“Could have been singles”: The 1970s album David Bowie thought was perfect for Britpop
David Bowie was always interested in finding a different way to twist rock and roll into something different. Even if not every experiment worked out the way that he intended it to, there’s no denying that every project he worked on was a line in the sand for what he would be doing going forward. And although Bowie made marvellous contributions to other people’s albums, he felt that this glam rock masterpiece had the potential to be a massive hit had it been released in the wake of the Britpop movement.
Looking back on the age of ‘Cool Britannia’, though, Bowie could have considered himself one of the unintentional archetypes for what the genre would become. Whereas artists like The Smiths and The La’s may be ground zero for where the genre truly started, hearing Bowie’s acoustic tunes and his attempts to become a glorified rock god as Ziggy Stardust was what gave Noel Gallagher a similar melodic sense when crafting his first albums.
Then again, having a hit comes from having the right singer together with the right song, and Bowie was already taking notes on creating perfect songs listening to proto-punk. As much as he struck up a friendship with Iggy Pop throughout his career and turned a few of his songs into hits like ‘China Girl’, anyone who’s ever thought of making pure poetry in rock and roll can’t ignore Lou Reed.
Despite being one of the foundations behind The Velvet Underground, Reed always had a complicated relationship with fame. He may have had songs most other people would kill for, but he never had the same hooks that put him over the line as Bowie did when creating something like ‘Rebel Rebel’.
There was still room for him to grow, though, and when Bowie heard the makings of Transformer, he gave Reed his first mainstream hits, whether that was the leftovers from The Velvet days like ‘Andy’s Chest’ or turning in staples of New York City music like ‘Walk On the Wild Side’.
Even though most of the songs on Transformer had New York City prestamped on them, Bowie thought that many of the tunes on the record could have been hits for any Britpop band on the 1990s, saying, “There’s so many songs on here that could have been [singles], and probably will be one day by other bands. Let’s give ‘Satellite of Love’ to Blur, and we’ll give ‘Perfect Day’ to Suede.”
It’s not out of the question for any group to embrace that kind of energy, either. The raw pain in Brett Anderson’s voice lends itself perfectly to Reed’s soft-spoken ballad, and since Damon Albarn had worked with Reed with Gorillaz on ‘Some Kind of Nature’, there are sure to be a few songs that he could knick from the Velvet frontman as well.
Then again, giving Reed that kind of recognition went against what he stood for in his prime. He was the kind of person who made people think every time they heard his music, but he knew that he was much better served as the friend of New York City than being the same glam-rock superstar Bowie had talked about.
