David Bowie’s problem with avant-garde rock: “A lot of Zappa’s things flatten me”
It was going to take something pretty powerful to really impress David Bowie back in the day.
He had grown past the traditional rock and roll traditions, and as much as he still loved the likes of Little Richard every single time he sang, it was a lot better for him to listen to people that were breaking down the foundations of what rock could be, whether that was Iggy Pop unleashing hell or whatever strange detour that Lou Reed was going down throughout his solo career. But sometimes an artist can find themselves so hellbent on experimentation that they get lost in the woods a little bit.
Even Bowie found himself in that position from time to time. Tin Machine may have been a fun idea for him to shed his pop skin after a while, but no one was necessarily asking for what a version of ‘The Starman’ sounded like if he had decided to front a heavy metal outfit. The same could be said of his debut, but it’s easier to chalk that up to a kid who had no idea what he was doing rather than him fiddling around with different ideas.
He needed to have a strong sense of identity when he got started, and once Ziggy Stardust was born, he had found the perfect foundation to work with. Every single song from his glam era had a firm basis to it when Mick Ronson’s guitar kicked everything off, but wearing a few strange outfits was only half the battle. Bowie’s sense of harmony was also about moving in different directions, but it’s not like the art rock revolution began and ended with him back in the day, either.
He certainly was the most high-profile art rocker of his day, but Frank Zappa had already begun making his way through the rock and roll scene back when The Beatles were still trying LSD for the first time. And while Zappa was proud to be drug-free, his music may as well have sounded like an acid trip whenever they came on. Freak Out and Hot Rats are absolutely insane for what they are, but it’s not like there weren’t some moments where Zappa buried himself up his own ass as well.
200 Motels was a fun idea, but the execution left a lot to be desired, and while many of his more adventurous did give us some of the greatest guitar playing of his career like on ‘Watermelon in Easter Hay’, there were also records like Thingfish that feel like half-formed ideas that never actually came together. But even during Zappa’s prime, Bowie could already see the cracks starting to form.
There was nothing wrong with someone following their muse and making something weird, but Bowie felt that some of Zappa’s records were too off-putting after a while, saying, “I think Zappa may have a problem with feeling that he was not accepted on a Mingus level and he had to find himself an audience. A lot of Zappa’s things flatten me, actually. We’re Only In It For The Money, because I mean I saw huge potential in that area for Zappa, but I don’t understand Zappa and I’m not that intrigued by him to try to unwrap his problems or try to find out why.”
Granted, the fact that Zappa wasn’t budging for a second was also part of the charm. There was no way in hell that anything he made was cut out to be a hit single, but hearing him throw caution to the wind and make something that was completely off the wall was almost commendable considering how many other bands were going in the same bluesy direction.
Both Bowie and Zappa were willing to do everything they could to make their tunes weird, but they also had two very different outlooks on what their music was supposed to be. Zappa was content knowing none of his songs would ever be hits, but Bowie was always searching to find a way to make his most outlandish ideas just catchy enough to where they could land on the radio.
