David Bowie

So, right now I'm going through a David Bowie kick.  This is probably my second major Bowie kick.  My first started in high school when the classic rock station played "Ziggy Stardust" on the radio, blowing my mind, and sending me out to buy the album.  So early, glam Bowie staked out a piece of my musical heart early, the same time I was discovering the Smashing Pumpkins and Screaming Trees.

But the last year or so, reaching a fever point in the last couple of months, I've been drawn to the late-seventies Thin White Duke phase of Bowie's career.  I bought Low several years ago, and then took the plunge on Lodger but it has been Heroes and Iggy Pop's The Idiot that have really dropped my jaw.

Everyone knows the title song to Heroes (no I'm not going to do this "" marks, it's a pain in the neck.)  Almost no one can name a single other song on the album.  This album followed Low in having half the album dedicated to electronic soundscapes, and the other half to broken, weird pop songs.  I love Low; I love the weird cabaret "Be My Wife" and the weird pseudo-funk "Breaking Glass" and all of it.  The songs are so...broken; pieces of abstract songs that got stuck together.  Love it. 

Heroes the songs are more song-like, but Adrien Belew will keep anything from seeming conventional.  The guitar riffs end on weird notes and beats, the harmonies are weird, and he keeps popping up to falsetto in the middle of a phrase.  "Joe the Lion" is full throated, roaring rock and roll, and he keeps shouting "get up and sleep."  Or in "Blackout" in the middle of this cacophonous song, he croons for one verse "If you don't stay tonight/I will take that plane tonight/I've nothing to lose, nothing to gain/I'll kiss you in the rain..." and it's this beautiful minisong that he has no interest in returning to.

"Sister Midnight" though, knocks me out.  Neil Gaiman used it for a stripper in one of the "Sandman" comics, which is brilliant.  It's that menacing disco/funk thing that Bowie patented in the seventies, and Iggy Pop rides it for everything it's worth.  The only band that can do that same dark dance funk thing right now is Franz Ferdinand, whose last album was a beautiful late night rave in itself.