Classic Rock Bottom

VOTW - DAVID BOWIE Special R.I.P.

I'm in total state of shock!!! For just an hour ago, I found out, that David Bowie had died. Apparently he died of cancer, and I had absolutely no ideia, that he was sick, and I don't think a lot of people knew that. He turned 69 years last Friday, and at the same day, he released his last album, Black Star, which I've been listening to this weekend, and even though it's not among his very best albums, it's not bad at all. He had a comeback 2-3 yars ago, releasing the VERY good album, The Next Day. With Black Star we have the experimenting Bowie back, but unfortunally it was the very last experiment from his side, meaning he died as a true innovator. There will be written MANY words about this genius in the next couple of days, and actually I had this VOTW already lined up, because of Bowie's new album. Now this weeks VOTW has a sadness to it, I hadn't expected, but I won't change the words, I wrote before knowing he was dead, errors and all:

Since I was 12, I've loved the Bowie-song "Life On Mars". I saw the Mick Rock's video on TV in 1977, and thought it was a great song. It also helped, that I was a major KISS-fan at that time, and had just seen my first "KISS-video" on TV as well ("I Want You"), and here we had yet another video with a pop-star in full make up. But the video didn't make the song, and that song is still among my very favorite songs of all time (no KISS-songs there, though). It wasn't until 1991 (I think), that I bought my first Bowie-CD (A double "Best Of"). Since I've bought 6-7 more cd's, and my absolute favorite is (of course) "Ziggy Stardust", from the "rockiest" periode of Bowie's career. But I do consider him a genius these days. And it doesn't make it worse, that he did a great comeback a few years ago with a very good album. Last Friday, he released yet another new album, but after only listening twice, I'm not quite sure, how good the album really is. These video's are not exactly my favorites by him, but I think most people have seen "Starman" and "Ashes To Ashes" a few times by now, and I do try to post not only the most obvious video's in VOTW. Well, here we go:

LOVE YOU TO TUESDAY

Love You till Tuesday was a promotional film designed to showcase the talents of David Bowie, made in 1969. The film was the latest attempt by his manager, Kenneth Pitt, to bring Bowie to a wider audience. Pitt had undertaken the film after a suggestion by Gunther Schnedier, producer of German TV show '4-3-2-1 Musik Für Junge Leute' for the ZDF network.

5 YEARS

"Five Years" is recorded on 15 November 1971, and released as the opening track on the album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars in 1972.The song tells of an Earth doomed to destruction in five years and the aftermath of this knowledge. Bowie is rumored to have chosen the length of time, five years, as a result of a dream in which his deceased father told him he must never fly again and would die in five years.Allmusic describe the track as "easily one of the greatest album-opening songs ever". I don't think, I will go as far as that. It's not even one of the 5 best tracks on the album. But good nevertheless.

MOONAGE DAYDREAM

"Moonage Daydream" was first released as a single with the band Arnold Corns. A re-recorded version, featuring Bowie and his backing band The Spiders from Mars, was released in 1972 on the album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.The song tells of an alien messiah and hints at his destiny to save the world from the impending disaster described in Bowie's "Five Years", as well as his fate as the quintessential "soul lover". In terms of the story arc of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, this is one of the most important songs as it describes the creation of Ziggy from a combination of religion, romance, sexual freedom, rebellion, and passion; he metamorphoses into the archetypal rock star.Definitely in my top 10 over Bowie-songs. (The studio-version, though).

LIFE ON MARS

I can not make a Bowie-special without including this. Probably together with "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "I Want You", which I saw on TV within a few weeks in the spring/early summer of 1977, this is one of my first experiences of a music-video on TV, and two of those songs are still among my absolute favorite songs of all time (no, it's not "I Want You", RJHOG, but that "Video" from Don Kirshner's concert" is still my favorite KISS-video)."Life on Mars?" was first released in 1971 on the album Hunky Dory and also released as a single. The song—which BBC Radio 2 later called "a cross between a Broadway musical and a Salvador Dalí painting"—featured guest piano work by keyboardist Rick Wakeman. When released as a single in 1973, it reached #3 in the UK and stayed on the chart for thirteen weeks. The song re-entered the UK charts at #55 over 30 years later, largely because of its use in the original British television series Life on Mars. Neil McCormick of The Daily Telegraph ranked it as #1 in his 100 Greatest Songs of All Time list. He also commented on the song:A quite gloriously strange anthem, where the combination of stirring, yearning melody and vivid, poetic imagery manage a trick very particular to the art of the song: to be at once completely impenetrable and yet resonant with personal meaning. You want to raise your voice and sing along, yet Bowie’s abstract cut-up lyrics force you to invest the song with something of yourself just to make sense of the experience. And, like all great songs, it's got a lovely tune.Mick Rock filmed and directed a promotional video backstage at Earls Court on 12 May 1973 to accompany the release of the song as a single. It features a heavily made-up Bowie performing the song solo against a white backdrop, in a turquoise "ice-blue" suit designed by Freddi Buretti. It was Bowie's fourth music video.

VALENTINES DAY

Just regarding Dylan, I've got a specific periode, where I think the absolute best albums were released, and as with Bowie, it took me a while to appreciate the "later stuff", even though the occaisional song or two were rather good (especially "Ashes To Ashes"). But recently (within the last 5-10 years), I've not only "loved" Bowie's "start of the 70's-albums", but also the albums released in the rest of the 70's. There are some great songs on Bowie's album from "The Next Day", 2013. The video for "Valentine's Day" was directed by Indrani and Markus Klinko, who previously collaborated with Bowie on his 2002 album Heathen. It features Bowie in an abandoned grain silo in Red Hook, NYC, playing a guitar (a G2T Hohner guitar) and singing the lyrics to the song. Many commentators contrasted the video with the controversial preceding video for The Next Day and described it as more "subdued" in comparison. However, visual hints towards gun violence and the NRA were also noted, suggesting the video was conveying a subtle anti-gun message.

