Great piece, Jami, lovingly written! In the early '70s (when I was in high school in Texas), I was reading all the rock press, domestic and the 3 UK tabs: NME, Sounds, Melody Maker, a week later (as they were shipped, of course), and I remember reading about the "Spiders" flap/retirement thing (mostly in the UK press). I bought the domestic RCA "Ziggy" album the first week of release (June '72, I had just finished my junior year in hi school) for $2.99...it was on sale. It would go for $3.99 after the first sale week (a $4.98 RCA list price)!
Can't recall if I had any of Bowie's albums before "Ziggy." Likely not, although I quickly went back to fill in my personal catalog after "Ziggy" got my attention! I was already long into Bolan (I had his "Warlock of Love" book around 1970), and virtually anything else that was avant or envelope-pushing!
Bowie was, obviously, such a talent-laden artist who, thankfully (while, granted, gone too soon), had a lot of time to lay out his artistic vision, album after album, video after video, and tour after tour.
One of my favorite "nuclear talent fall-outs" is how he influenced others, far more than just music (which was massive, if not immediately obvious for artists who may not have "sounded like they were"): Artists like Madonna and Gaga have borrowed, whole-cloth, from the Bowie media-manipulation handbook! Tell 'em only what you want, always keep 'em guessing (looking at you, David!), and feel free to confuse and confound them! Madonna, especially, has been quoted as saying as such, while I'm only guessing Gaga is also so Bowie-influenced!
A memorable rock-history moment was Madge's first appearance on "American Bandstand," early-'80s ("Borderline" single maybe?). Paraphrase: Dick: "So, what are your ambitions? What do you hope to accomplish?" Mad Donna (as I've loved calling her!): "To rule the world!" Talk about prescient! Not to mention, larger-than-Goliath cajones! And, she knew just what she was saying (and meant), and she was nowhere close to joking.
Again, great rememberies, Jami, and I may not get a chance to offer my "official" half-century hat-tip to "Ziggy," so this just may end up doin' it! Thanks!
Great backstory here. Growing up I was always amazed that the Bowie “character” was so readily embraced - visually, sexually. I had no idea that he (and the band) were dodging beer bottles. There’s a kind of acceptance for people who slog through the deep mud of being themselves. I only really tuned him in after the hard work was done. And what an album. Five Years is at the top of personal Bowie Pantheon. It’s the one Bowie song I’ve never been able to play loudly enough. Thanks for this post.
Thanks Adam! "Five Years" is a personal favorite for me as well. I cried so much to that song in particular when Bowie died. Sadly, I write about so many artists that had to slog through that mud longer than Bowie and never reached true acceptance in their lifetime. I think that's partly why I'm so motivated to amplify these stories, even if the celebration is posthumous.
Ziggy maybe my favourite Bowie incarnation. When my dad put on his vinyl of the 'rise and fall...' it was a revelation. It's a perfect album, there isn't one track that doesn't sparkle and shine with artistic flare and genius.
I love the hedonism of it all. The unabashed sexuality and power of Ziggy. He created an alien character so he could experiment and exist outside of the limited construct of humanity.
There is a lesson for all of us (as artists and individuals) in this. Be bold, try things, and move on when your ready.
Bowie was my bisexual icon as a confused teenager, he made the 'fence' a cool place to sit.
This was a wonderful recap and has made me excited to read what comes next.
"Be bold, try new things, and move on when you're ready." - Exactly! The other lesson is to not give up if you have a bold vision. Ziggy was his fifth album. He kept iterating and inventing until he finally made it. And then he was bold enough to continue expanding. It's a beautiful lesson.
I always find it so interesting that people are very eager to embrace a person’s artistry even if they dislike or even hate their person. Black, queer, transgender artists of all genres (music, art, etc) are celebrated for what they create but often shunned for who they are. It’s the oddest juxtaposition. I’m sure smarter minds could explain why folks can do this. It’s easier to separate the creation from the creator and only accept parts of them, perhaps? IDK. I am grateful, however, that art is an avenue made available for people to share at least a piece of their true selves.
growing up in montana and nebraska in the last two decades of the 20th century, i knew nothing of this world. All i knew was POP Bowie. “let’s dance”. “china girl.” that “dancing in the streets” video with mick jaggar on MTV. The Little Drummer Boy with Bing. I loved those songs but never really considered myself a Bowie devotee. As too often happens, i didn’t really get to know bowie until he was gone. it was only a few years before his death that i found out anything of bowie’s legacy and of his earlier works. it’s so wild that i found myself embarrassed and a little ashamed for always living in low culture and never riding the cool train. It wasn’t until he died that i realized how much i relied upon him as part of my horizon. i was gutted. and i didn’t know why. again, embarrassed to feel such deep grief for a life I had never really known at all. in the spring of maybe 2016, i taught a class at the Bloomberg School of Public Health named “Under Pressure: Health, Wealth, & Poverty.” Failed most miserably at attempts to reveal knowledge that we all repress in order to stay afloat. I know for certain that I got caught in the performance “g-spot trap”(TM). so overwhelmed and worried about how my audience would receive my messages, i lost the plot.
