DAVID BOWIE – "Let's Dance"

The album ‘Let’s Dance’ pretty much leaves me cold and Bowie isn’t worth listening to again until ‘Outside’ in 1995 (and from then on, only sporadically). I still did a bit of djing when this was a hit and it worked on the dancefloor (and on subsequent party tapes for the next decade or two, although I wouldn’t use it now). I’d just been to Australia for the first time, which made me like the video, too. As a single, I preferred his cover of Iggy’s ‘China Girl’ from the same album, which only just missed the top spot, partly because I wasn’t at the time familiar with Iggy’s version. Anyway, good write up and a worthy final number one from the godlike genius that is David Bowie (abominations or future surprises aside). And good luck with no. 2, Tom!

I’d have given this at least an 8 – there’s something about Bowie’s delivery of “Put ON your RED shoes and DANCE the blues” that punches me in the gut each time. And the way he leaves so much space for the stark beat + guitar combo to fill up: it’s so lonely and defiant that you can only conclude that Bowie is talking to himself in the chorus, plucking up the courage to go and talk to the object of his affection he mentions in the verse but chickening out when he imagines what’ll happen once the girl *does* fall into his arms. Bowie is the one trembling like a flower.

OK for the trembling like a flower line it might get a 9.

Interestingly polite pointing out by Nile Rodgers on Radio 2 that the demo Bowie played to him was a strummy slight little number, devoid of the groove that was there after Nile’s involvement. Resurrection Watch, if there were one, would include M Ward’s lovely reading that is assiduously not in the “aha, see, this is a dancey song rendered acoustic – bet you didn’t expect that” category and the Kleptones’ meld-up with Papa Was A Rolling Stone.

7 seems fair, I might go 8 (love the build-up intro and this is almost definitely the best that 80s nile rodgers production ever sounded). curious that what were moves away from superstardom in the uk for bowie were moves toward it in the usa; ‘fame’ and ‘golden years’ being his hugest hits of the seventies stateside by far and ‘let’s dance’ being his ‘comeback’. i’d never noticed the pattern either, but it carries on even into irrelevance with tin machine yielding to al b. sure (at a stretch outside -> earthling could be worked in here also).

‘Let’s Dance’ was the last Bowie album that I bought apart from the greatest hits package a few years later. Looking at a track listing online I can only recall the hits now and, like ♯3, I prefer China Girl – as a performance and for it’s inclusion as a financial lifeline for Iggy. I still like this and have fond memories of it being played at a lot of parties in ’83.
Following on from the video thread this was one of the first songs that I can remember where the video premiere was flagged up as an ‘event’ – linked to The Tube IIRC. I think Bowie had always appeared to be positioned as slightly left-field on TOTP whereas he was a perfect fit for The Tube’s desire to appear edgier and cool. He was also practically the patron saint of The Face which had emerged in the three years since his last album of new material so his success with this song was almost assured. That success may have been his undoing – he no longer seemed cutting edge and a portal to less commercial acts such as Neu or VU – he was the mainstream.
Without that aura of innovation and credibility his subsequent work (much of which was poor anyway) ceased to ‘matter’ in the same way.

I’m finding some interesting parallels between what I wrote in my last para at #11 with Frank Kogan’s article linked by Tom in his Twitter feed. The article is at: http://bit.ly/YzxGk

So, another Rosie milestone. This time marking the moment when she really did hit rock bottom.

After a few weeks mostly holed out in my mother’s back bedroom, something had to give. I suspect that the trigger was paying a visit to my sister in her birthday and getting a chilly reception. Soon after that I part-thumbed, part bused, my way to Great Yarmouth. I don’t remember a great deal about that journey, except for kicking my heels in Newmarket for a while. I was travelling light but in Newmarket I acquired a half bottle of Famous Grouse. The idea being to drink the whisky on the beach in Yarmouth and then walk into the North Sea in the small hours of the morning. But, the best-laid schemes o’ mice and men, etc, and instead of walking into the sea I found myself in St Nicholas’s Hospital in Yarmouth, under observation. (I had a long interview with a female doctor who was hell-bent on concluding that I was suffering from psychosis brought on by the consumption of herbal substance. We sparred for some considerable time before she gave in and concluded that I was suffering from severe emotional exhaustion.) Two days later I was given the bus fare back to Hitchin and sent on my way. Obviously, there was nowhere for me to go but up, from here. And things did work out fairly well in the end.

As for the song, well, obviously it carries a lot of baggage. All the same, I like it a lot, and its resonances are more optimistic than otherwise because it marks the beginning of my fightback. And it’s pretty good for dancing to, whether as a bop at a conference/office party disco or as the basis for a slow Leroc. I’d give it an 8.

This was the Bowie I was first aware of – the slightly sinister, polished one, who did songs that were full of tunes, but that weren’t straightforward. I seem to remember my 12 year-old self being slightly intimidated by him, or certainly by the videos.

I also prefer China Girl, but this track has grown on me over the years. “The SERIOUS MOONLIGHT” – a seven from me.

Was he ever tempted to go for “under the moonlight, hilarious moonlight” when performing it live.

I don’t think this song being massive was unexpected at all. It sounds like he was deliberately going for major mainstream success by dropping all the old weirdness for big beats and a Mr. Sheen production. He had a new record label and a decade of excess to pay for.

