“This cyclical thing”: The band David Bowie called the second coming of glam
Underneath the material flamboyancy and flair of the glam rock era was an innate sense of brutishness and no-fucks-given, the remnants of which transcended much further than just the genre’s musical peak of the 1970s. As the undisputed king of the scene, David Bowie could probably recognise those traits in stars of future generations more than most, giving him a defining voice as a critic just as much as he was a musical visionary.
Indeed, although the proceeding decades propelled the rise in popularity of vastly different forms of pop and rock, that inner crux of effervescence was never lost on Bowie at any point, whether it was in his own work or that of others. But could the height of Britpop in the 1990s really be that similar to the landing of Ziggy Stardust to Earth some 20 years prior? Not many would find the point of convergence, but Bowie seemed to think there was one particular band of the time who embodied that special otherworldly spirit.
In an interview in 1993, when reminiscing on his own heyday alongside compatriots like Roxy Music, he said the band were “very aware of what they were doing, breaking down the barriers between high and low art”.
He added: “I can’t speak for either Brians [Eno and Ferry], but I don’t think that any of us felt there was a movement or any unified culture. Because all that had fragmented by the time the Seventies began. Perhaps because we were at the start of a decade.”
Turning to face the blazing laddish scene that he was surrounded by at that current time, some two decades later, the Starman continued: “Let’s see – 1993 – who have we got at the moment? There’s this cyclical thing with Suede. They are very referential, although I think they are doing more than just imitating.”
It certainly isn’t the most obvious choice to single out as a second coming of glam rock, but Bowie’s assertions over Suede – one of Britpop’s ‘Big Four’ outfits – begin to find their place when considering the band’s transcendental personae, particularly channelled in its frontman, Brett Anderson. Indeed, paralleling Bowie in his forthright proclamation of his bisexuality, it was clear that Anderson’s identity played a seminal role in his musical psyche, much in the same way as many of his glam predecessors.
Bowie also recognised this, adding: “That’s extraordinary. I won’t say I knew that because I didn’t. But there’s something in the writing; I felt that he understood very deeply the ambiguity of sexuality.” Britpop was undeniably a boys’ club of brutish nonchalance, booze, and blazing sentiments – but through figures like Anderson at its forefront and guiding forces such as Bowie at its back, a disarming dynamic of true artistic power also emerges from its midst.
Britpop is rightly celebrated as a stand-alone resurgence to the British rock scene that hadn’t been witnessed in a similar capacity since Beatlemania in the 1960s. None of it was exactly epitomised by glitter and exuberant costumes, but as Bowie proved in his classic transcendental way, those traits permeated a much broader musical landscape than anyone might first imagine.