In an interview, the late author David Foster Wallace spoke to this problem of art that Bowie articulated so beautifully and to how Bowie’s fictional characters could speak more truthfully about the realities and potential of the human condition than any pile of data or facts could grasp. gratitude for allowing me to share a long excerpt:
“Since an ineluctable part of being a human self is suffering, part of what we humans come to art for is an experience of suffering, necessarily a vicarious experience, more like a sort of “generalization” of suffering. Does this make sense? We all suffer alone in the real world; true empathy’s impossible. But if a piece of fiction can allow us imaginatively to identify with a character’s pain, we might then also more easily conceive of others identifying with our own. This is nourishing, redemptive; we become less alone inside. It might just be that simple....I think tv promulgates the idea that good art is just art which makes people like and depend on the vehicle that brings them the art. This seems like a poisonous lesson for a would-be artist to grow up with. And one consequence is that if the artist is excessively dependent on simply being “liked,” so that her true end isn’t in the work but in a certain audience’s good opinion, she is going to develop a terrific hostility to that audience, simply because she has given all her power away to them. It’s the familiar love-hate syndrome of seduction: “I don’t really care what it is I say, I care only that you like it. But since your good opinion is the sole arbitrator of my success and worth, you have tremendous power over me, and I fear you and hate you for it”......Look man, we’d probably most of us agree that these are dark times, and stupid ones, but do we need fiction that does nothing but dramatize how dark and stupid everything is? In dark times, the definition of good art would seem to be art that locates and applies CPR to those elements of what’s human and magical that still live and glow despite the times’ darkness. Really good fiction could have as dark a worldview as it wished, but it’d find a way both to depict this world and to illuminate the possibilities for being alive and human in it....”
I know I’m a bit late to this article, but wow was it a great read.
It is so in-depth, and as I have said with other pieces you’ve written, you taught me more about Bowie than I otherwise knew.
I love how self-assured he was, and how he didn’t concern himself with pandering to the audience but rather was only concerned with what he thought of his art. That is something to be admired.
Great piece, Jami, lovingly written! In the early '70s (when I was in high school in Texas), I was reading all the rock press, domestic and the 3 UK tabs: NME, Sounds, Melody Maker, a week later (as they were shipped, of course), and I remember reading about the "Spiders" flap/retirement thing (mostly in the UK press). I bought the domestic RCA "Ziggy" album the first week of release (June '72, I had just finished my junior year in hi school) for $2.99...it was on sale. It would go for $3.99 after the first sale week (a $4.98 RCA list price)!
Can't recall if I had any of Bowie's albums before "Ziggy." Likely not, although I quickly went back to fill in my personal catalog after "Ziggy" got my attention! I was already long into Bolan (I had his "Warlock of Love" book around 1970), and virtually anything else that was avant or envelope-pushing!
Bowie was, obviously, such a talent-laden artist who, thankfully (while, granted, gone too soon), had a lot of time to lay out his artistic vision, album after album, video after video, and tour after tour.
One of my favorite "nuclear talent fall-outs" is how he influenced others, far more than just music (which was massive, if not immediately obvious for artists who may not have "sounded like they were"): Artists like Madonna and Gaga have borrowed, whole-cloth, from the Bowie media-manipulation handbook! Tell 'em only what you want, always keep 'em guessing (looking at you, David!), and feel free to confuse and confound them! Madonna, especially, has been quoted as saying as such, while I'm only guessing Gaga is also so Bowie-influenced!
A memorable rock-history moment was Madge's first appearance on "American Bandstand," early-'80s ("Borderline" single maybe?). Paraphrase: Dick: "So, what are your ambitions? What do you hope to accomplish?" Mad Donna (as I've loved calling her!): "To rule the world!" Talk about prescient! Not to mention, larger-than-Goliath cajones! And, she knew just what she was saying (and meant), and she was nowhere close to joking.
Again, great rememberies, Jami, and I may not get a chance to offer my "official" half-century hat-tip to "Ziggy," so this just may end up doin' it! Thanks!
Great backstory here. Growing up I was always amazed that the Bowie “character” was so readily embraced - visually, sexually. I had no idea that he (and the band) were dodging beer bottles. There’s a kind of acceptance for people who slog through the deep mud of being themselves. I only really tuned him in after the hard work was done. And what an album. Five Years is at the top of personal Bowie Pantheon. It’s the one Bowie song I’ve never been able to play loudly enough. Thanks for this post.