People were prepared for a lot of things from Bowie but not him being “normal”, it was a bit of a shock at the time and as much of a head-scratcher as the second side of ‘Low’ had been. It took a while to assimilate.

The intro is so brash it makes me laugh but generally I find it hits me over the head too much. Nice to see David happy though (and making lots of money), I saw him on this tour and it was like a Greatest Hits show, he did everything you’d want him to.

Yes, I wouldn’t say I was a huge Nouvelle Vague fan – their “A Forest” is the only time the treatment really works – but they’re harmless at worst: their attention to stylistic detail puts them well aside from the “acoustic = sensitive” squad.

You know I listened to Blue Jean the other day, and it’s a seriously good single. I dismissed it almost out of hand at the time, but its taut, punchy and a pleasingly old-fashioned 3:10. It must be the most understated single he’s ever put out.

Rory – maybe my ire would be better aimed at the sort of coffee table ‘classiness’ of that whole scene, rather than the NV protagonists (who I accept prob brought their own slant to it). Though I think part of the annoyance at it stems from the whole plunder and over-reinterpret everything culture typified by those Verve Remixed albums (lets put Nina Simone and tasteful unobtrusive beats together! why?). Enough ‘eclectic tastefulness’ but ultimately soulless and meaningless reinvention already…

I’d hardly call China Girl the most readily recognizable Bowie song to Americans; sitting here now, I can’t even think how it goes.

If anything, Bowie’s 70s material has become more representative in hindsight, as he gets more play on classic rock stations than on eighties stations in (my corner of) the US: Space Oddity, Changes, most of Ziggy, Jean Genie, Rebel Rebel, and the Young Americans/Fame/Golden Years triptych are far more familiar to people who weren’t there in the 80s than China Girl or Modern Love.

Also the Bowie goes straight line seems to disregard the fact that he previously had a bash as a superstraight Tony Newley light entertainer!

Yeah, I admired rather than liked this. I think I was a little peeved he’d knocked DD off the top – he jumped in at 5 the week they came in at 1, then climbed to 2 and I thought they’d hold him off. Rats. These things matter, of course.

Result is, ‘Let’s Dance’ still sounds fresh to me. I was cold towards it back in ’83 even though I appreciated it had power – but now that I’m not so protective(!) of DD, I can enjoy it more. Kids are weird.

I bought ‘China Girl’ though and that was the first single I owned that had that smell. You know – I think it’s the gloss on the sleeve. The new Jarvis album has it too, I notice. It’s like the taste of a madeleine to me.

I’m surprised that nobody seems to have mentioned the fact that Bowie’s previous hit (in the UK at least) had been “Peace On Earth/Little Drummer Boy” with Bing Crosby! Maybe that’s why I don’t recall being particularly surprised by this “change of direction” at the time.

Well, the jump may be a little brutal, but nonetheless… from the beach scene in the Ashes To Ashes video to the beach scene in the China Girl video: that really does mark a change in sensibilities I think, and politics does come into it.

No 2 watch: Culture Club “Church of the Poison Mind”

One of the signs of the decline of 80s pop, or at least my growing alienation from it, was the overdone drum sound evident from around 1985 onwards, where songs began to seem overblown for no good reason other than that the tools were available to (over)use. Obviously mega-drums were around earlier than that, most notably with Bonnie Tyler and with this one, but at least with those two they have a purpose!

The drums, the musical stabs and above all the voice – that “like a flower” crescendo especially – give the impression of Bowie addressing the world from atop a high canyon, not unlike the one Coyote keeps falling into while chasing Roadrunner (or indeed one in the Australian outback, which might be where I get the concept from). I thoroughly enjoyed the single and the album, although the high-canyon effect did no favours to “Cat People” when the sinuous Moroder production had done such a fantastic job with it already.

This album achieved a certain rapprochement between rock and disco thanks to the Chic involvement. To be honest I was no fan of Chic – “Dance Dance Dance” etc were among my many reasons to dislike disco – but listening to the production here, you had to admit there was some merit to Nile Rodgers and his contribution to the project.

I can’t hear this without thinking of Eric Mentec, a lad in one of the classes I taught in the Lycée, whose fandom was such that he was just called “Eric Bowie” by his classmates. He and his pal Thomas Jaffré (so if you’re googling yourselves and find this, fellas, salut!) were the coolest kids in their year, not least because they had a local radio show in Vannes. So you could listen to them giving shoutouts to their friends in between playing the Cure, Depeche Mode, the Bunnymen, Klaus Nomi or U2, then tell them how much you enjoyed the show at school the next day. The bonus was that they were two of the most good-natured lads you could wish to meet, without for one moment thinking that would lose them any cool points. I hope they went on to great things.

Heading for Jonathan Ross territory there, Wildhearted!

It does seem rather too neat that he would cast away Major Tom (and by extension all his other characters) in ‘Ashes To Ashes’ and then come back with this Mike Yarwood-esque “And now…this is me!” pose. Am I being naive in thinking no artist could be that calculating or think in those terms? More likely, as with history, that he’s just doing one damn thing after another and only in hindsight does it seem to fit some pattern.