The “amazing” David Bowie album that changed Naomi Watts’ life: “He was onto something”
The year 2016 was not a good one to be an older celebrity, and that’s putting it mildly.
In a horrible set of circumstances, one after another, some of the biggest household names passed away, leading many around the world to wonder just what was going on. Prince, Carrie Fisher, Alan Rickman, George Michael, Muhammad Ali—on and on it went. And perhaps, it was signalled at the start of the year by the loss of one of the most loved musicians of all time: David Bowie.
The Thin White Duke died in January of that year, leaving behind a legacy of some of the greatest, most experimental music in history, signing off with the towering swansong Blackstar, a record that continued to reveal secrets after his death, including a sleeve full of puzzles and hidden features.
Actor Naomi Watts was a huge fan of Bowie and met the legend on a couple of occasions. At one point, Bowie intended to make a film that would have starred Watts alongside Heath Ledger titled The Moon II: The Shores of Venus, but those plans were curtailed by the young Australian actor’s death in 2008.
Watts was particularly taken by one of Bowie’s earliest works, 1971’s Hunky Dory, an album known for featuring two of his most famous songs, ‘Changes’ and ‘Life on Mars’. The record marked something of a change in direction for the artist, whose previous album, The Man Who Sold the World, was more guitar-led, whereas Hunky Dory was much more influenced by pop art and composed primarily on the piano.
On release, the album and the man himself were universally acclaimed, with several publications around the world exclaiming that the British star was setting new trends and exploring entirely new genres of music. It came out at the very end of 1971, a year that had seen some seminal albums from big names of the time, including Sticky Fingers by the Rolling Stones, The Doors’ LA Woman, Joni Mitchell’s Blue and Led Zeppelin IV.
Despite critics underlining the quality of the album, initial sales were slow due to a lack of marketing. Bowie’s label knew that he was about to launch his Ziggy Stardust persona, and so were wary of committing too much money to the LP. But once The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars was firmly locked into the public’s psyche, both Hunky Dory and the new album began flying off the shelves, establishing Bowie as a glam rock superstar.
Watts revealed to the New York Times: “The first album I ever bought was Hunky Dory, and all those songs, every single one, is amazing. ‘Changes’ is the biggest and best in my nostalgic brain. It’s so interesting to think of what he’d be doing now. I wish he was still around. I really do. When you see those little clips and interviews of him way back when, he just knew so much. He was onto something.”
One interesting clip that proves Watts’ words is from 1999, when Bowie spoke very prophetically about the future of the internet and the possibilities it would harbour. Speaking to a clearly cynical Jeremy Paxman, he said, “I think the potential of what the internet is going to do to society, good and bad, is unimaginable”.
Mulholland Drive star, meanwhile, has recently been seen in the new Lena Dunham Netflix series Too Much, alongside Richard E Grant, a show about a heartbroken New Yorker moving to London in order to find love that was rather better received by critics than by audiences.
