Why success “meant absolutely nothing” to David Bowie in the 1980s
Throughout his long and illustrious career, David Bowie swooped and dived through a series of peaks and troughs in both commercial and critical terms. To say the creative chameleon set off on a nadir would be unfair, but Bowie’s eponymous debut album of 1967 set him up for a slow rise to stardom. It appeared the world wasn’t ready for his zany nursery rhyme style.
Through the late ‘60s, Bowie dusted himself off to break through with Space Oddity, thanks to its namesake single, timed perfectly with the Apollo 11 moon landings. Subsequently, Hunky Dory and Ziggy Stardust gave a meteoric lift to proceedings allowing the Starman to plant a flag firmly in the US charts and the burgeoning British glam scene.
By 1972, Bowie had secured three square meals a day for the foreseeable, but he had a legacy to build and much more to say as an artist. The restless creative never seemed particularly interested in chart success as he shuffled through a series of albums and personas over the remainder of the ’70s, testing the waters of soul in Young Americans, funk-rock in Station to Station and something wholly unprecedented in his celebrated Berlin Trilogy.
As the 1980s dawned, Bowie looked to inject a small dose of commercial value into his music. With the release of 1980’s Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), Bowie perfectly bridged the dichotomy between commercial impact and artistic merit, gracing fans with enduring hits such as ‘Ashes to Ashes’, ‘Fame’ and ‘Teenage Wildlife’.
So, where did it start to go wrong for Bowie in the studio? Of course, it would be difficult for him to revisit the crucial peaks of the ’70s, but the ’80s started to show a creatively weary Bowie as he surrendered himself to art-pop and a dwindling bank balance. Bowie once referred to this period as his “Phil Collins years”.
This so-called “Phil Collins” phase stretched across the ’80s, and while there were small pockets of fresh air, a nasty stench prevailed. As Bowie and many fans agreed, his career hit its creative low point in 1987. If 1967’s debut LP was a belch, Never Let Me Down followed through with a bitter taste two decades later.
In retrospect, Bowie noted he was in a “mire” while writing and recording his ironically titled 1987 album. “Never Let Me Down had good songs that I mistreated. I didn’t really apply myself,” Bowie once told Rolling Stone of the album, pointing out the unscrupulous production. “I wasn’t quite sure what I was supposed to be doing.”
Bowie later admitted that the release was his lowest point artistically. “[The commercial success at that time] meant absolutely nothing to me,” Bowie explained. “I felt dissatisfied with everything I was doing, and eventually, it started showing in my work.
“Let’s Dance was an excellent album in a certain genre, but the next two albums after that showed that my lack of interest in my own work was really becoming transparent. My nadir was Never Let Me Down. It was such an awful album.”
He added: “I’ve gotten to a place now where I’m not very judgmental about myself. I put out what I do, whether it’s in visual arts or in music, because I know that everything I do is really heartfelt. Even if it’s a failure artistically, it doesn’t bother me in the same way that Never Let Me Down bothers me. I really shouldn’t have even bothered going into the studio to record it. [laughs] In fact, when I play it, I wonder if I did sometimes.”
