Who is this Bowie person?

[Lateralthinking1]

That was a fascinating read.

I've always thought that Bowie comes across as incredibly sane and down to earth in interviews.....a recognisble type of canny South Londoner, beneath all the make-up. I'm glad to hear he kept in contact with his brother (as did Michael Caine, apparently).

Some personal memories: I can remember finding Bowie vaguely scary when I was a 5-year old in 1972-3. Although I liked most glam-rock (all the Chinnichap bands, etc), I can remember thinking that Bowie was 'definitely not for kids'. So, when he appeared to release a kiddies record in the late summer of that year (the notorious Laughing Gnome), I was mightily relieved that could be 'normal', after all (I still maintain it's one of the best novelty records ever made by anyone whose name wasn't Anthony Newley).

Later in life - around the age of 14/15 - I became a firm Bowiephile. I bought all the albums and read about him obsessively: my Granddad wasn't amused. 'I'd give him five years for making that racket!' was his comment whenever he overheard me playing the opening track of ....Ziggy Stardust.....'

We were 4-5 years older. A mate was a very big Bolan fan, along with Rod Stewart and Humble Pie on account of his older brother. I recall my mother and him having a lengthy discussion on whether T.Rex ever washed their hair. Hair seemed to be the biggest issue for older people. My Grandad was the least impressed. When Bowie and Ronson were on TOTP, I think that for many it just seemed to be the latest indication of civilisation's decline. Funnily enough, when I think about it now, the friend concerned had lost all of his hair due to an anxiety condition. He was having to wrestle his way through each school day because of taunts. Of that he was more than capable but it was troubling for him emotionally. That discussion might have been helpful to him in some ways.

[Mandryka]

We were 4-5 years older. A mate was a very big Bolan fan, along with Rod Stewart and Humble Pie on account of his older brother. I recall my mother and him having a lengthy discussion on whether T.Rex ever washed their hair. Hair seemed to be the biggest issue for older people. My Grandad was the least impressed. When Bowie and Ronson were on TOTP, I think that for many it just seemed to be the latest indication of civilisation's decline. Funnily enough, when I think about it now, the friend concerned had lost all of his hair due to an anxiety condition. He was having to wrestle his way through each school day because of taunts. Of that he was more than capable but it was troubling for him emotionally. That discussion might have been helpful to him in some ways.

For quite a few people, the Bowie-Ronson appearance on TOTP in June 1972 seemed to have been a liberating moment: it was actually OK to be feminine if you were boy (cf: the moment when Bowie puts his arm around bluff North Yorkshire bloke Ronno's shoulder). All very daring for the time - and one of those great polarising moments that divided the parents from the kids (most great 'pop' moments are like that).

A few months later, Bowie released the 'coming out' single John, I'm Only Dancing, which seemed only to underline the point implicitly made by his first TOTP appearance.

Apprently, Ronno was really shocked to get fan letters from men who fancied him.

I've always wanted to know whatever became of the moon-faced kid in the tank top who you can see dancing badly between Bowie and Ronno.....

[Lateralthinking1]

For quite a few people, the Bowie-Ronson appearance on TOTP in June 1972 seemed to have been a liberating moment: it was actually OK to be feminine if you were boy (cf: the moment when Bowie puts his arm around bluff North Yorkshire bloke Ronno's shoulder). All very daring for the time - and one of those great polarising moments that divided the parents from the kids (most great 'pop' moments are like that).

A few months later, Bowie released the 'coming out' single John, I'm Only Dancing, which seemed only to underline the point implicitly made by his first TOTP appearance.

Apprently, Ronno was really shocked to get fan letters from men who fancied him.

I've always wanted to know whatever became of the moon-faced kid in the tank top who you can see dancing badly between Bowie and Ronno.....

Have just had a look at the video of it. If the kid wasn't slightly younger, I would have said he became Lord Coe.

As you say, that moment is often mentioned. That is not to say there weren't the early appearances of Sweet. Slade were always navvies, however much the one my parents called the goon swung his hair. The odd thing is that all of the emphasis was on image and yet it was always sound that struck me as truly different. I suppose that quite a lot of people in my school looked like younger versions of the pop groups by 1973 so it was commonplace and not much of earlier styles was known anyway. But none of them sounded black, not many spoke with a guitar or indeed elaborate string arrangements and very few, in any sense, were melodic.