BLACK STAR

From the VERY new album, a video I have posted before as "smash or trash". I think this video is a piece of art, and I do like the song, even though Bowie seems to be experimenting once again, and it's not straight forward pop/rock like on The Next Day. I certainly will give the new album a chance, being the first album released in 2016, that has interest for me.

RIP Bowie was truely one of the most important persons in modern music. In league with Dylan, Waits, Zappa, Lennon, McCartney, Page, Townshend.

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LOVE YOU TIL TUESDAY is not available in the US.  I will look it up later..

 

5 YEARS … I’ll be the first to say I’m not a fan of Bowies music, outside of a few of his more well-known tracks it’s just never resonated with me.  While this isn’t bad, it’s not lyrically very good given the weight of the subject matter, musically its far better though, and while I wouldn’t call it a brilliant opener either it must have some context that I’m missing to make someone say that.  I must say that I love songs that employ a 12-string acoustic guitar though…

 

MOONAGE DAYDREAM … I bet seeing this live was quite an event!  Nice riff and epic feel though.

 

LIFE ON MARS … This is better, but from your comments I get the feeling that his work didn’t play very well in the states, and so we didn’t hear much of it.  I can hear why.  I don’t recall anybody owning any Bowie at least in my circles.  It was probably the Lets Dance era before anybody went back and listened again.  And although I knew Fame, Changes, Major Tom, and a couple other radio hits the album cuts were deemed weird and therefore he was never taken seriously.  I don’t even recall seeing him in the Record Store prior to Lets Dance.

 

VALENTINES DAY …  I’ve been critical of his later work at least the videos that he’s released have been quite weird and musically way left of center.  But this one is probably the best song you’ve posted here.  Its melodic and has a nice beat, though Im not sure what the meaning of the two different eyes colors is, I will leave that alone and chalk it up to artistic expression.

 

BLACKSTAR …  I know what I rated this and I wont repeat that here out of respect.  But musically this escapes me totally though it has moments that are interesting musically. 

 

Bowies vocals don’t really engage me, in all these pieces he’s kind of monotone with the exception of Valentine’s Day, and certainly that’s his style so I get its intentionality.  I think his influence’s lies more in the style, stage show, experimentation, and glam aspects of Art Rock than within the music itself, maybe I’m wrong though, but that’s my take.  Certainly he will be missed… Nice work my friend!

As far as I recall, he had something thrown in his eye, when he was a kid, and therefore it was damaged, and his eyes from then on seemed to have different colours, whereas it was the pupil in his left eye, that was enlarged.

I had no idea... 

I agree, that it would had been pretty daft, if it was a stupid contact lens or whatever.

You should give "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the spiders from Mars", "Honky dory" but also "The Next Day" a listen. I agree, that he had some weird shit on some of his albums, but those 3 are great all the way through. 

Wow Niels, I can only imagine how you must have felt when you got ready to post this.  It's very eerie that you would get this ready to post, only to find out that he had passed away.  

Honestly, I've only ever been a fan of Bowie's hits.  I've always thought Space Oddity was a brilliant song.  But I'm also a fan of songs like Changes, Golden Years, Rebel Rebel and China Girl.  For some reason though, I've never really felt the urge to investigate Bowie's back catalog.  I own Let's Dance and a greatest hits disc.  That's It.  But I'm thinking about getting a couple of albums or either the compilation Nothing Has Changed.  Also, now that I've seen this, I'm thinking about The Next Day.

Five Years was cool, but Moonage Daydream was amazing.  I'd love to hear the studio version.  Love the geetar.  I also thought that Valentine's Day was just terrific.  That's why I'm thinking about checking that album out as well.

But, I really wanna talk about Blackstar.  I had absolutely no intention of even sniffing this album.  I'm pretty sure that I didn't watch the video when you posted it.  I heard "experimental" used as a term to describe the album, and that didn't interest me at all.  See, I like lots of melody in music, and experimental and melody don't usually go hand in hand. But, because of his death, something told me to listen to the sound clips on Amazon (I had already forgotten that he released this video).  Low and behold, because I have Prime, I was able to listen to the complete album on Amazon.  And this song just grabbed me right away.  I'll use a word that I used earlier...the song sounds so dang eerie to me.  It's basically prog, and it's the beginning section and the closing section that almost freak me out.  And the video does too, because of the people shaking in it.  Just freaky.  The middle section does have some melody to it.  I don't know, I just really dig it.  So I ordered the album (it is out of stock, as is pretty much his entire catalog).  I guess I'll get it soon, but it can be Autoripped, which I'm about to do.  

As a side note, I'm hoping Mike Pell will do a Bowie biography show.  I asked him about it, but I haven't heard back yet. Also, in case you have Sirius XM, for the next week or so, channel 30 is all Bowie.  I'm planning on checking that out.

Terrific, but sad post Niels.  Good job.

I'm glad, that you "get" Black Star (the song) as I do. I'm not yet sure, how much I like the whole album, though. As I "said" to Scott, you should definitlely get the "Ziggy"-album, since it's the very best Bowie-album, and certainly the most "classic rock'iest". I heard it yesterday, and there's not a weak track on that album. If you like Moonage Daydream, you'll love that album. And yes, I also think, that Black Star, the song, is Prog, in a good way.

Saw this on FB this morning, immediately thought of you Niels.  I know you don't like The Winery Dogs, but:

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