Tony Visconti discusses the best David Bowie songs he ever worked on: “That guy has swagger!”
American record producer Tony Visconti has led a life every music lover would envy, having worked with a bunch of influential artists on songs that hold a key place in most people’s playlists. He has produced for recognisable names like Iggy Pop, The Stranglers, T Rex and even Blur’s Damon Albarn. And while that’s already a stellar CV, Visconti’s most prominent and undoubtedly unforgettable collaboration is with ‘The Starman’ himself, David Bowie.
Sharing both a professional relationship and a long-term, melody-filled friendship, Bowie and Visconti worked together on a number of albums, including the beloved classics Space Oddity, Heroes, Young Americans and many more. Their collaboration spanned decades, from the late 1960s, all the way up to Bowie’s final release in 2016, his farewell album, Blackstar.
With over 50 years of tracks to choose from, you would think that picking favourites would be a near impossible task, but Visconti performed the mammoth job of choosing the tracks he thinks are the best Bowie tunes he’s ever produced.
In 2018, Visconti spoke to Tidal and spilt the beans on the tracks he’s most proud of having produced throughout his career. Needless to say, this list included multiple Bowie tunes, beginning, as expected, with the trailblazing 1980s, ‘Ashes to Ashes’. This evidently wasn’t just Visconti’s favourite Bowie song, as it gained immense popularity, soon becoming the singer’s fastest-selling single and climbing to first place on the UK singles charts.
The success of this song wasn’t just luck, but rather an intention to become musical legends. Visconti noted, “‘Ashes To Ashes’ is the culmination of both my career and David’s entire career up to then. Everything came together. When we started an album, as a joke, we’d always say, ‘Let’s make this one our Sgt Pepper’s. And we made that joke at the beginning of this album [Scary Monsters] and it came through because we pulled out all the stops.” This Sgt Pepper’s comment started as a joke between two friends, but became reality with the release of the track, with Bowie indisputably adopting legendary status and taking a seat alongside the Fab Four as UK history’s most treasured artists. There is no question why Visconti dubbed the track that solidified the pair’s status in musical history as one of his favourite Bowie tunes.
Another pillar of pride for him is ‘Blackout’, the fifth track on Bowie’s 1977 album, Heroes. He stated that “it has the most swagger of any Bowie track”, revealing that it was all owed to Iggy Pop. Visconti explained, “We were working with Iggy Pop at the time, and Iggy had a big influence on David in the sense that he was a true punk artist. He did what the hell he wanted. He’d just take his clothes off, randomly. I mean, that guy has swagger!”
Heroes is an experiment with innovation and a punk spirit, with the “down and dirty swagger” at its peak in ‘Blackout’. Visconti’s choice here is more than understandable, with Bowie’s performance being known for its extreme energy and frantic ad-libbing, making for an exciting and explosive experience for the audience and, no doubt, an evening to remember.
Looking back to the beginning, the producer named his favourite song from the artist’s earlier discography, ‘Wild Eyed Boy from Freecloud’, the theatrical, orchestral song on the musician’s second album, Space Oddity. Reminiscing about making the track, Visconti recalled, “Saying to David at the time, ‘This is so beautiful. It’s a tone poem. It’s an epic song. Let’s do it with as many musicians as we can. I’d like to get a 50-piece orchestra!’ He loved the idea”. Merging the descriptive, storytelling lyrics with the orchestra and Bowie’s dramatic vocals, the pair created a cinematic masterpiece, something that wouldn’t be misplaced in a movie soundtrack.
It was recorded in Trident, the studio where The Beatles crafted ‘Hey Jude’, and you can clearly hear their experimental influence in the eccentric lyrics and the unpredictable, ever-shifting nature of the tune. Bowie apparently was “intimidated” as he sat amongst the 50 instrumentalists with his 12-string guitar which is what makes the track a special one for Visconti, who stated that the song is “a kind of a curio in David’s catalogue, because there’s an intimacy to it, because all I had to work with was his 12-string and vocal.”
There’s no doubt that it’s a tricky task to pick out a few songs and dub them as the best of Bowie, but who better to do it than the man who helped to shape them into what they are.
