The band David Bowie said inspired every single British songwriter: “In the gut”
Given that he was one of the most influential musicians of the modern era, most doors were open to David Bowie, with his status accepted by almost everyone in what is an achievement that only a handful of people of his generation can claim.
Bowie’s success was so extensive that even a handful of those who inspired him in the early days began lavishing him with praise, with the former Beatles frontman John Lennon perhaps the most notable example of this.
While he had ephemeral characters and chapters, Bowie’s work was as timeless as those who inspired him. Whether it be the Stanley Kubrick-infused science fiction of his early hit ‘Space Oddity’, the taboo-busting glam of the Ziggy Stardust album, or the disco-inflected grooves of Let’s Dance, after finding his creative rhythm, Bowie continually pierced the cultural fabric. He wove himself deeper and deeper, tying Gordian knots that are impossible to undo.
This vital significance to the history of modern popular music and culture saw Bowie become one of the best commentators in his field. after all, he had a view from the top of the tower, with a wealth of experience from the inside. This, in addition to his evident knowledge of music’s development, provided a host of glittering takes on his favourite artists over the years.
And Bowie never handed out that kind of praise lightly. Having spent decades reshaping his own sound and image, he had a finely tuned sense of what constituted true innovation rather than fleeting trend, making his reflections on other artists feel less like casual admiration and more like considered cultural analysis.
So when he turned his attention to a band like The Kinks, it wasn’t just nostalgia talking. It was the perspective of someone who had lived through the same seismic shifts in British music and recognised, perhaps better than most, just how foundational their work had been to everything that followed.
One of his greatest opinions on music came towards the end of his life, in 2014, when Bowie provided an impactful reading of the importance of The Kinks to British music. That year, the Ray Davies-led band released a 48-track compilation, The Essential Kinks, to celebrate their 50th anniversary.
To mark the occasion, they enlisted one of their most prominent fans to write the sleeve notes. Here, Bowie asserted that The Kinks are a group in “the gut of every British songwriter”, calling them a “cornerstone” of pop and rock.
In a statement posted on his website ahead of the release, Bowie released an excerpt from the sleeve notes, with an image of him and Ray Davies, captioned: “I’ve never heard a Kinks song that I didn’t like”.
Bowie continued: “Of course, from their noisy and brash beginnings, The Kinks have come to stand for some of the most enduring and heart-clutching pop of all time. They are in the gut of every British songwriter who followed them and are indisputably a cornerstone of everything pop and rock. I love ’em. The world loves ’em.”
This was not the first time David Bowie and The Kinks converged. Years earlier, Bowie and Davies performed the classic Kinks song ‘Waterloo Sunset’ at New York City’s Carnegie Hall for the Tibet House Benefit.
See that performance below.
