Bowie: Too immense a topic for PowerPoint, surely. But how does one summarize one of his most influential, important releases; a relative obscurity that looms large against the backdrop of artistic endeavors of the late 70’s and early 80’s avant garde? Indeed, contexting this album and summarizing Bowie between the more familiar lines (haha) of Ziggy and “China Girl” and “Let’s Dance” was a challenge the Album Club met with enthusiasm. Marc Spitz’ captivating biography both informed and inspired the conversation and was recommended reading for the group. PowerPoint and notes follow.
Members present: William A. Rawls, Cuban Pete, Ms. Mistoffeles, Plan B, Consigliere, Swedish Oxers
Members absent: ILoveDisco
Special guests present: Charlie with the Face On, Myles Winslow
Favorite song: “Sound and Vision”
Discussed: Swedish Oxers’ simultaneous raising of the bar and descent into new lows of dorkdom with a multi-media PDF presentation; Album Club members’ almost universal love of Bowie but dislike of Low; Bowie’s masterful, beguiling, frequent image/character metamorphoses, with three or four in the 1970’s alone; influence of Bowie’s schizophrenic half-brother, Terry, and later, of Iggy Pop as a brother figure; conventional sound of Side A today, when once it was considered experimental; depressing, bleak Side B that some felt was boring and others felt was riveting and deeply disturbing; relative lack of vocals by Bowie on album; critical acclaim and influential role of Low on post-punk bands like Joy Division; album as Bowie’s break from hyper use of drugs to only middling use of drugs; amount of credit Brian Eno should or shouldn’t get for Low; Bowie’s bad business decisions (occasioned by sexual relationships with his managers); album recording as experimental accident, the result of tinkering and trailblazing with DIY instruments and novel interpretations of sound; a close listen of “A New Career in a New Town”; a close reading of Marc Spitz’ description of Low:
The rhythms of Low sometimes emulate factory floors and chemical labs. Drums crash like steam shooting from a vent pipe; the bass burbles lightly like a toxic substance in a glass beaker being purified over a Bunsen burner. The guitars come in cold and impossibly mellow and the misfit synthesizers, especially on the more modal second side, float every empty sonic space like a new pollution. It all shakes and bends like it’s being played by hand and not machines but feels riveted together, a modern machine.
Next album, courtesy of Consigliere: Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols, Sex Pistols (1977)
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