This is one of my favourites - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHYj2HVyMuU

[amateur51]

Bowie was always ambitious, both artistically and commercially: he wanted to be a huge star and he became one, principally by taking chances and doing things that NO ONE ELSE would have been prepared to do. His 1972 announcement of his bisexuality could well have killed his career just when it looked like taking off (it was a particularly strange move for him to make, considering he was never actually much of a bisexual - quite a womaniser, in fact, if all is to be believed).

Well this is a considerable re-write of your original, Mandy

[teamsaint]

Not quite sure if the OP is a comment on the new record, or on Bowie's work more generally.

I would be genuinely surprised if most music lovers couldn't find something to love, admire or enjoy in his output. generations of bands certainly followed him slavishly !
Anyway, FWIW, hearing "Starman " in 1972 as a 10 year old was a startling wake up to what (pop) music could be. The opening is still a "hair on the back of the neck moment".

[Lateralthinking1]

Not quite sure if the OP is a comment on the new record, or on Bowie's work more generally.

Actually, it was a good question. My contributions have been from a certain perspective. I have attempted to indicate, alongside others' contributions, that there can be many associations. With quite a few people, it is simply the music but with Bowie there has generally been more. While he is different things to different people, one of the interesting aspects is that musically he is very difficult to categorise. I suppose history might just place him in "the megastar category". After all, in what genre are Phil Collins, Sting and Elton John? At the same time, that would be an injustice and it doesn't seem to me that this has been his objective.

Lydon was theatre. Kraftwerk were the future. Morrissey was incoherent sexuality. Reed was Berlin. Newley was a professional Londoner. Dylan is cultivated enigma. Eno is broader art forms and new technology. The Stone Roses were a ludicrously lengthy disappearance. The number of white soul boys is far too many to select just one example. Bowie has been all those things - and some. He isn't punk, electronica, indie, music hall, post-Velvet, folk/blues, soundscape, the sixties revival again or Level 42. What he tells us is that while he is mainly a musician, he is to be defined after his death as "an artist". It would be churlish to disagree.

If his records in middle age have been pleasant enough, they have not been unique. That is why we are given all the other stuff. Even his statement on bisexuality, while not amounting to much, is still considered by many to be unusually relevant. That it retains a comprehensible significance says something about the design of uncategorised art. Mandryka might well be right about the late works of other singers. Many could sink without trace. In Bowie's case, the antidote is to reside in "the enigmatic genre of music", hence the bizarre ten year hiatus. That absence of categorisation will guarantee his place in history or completely backfire.

[teamsaint]

The OP was a comment, not a question. I just thought there might be a subtext which implied a comment on his wider body of work. Perhaps there is. Perhaps I perceived one where non existed.

[Lateralthinking1]

The OP was a comment, not a question. I just thought there might be a subtext which implied a comment on his wider body of work. Perhaps there is. Perhaps I perceived one where non existed.

Sure - and I don't know. It will be interesting to see if someone takes it up on those lines.

[Mandryka]

Bowie a very English artist. Apparently, America never really 'got' him - to the average American pop consumer (and America, more than any other, is a land of consumers), Bowie is a British 'niche' artist who had a couple of big hits and who is, somehow, considered 'important'. There is not the mass consciousness of his work that there is (or was) in Britain.

I've just remembered the last time that Bowie was genuinely controversial....it was when he made his 'Nazi' statements in, I think, 1977. He was living in Berlin at the time, working with Eno and Iggy Pop, coming down off an apparently 'serious' heroin addiction and dabbling in a number of potential life choices, Christianity and far right politics being just two of them. He opined that Britain would benefit from having a fascist government, offered the view that Hitler was 'the first rock star' ('he staged a country') and gave what looked like a Nazi salute to some fans at Victoria station. The idiots who ran the NME etc took him at his word, of course.

[anotherbob]

Bowie is a British 'niche' artist who had a couple of big hits and who is, somehow, considered 'important'.

About right I'd say (IMHO)