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David Bowie

Much has been written about David Bowie, from books and essays to articles in magazines. Some have followed him throughout his career, bought all the records, bought all the singles, the japanese imports with one extra song, the biographies, the paraphernalia, etc... I am not that kind of fan. I love most of Bowie's work and respect it, but I don't know it by heart, nor do I care about being able to. I am one of those casual listeners who enjoys some of his classics (and the weirder tracks) and believes that his work fits well within my musical tastes. So, no, I am not a qualified critic of Bowie's work, but then again that is not the point of this site, my opinions are personal and I will review his albums according to what I know about them. Sorry to all you fanatics out there!

Besides remembering having seen the video of his duo with Mick Jagger for the song Dancing In The Street at a very young age, my earliest memory of David Bowie was from his appearance in the film Labyrinth for which he also worked on the soundtrack. The songs were fun, but that's not how I came to admire his work. This would come much later after having listened to the work of Brian Eno and german krautrock. At the time, I was still under the spell of Nine Inch Nails' The Downward Spiral and, reading about Trent Reznor, I found out he was a huge David Bowie fan. Hmm, I thought, to me, he was just this aging artist who was singing a Christmas duo with Bing Crosby every year on TV. There must be something else to the man that I don't know about. I also had a friend of mine at work who was a huge fan of Bowie. The Rykodisc reissues had just come on the market and this friend and the fact that Bowie's experimental and underground persona was once again surfacing (after years of pop sensationalism) sold me and I had to start investigating. But that would take another few years, my hard earned money would only go to artists who had little exposure and whose albums might be pulled off the market at any given time. I bought about eight Bowie albums in one shot after getting a gift certificate and seeing them on special in a local music store here in Sweden. I'm in no hurry to get these knowing they will never be taken off the market any time soon, but I am glad to have them. I sometimes take some of them out because they are the least threatening albums to be played in the house.

It is hard to pin down David Bowie's music. The man is known to completely change musical styles from album to album, often going with what is hip at the time. One album might be experimental prog-rock, the next might be danceable pop tunes. But no matter what type of music he will try his hands on, the end result is unmistakably Bowie. Being true to your artistic-self while completely reinventing yourself over and over again is quite a feat!

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