David Bowie is known for many things: sex appeal, wit, and style to name a few. He’s recorded nearly 30 albums under his own name, and countless collaboration albums with such artists as Brian Eno, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Mick Ronson, Luther Vandross, Stevie Ray Vaughan, John Lennon, Nile Rogers, Bing Crosby, Reeves Gabrels, Trent Reznor, Mick Jagger, Carlos Alomar, Freddy Mercury, Peter Frampton and Tony Visconti (most of us dream of just getting their autographs). His songs have been covered by some of the biggest names in music, and have rode in Billboard’s Top 10. A pile of of his best-selling albums from his 35 plus year career have inspired artists with such albums as The Man Who Sold The World, Space Oddity and the Berlin Trilogy (Low, Heroes, Lodger). The Great Chameleon has changed himself as many times as he has tried his hands in various businesses, as he has not only starred in movies and a Broadway play (Elephant Man), is an accomplished artist, is featured in a videogame, was one of the first musicians to embrace music videos, has a strong business mind and in the late 90’s started his own Internet service (one of the first artists to do so). His career is as varied as 10 of any Hollywood stars or rock stars. But what is he best known for? His music, of course!

I got interested in Bowie’s music toward the end of my high school years. I’ve always been a fan of so called “Classic Rock”. You know, 60’s and 70’s rock. It’s funny that 80’s music is starting to air on classic rock stations (am I getting old? yikes!). Working on outside with the radio on during the summer I started listening to a certain crappy station from my hometown Oneonta, New York (best known for its high redneck population). That’s around the time when I first heard some of his better-known hits (Space Oddity, The Man Who Sold The World, Changes, Ziggy Stardust, Suffragette City, Jean Genie, Rebel Rebel, Young Americans, Fame, Golden Years, Heroes, Ashes To Ashes, Modern Love, China Girl, Let’s Dance, and Blue Jean). It wasn’t until later on in my college years (I didn’t actually go to college, but spent most of my time outside of work on campus with my girlfriend and my friends. This enabled me to get a college “experience” without the boring classes. I must recommend it.) that I really started to “dig in” to Bowie’s career. I had two albums of his at the time, but I soon met a few people on campus who were Bowie fans (Future, Hazzard, and Dr. Babykicker). Scrounging through the albums they each owned amazed me as I delved into his awesome career. It wasn’t until I heard Ziggy Stardust, and Hunky Dory that I was permanently hooked. There are few artists alive or dead that have a career that is anywhere as long, and weird as his. As I got more interested in his work I turned to the Internet to find out more. Sites like TeenageWildlife, Bassman, 5years, Bowie WonderWorld and Bowie’s own DavidBowie.com proved useful for this.

After reading countless hours worth of information detailing his humble beginnings in England with such bands as The King Bees to his recordings of the classic story Peter and the Wolf and his later collaborations in Tin Machine I wanted more. So I went out and bought a book called Bowie: Loving The Alien. I’m a dork. Well, after my eyes nearly fell out (I just don’t have much of an attention span for books) I decided the best way to learn about him was through his music. So I started collecting everything I could get my hands on. This is also where the Internet (broadband and a big harddrive) comes in handy. Back in the early days of Napster I would download Gigabytes worth of mp3’s. Napster was a great place to snag rare and bootleg tracks. I had a list of Bowie music that would humble any Bowie fan. This was all before the Great Harddrive Crash of 2001, when I lost 10 Gigs of my favorite mp3’s in a fell swoop (a partition went *schlorp* and they were gone). Anyway, I found some really cool recordings, including some very old ones that haven’t been available for nearly 40 years (from early, early on in his career. Stuff that isn’t even on the compilations of his 60’s stuff). Since Napster isn’t back from it’s legal hiatus yet, I’d suggest these alternatives: Morpheus, Hotline and Gnutella. Tape (actually CD, but they still call ‘em tape trees) trading trees are also a great way of getting cool and unusual bootlegs.

One of the things I like most about Bowie’s music is that it is so incredibly inspirational and influential. When I need to get something creative done, I throw on an album like Hunky Dory or Low and I’m good to go. His music can vary to light and happy (like in Kooks), sad, (Five Years), scary (1984), funny (The Laughing Gnome), controversial (Running Gun Blues), loud (The Man Who Sold The World), crazy (All The Madmen) to simply genius (Ziggy Stardust). Bowie has inspired some of the biggest names in the recording business, with such bands like Nirvana, Marilyn Manson, Bauhaus, Oasis, The Cure, Radiohead, The Smashing Pumpkins, U2, Nine Inch Nails and Philip Glass emulating his work. His ability to change with the times and stay ahead of the curve by foreseeing trends (sometimes years ahead of their time) while the rest of the world sometimes takes years to catch up with him. For instance, during the late 70’s his experimental work with Brian Eno on the Berlin trilogy is still held to be one of the finest sets of albums to ever be recorded. Don’t believe me? Kraftwerk, one of the early adopters of electronic music held such respect for Bowie’s work they recorded Trans Europe Express (which led to the genesis of Industrial and Electronica). The Sex Pistols even consider him one of the the Grandfathers of Punk alongside Iggy Pop (who Bowie produced his first album). While it was T. Rex’s Marc Bolan who is credited with starting the “Glam Rock” movement, it was David Bowie who brought it to the world stage with the unleashing of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars. Hell, BBC took a poll of a huge collection of bands, with the bands voting to see who was the most influential to them. Bowie was #1 on the list, beating out even the Beatles. And although he has never won a Grammy for his music (but received one for Best Video, short form “David Bowie"), he was recently awarded with an honorary doctorate by the Berklee College of Music and was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