Thanks Adam! "Five Years" is a personal favorite for me as well. I cried so much to that song in particular when Bowie died. Sadly, I write about so many artists that had to slog through that mud longer than Bowie and never reached true acceptance in their lifetime. I think that's partly why I'm so motivated to amplify these stories, even if the celebration is posthumous.
Ziggy maybe my favourite Bowie incarnation. When my dad put on his vinyl of the 'rise and fall...' it was a revelation. It's a perfect album, there isn't one track that doesn't sparkle and shine with artistic flare and genius.
I love the hedonism of it all. The unabashed sexuality and power of Ziggy. He created an alien character so he could experiment and exist outside of the limited construct of humanity.
There is a lesson for all of us (as artists and individuals) in this. Be bold, try things, and move on when your ready.
Bowie was my bisexual icon as a confused teenager, he made the 'fence' a cool place to sit.
This was a wonderful recap and has made me excited to read what comes next.
"Be bold, try new things, and move on when you're ready." - Exactly! The other lesson is to not give up if you have a bold vision. Ziggy was his fifth album. He kept iterating and inventing until he finally made it. And then he was bold enough to continue expanding. It's a beautiful lesson.
I always find it so interesting that people are very eager to embrace a person’s artistry even if they dislike or even hate their person. Black, queer, transgender artists of all genres (music, art, etc) are celebrated for what they create but often shunned for who they are. It’s the oddest juxtaposition. I’m sure smarter minds could explain why folks can do this. It’s easier to separate the creation from the creator and only accept parts of them, perhaps? IDK. I am grateful, however, that art is an avenue made available for people to share at least a piece of their true selves.
growing up in montana and nebraska in the last two decades of the 20th century, i knew nothing of this world. All i knew was POP Bowie. “let’s dance”. “china girl.” that “dancing in the streets” video with mick jaggar on MTV. The Little Drummer Boy with Bing. I loved those songs but never really considered myself a Bowie devotee. As too often happens, i didn’t really get to know bowie until he was gone. it was only a few years before his death that i found out anything of bowie’s legacy and of his earlier works. it’s so wild that i found myself embarrassed and a little ashamed for always living in low culture and never riding the cool train. It wasn’t until he died that i realized how much i relied upon him as part of my horizon. i was gutted. and i didn’t know why. again, embarrassed to feel such deep grief for a life I had never really known at all. in the spring of maybe 2016, i taught a class at the Bloomberg School of Public Health named “Under Pressure: Health, Wealth, & Poverty.” Failed most miserably at attempts to reveal knowledge that we all repress in order to stay afloat. I know for certain that I got caught in the performance “g-spot trap”(TM). so overwhelmed and worried about how my audience would receive my messages, i lost the plot.
In an interview, the late author David Foster Wallace spoke to this problem of art that Bowie articulated so beautifully and to how Bowie’s fictional characters could speak more truthfully about the realities and potential of the human condition than any pile of data or facts could grasp. gratitude for allowing me to share a long excerpt:
“Since an ineluctable part of being a human self is suffering, part of what we humans come to art for is an experience of suffering, necessarily a vicarious experience, more like a sort of “generalization” of suffering. Does this make sense? We all suffer alone in the real world; true empathy’s impossible. But if a piece of fiction can allow us imaginatively to identify with a character’s pain, we might then also more easily conceive of others identifying with our own. This is nourishing, redemptive; we become less alone inside. It might just be that simple....I think tv promulgates the idea that good art is just art which makes people like and depend on the vehicle that brings them the art. This seems like a poisonous lesson for a would-be artist to grow up with. And one consequence is that if the artist is excessively dependent on simply being “liked,” so that her true end isn’t in the work but in a certain audience’s good opinion, she is going to develop a terrific hostility to that audience, simply because she has given all her power away to them. It’s the familiar love-hate syndrome of seduction: “I don’t really care what it is I say, I care only that you like it. But since your good opinion is the sole arbitrator of my success and worth, you have tremendous power over me, and I fear you and hate you for it”......Look man, we’d probably most of us agree that these are dark times, and stupid ones, but do we need fiction that does nothing but dramatize how dark and stupid everything is? In dark times, the definition of good art would seem to be art that locates and applies CPR to those elements of what’s human and magical that still live and glow despite the times’ darkness. Really good fiction could have as dark a worldview as it wished, but it’d find a way both to depict this world and to illuminate the possibilities for being alive and human in it....”
💜💜💜
I know I’m a bit late to this article, but wow was it a great read.
It is so in-depth, and as I have said with other pieces you’ve written, you taught me more about Bowie than I otherwise knew.
I love how self-assured he was, and how he didn’t concern himself with pandering to the audience but rather was only concerned with what he thought of his art. That is something to be admired.
Thanks.