“Disconcerting”: The classic album David Bowie was never comfortable with
David Bowie was never known for taking the conventional route on any of his records. Even if he was catering to what the people wanted during the glam rock movement or openly paying homage to other genres like on Young Americans, there was always that trademark quirkiness throughout his music that kept him on the fringes of the mainstream for most casual pop fans. Right when the public decided to welcome him with open arms on this album, though, ‘The Starman’ admitted that he wasn’t too comfortable in that sort of limelight.
Then again, it didn’t seem like there was any stage that Bowie couldn’t make himself at home on. Throughout every phase of his career, he was the perfect version of what a showman should be, and whether he was donning the facepaint of Ziggy Stardust or cleaning up as The Thin White Duke, he embraced his music the same way a Shakespearean actor would embrace their role for a knockout performance.
The beauty behind Bowie’s work was that no two albums sounded like each other. Every body of work had to be a separate character, and that’s why Young Americans sounds like soul, Low laid the groundwork for post-rock, and Station to Station explored elements of kraut rock that felt like the antithesis of what rock and roll was supposed to be at the time.
For someone who was that forward-thinking, though, it was no surprise that his music translated insanely well to music video formats. Every piece of Bowie’s art was as visual as it was musical, and right after Scary Monsters and Super Creeps, Let’s Dance was proof that he could still hang with the biggest stars of the 1980s, like Prince and Michael Jackson, while still being fantastically weird.
Listening to his pop breakthrough, some eccentric moments pop up now and again. The title track may have been the breakout single, but ‘Ricochet’ still managed to keep things interesting, and ‘Modern Love’ produced one of the greatest saxophone breaks of the decade. While the fans may have eaten it up, Bowie questioned whether they were listening for the right reasons.
When talking about the Let’s Dance era, Bowie remembered wondering if it was really the best decision for him to go pop, saying, “The success of Let’s Dance was very disconcerting. It was terribly rewarding financially and it was rewarding seeing so many people going back to my old albums. But I’d become used to being a cult artist. And that’s where I had grown to be comfortable. So suddenly, being on television all the time and a stadium act – it was very odd. It was very strange for me, and it really put me off balance.”
While it’s hardly a problem to have one of the best-selling albums of one’s career that late in the game, a lot of what Bowie was talking about didn’t have diminishing returns until a few records later. ‘Modern Love’ is still one of the best pop marvels to come out of the 1980s, but that shouldn’t excuse the musical crimes against humanity that appear on Never Let Me Down or the audience watching Bowie embarrass himself dancing with Mick Jagger for the video for ‘Dancing in the Street’.
Still, that doesn’t discount the layer of shine that’s on Let’s Dance. If anything, the fact that the album actually sounds good today is in spite of the more lacklustre sides of his career. ‘The Starman’ may have dove headfirst into the sounds of the 1980s, but underneath all of the reverb-heavy drums and synthesisers is still a damn good songwriter.
