berlin and say, 'I know a great place for this music that is completely unique'. It is true that he did have a previous, well documented love of the Cabaret scene in Berlin from the 30s and various artists from that and slightly previous to that who were based in Berlin.

No, he moved there because that is what he wanted to Absorb.

That song, has Nile Rodgers from Chic playing on it. Indeed much of the music you know and love has Nile Rodgers playing on it. I am going to write about that at some point, remind me. Again here we have Bowie taking something, a sound out of one area and putting it to the mainstream.

You could quite correctly argue that in using the leading Disco Guitarist of the age is hardly going into the underground. Perhaps that shows that he was slipping and after being the bringer of musical greatness to the masses for a decade, his finger slipped from the pulse.

Which leads me to the decline of Bowie. I have thought about this topic quite a lot. it has always struck me as a bit odd that he was able to produce such good music for so long and then it just went off. Well, you will be completely shocked to learn that i have a theory on the topic.

As per the above Bowie spent a lot of time absorbing and regenerating, in other ways obviously, the sights and sounds. He was if not ever the biggest performer in the world, certainly the one with the most credibility left, despite being so huge. There must have been a point where he decided, you know wht? i m going to put this out and if people don't like it then it doesn't matter so much.

Something I learnt recently was that there are two albums between Let's Dance and the Tin Machine 'experiment'. Before I get there, imagine being in Tin Machine , which, according to Bowie was a proper band to which he was the lead singer. I have never heard anyone ever say that they think Tin Machine is Bowie's best work, in fact i have heard such esteemed people as Robert Smith from The Cure describe it as ' the most horrible disappointment of my life. I love Bowie but I simply couldn't listen to Tin Machine'. It is the same for everyone. So you are asked by David Bowie to be in his band,. imagine how cool that would be. Then it is Tin Machine. That must suck, a lot.

Any way, back to the theory, ah yes, he basically decided to make the truly avant guard music he always wanted to. It is just that no one else really wanted to hear it. it wasn't part of a underground swelling in music that he helped shape and bring to the mainstream. it was what was in his head originally.

So, enough, one of the great things about writing this pievce has been the chance to narrow down to my favourite Bowie song. because let's face it. Everyone has a favourite don't they.

Well i have two, because , well I am special and a snowflake and all that sort of stuff.

Sorrow

and the man who sold the world