His wanderings into the world of Hollywood have been interesting to note as well. Starting with an uncredited tiny role in The Virgin Solider (1969), and later a leading role in the low budget sci-fi classic The Man Who Fell To Earth (1976) and the 80’s classic Jim Henson fantasy Labyrinth (1986) he’s played many interesting roles with his most recent appearance in Ben Stiller’s Zoolander (2001). Be sure to read Future’s review of his work in The Hunger. He even played Andy Warhol in Basquiat (1996) whom he’d known years before, when he discovered Loud Reed and the Velvet Underground (whom he later produced his first solo album titled Transformer).

The 90’s saw Bowie’s public offerings of his artwork. He is a painter, and photographer and sells his work online on BowieArt.com to anyone with the cash to afford it (he also showcases other, unknown artists there too). After a bad management deal in the 1970’s with MainMan records, who walked away with a vast fortune of his money, he later became a shrewd businessman. Learning the hard ways of business, he decided to buy back his back catalog of music, which he had sold the rights to years before. After securing the rights, he sold “BowieBonds” in 1997, raising over $55 million. Even this has proved influential as comedian Jerry Seinfeld even has reportedly looked into a bond scheme to raise money from the syndication of the hit TV show Seinfeld. And in the last couple of years, he has opened BowieBanc, where you can get your own Bowie credit card and loans, and BowieNet, one of the first artist based (award winning) Internet service provider that allows you contact with the artist himself, and a recent reissue of his entire back catalog, all of which earns him a tidy sum while he’s not on stage, enabling him to play pinball at the corner grocery with his neighborhood chums.

The 90’s also saw the multicolored eye’d rocker (actually his eyes are both blue but one pupil is permanently dilated due to a from a boyhood fight, resulting in one eye looking darker) go from hopeless bachelor to remarrying as the husband of African supermodel Iman, who last year became mother to daughter Alexandria. Now 55 (born January 8, 1947) he has started to slow down, seeking the life of a family man, something he wasn’t successful with during his first marriage to Angela Bowie (who the Rolling Stones song “Angie” was written about) in the 70’s. He now spends most of his time living in New York City, with his family and records with his new band when he sees fit to do so. A new album titled “Toy”, covering some old songs he recorded in the 1960’s has an expected release date in February or March. He was most recently seen on television opening VH1’s Concert for New York City.

All in all he is one of the few people in the world that simply amaze me. I don’t have the energy to do 1/8 of the accomplishments that he has made during his 55 years riding this island Earth. I know I’ve left all sorts of stuff out of this write-up, but these are the things that mean the most to me. I could go on and on about his work with The Spiders From Mars (Mick “Ronno” Ronson, Trevor Bolder, and Mick “Woody” Woodmansey) who were quite possibly one of the finest bands I’ve ever heard. If you go back and listen to Ziggy Stardust, I think you’ll agree. Or about his rumored sexual relations to various male and females in the music world, or any number of other crazy things he’s done in his life, but that isn’t what this article is about.  The fact that he never seemed happy to stay in one place, planting his feet and saying “This is what David Bowie is.” and defining themselves as one thing is pretty wild. Most people seek stability as soon as it is available to them, where Bowie sought the unrest of a madman. How many artists can you count that reinvented themselves to keep up pace with each new generation of music for nearly 40 years? I’ll give you 5 minutes. Go ahead. Count. I’ll bet you can’t count more than one hands worth of fingers.

Well, that wraps up my big review of David Bowie. Perhaps I’ll review an album of his one of these days. I got a chance to see him in concert (oh yeah, that’s what this article was supposed to be, a concert review! Oops. hehe) on June 16, 2000. Unfortunately, after arriving at the Roseland Ballroom at 2pm (I was about the 50th person from the front of the line, which I might add was a free-seat, sold out concert), I waited in line for 4 and a half hours where, around 6.30pm it was announced that the concert was cancelled on account of him blowing out his voice (the first time in 35 years) from the night before. A major disappointment. We were offered to exchange our tickets for the Monday night’s show, but I had to work, so I had to pass. Well, I got my money back, but with it I got depressed. Oh well, I was able to download via mp3’s the previous night’s concert (which was AWESOME I might add). Anyway, several hundred people went home sad that day. It is rumored that his chain-smoking was partially to blame. Today, I read that he was hospitalized for having a nasty case of the flu, which wasn’t helped any by his smoking.

Hopefully we will see many more years of Bowie, but at the very least, we can all appreciate his influence on the world of music and style, in much the same way the Roman Empire was affected by the myths and legends of the Greeks; Bowie’s myths and legends will surely be around for a long time to come.

-Hollywood

What other MvsR staff think:
Bowie: What do I think?  I think you can’t write and your facts are all wrong.  I *AM* the single most important thing to happen to rock musi… no, THE WORLD!

Warhol: Don’t really have an opinion on the music, but I adore his shoes.

Be sure you take a look at our latest gallery: The David Bowie Gallery!

Resources:
History of DB
Salon on David Bowie
Hip Online on David Bowie
MTV on David Bowie
Various DB fan sites