What Bowie has meant to me - then and now

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What Bowie has meant to me - then and now

Postby GoogaMooga » 15 Feb 2019, 23:29

We all knew about Bowie as kids, but unlike the more mainstream glam, he was a bit alienating, too other-worldly, with his androgyny and nihilism. We needed something more earth-bound. Don't remember my first listen, but my first album would have been a library loan of the Ziggy OST. The one that really grabbed me was "Moonage Daydream". I'd just got a batch of Heavy Metal comics from the States, seemed appropriate. Played that side on repeat. When I got to the CD era, I went straight for the Ryko's, with their bonus cuts. Still the definitive editions, I think. Don't bother with Tonight and Never Let Me Down.

David Bowie 'Moonage Daydream Ziggy Stardust, Keep your 'lectric eye on me babe. Put Your Ray-Gun to my head' - Original poster artwork by John Judkins, mixed media, signed and dated 1986, flat, 19.5 x 27.5 inches.

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Re: What Bowie has meant to me - then and now

Postby The Modernist » 15 Feb 2019, 23:36

Retitle the thread Moonage Daydream, post the vid, offer a poll option and you'll get some replies (particularly as it's one of his best songs)

Not sure what you're expecting. Just a heads up. :)

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Re: What Bowie has meant to me - then and now

Postby Robert » 15 Feb 2019, 23:39

So, what did he mean then? And, what does he mean now?

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Re: What Bowie has meant to me - then and now

Postby GoogaMooga » 15 Feb 2019, 23:50

The Modernist wrote:Retitle the thread Moonage Daydream, post the vid, offer a poll option and you'll get some replies (particularly as it's one of his best songs)

Not sure what you're expecting. Just a heads up. :)


Thanks, but I'll keep it this way. Bit tired of the poll format.
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Re: What Bowie has meant to me - then and now

Postby GoogaMooga » 15 Feb 2019, 23:51

Robert wrote:So, what did he mean then? And, what does he mean now?


Then - alienating, unapproachable
Now - the greatest solo artist of the 70s (?)
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Re: What Bowie has meant to me - then and now

Postby kath » 16 Feb 2019, 00:06

GoogaMooga wrote:We all knew about Bowie as kids, but unlike the more mainstream glam, he was a bit alienating, too other-worldly, with his androgyny and nihilism.

er... what?

GoogaMooga wrote:We needed something more earth-bound.

errr... earth-bound? please do list the glam bands who were so dominated by the laws of gravity. are you really using glam as a cornerstone for clear sexual identity? okay, too many problems here to handle.

GoogaMooga wrote:I Don't remember my first listen, but my first album would have been a library loan of the Ziggy OST. The one that really grabbed me was "Moonage Daydream". I'd just got a batch of Heavy Metal comics from the States, seemed appropriate.

massive heavy metal fan here, subscriber for years. i still have a bunch. the main takeaway from that comics mag: earth-bound? mwhaha. yeah. sure.

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Re: What Bowie has meant to me - then and now

Postby Quaco » 16 Feb 2019, 01:08

When I first started seeing images of him, he was a bit weird for me. Or so I thought. It was mostly down to the image. I also thought KISS was too hard rock for my tastes, when they actually rocked less hard than Cheap Trick and The Who, two bands I was already well into.

When I finally started giving Bowie a good listen, I realized he was absolutely down my alley. Maybe I had grown up in the interim, and maybe he wasn't that weird after all. "Life on Mars?" and "Quicksand" got me hooked. Was this guy really just as good as The Beatles and I hadn't realized all this time?

His whole discography -- up through "Heroes" anyway -- just opened up to me after that. It was great!
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Re: What Bowie has meant to me - then and now

Postby GoogaMooga » 16 Feb 2019, 01:21

kath wrote:
GoogaMooga wrote:We all knew about Bowie as kids, but unlike the more mainstream glam, he was a bit alienating, too other-worldly, with his androgyny and nihilism.

er... what?

GoogaMooga wrote:We needed something more earth-bound.

errr... earth-bound? please do list the glam bands who were so dominated by the laws of gravity. are you really using glam as a cornerstone for clear sexual identity? okay, too many problems here to handle.
[/i]


It was a combination of things, we weren't put off by the androgyny per se. I had long hair and wore platform boots at twelve. He was just hard to figure out, and his image was that bit weirder, shaven eyebrows, spiky hair, emaciated look, no wonder his band concept was dubbed Spiders from Mars. But think about it, the other big glam bands, their sound, their lyrics, were a lot easier for kids to grasp, they did seem more down to earth.
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Re: What Bowie has meant to me - then and now

Postby Muskrat » 16 Feb 2019, 01:26

No more than any other artist whose records I've enjoyed to varying degrees. Can't argue his influence, but I currently own nothing by him and see no reason to change that.
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Re: What Bowie has meant to me - then and now

Postby kath » 16 Feb 2019, 01:28

Quaco wrote:When I first started seeing images of him, he was a bit weird for me. Or so I thought. It was mostly down to the image. I also thought KISS was too hard rock for my tastes, when they actually rocked less hard than Cheap Trick and The Who, two bands I was already well into.

When I finally started giving Bowie a good listen, I realized he was absolutely down my alley. Maybe I had grown up in the interim, and maybe he wasn't that weird after all. "Life on Mars?" and "Quicksand" got me hooked. Was this guy really just as good as The Beatles and I hadn't realized all this time?

His whole discography -- up through "Heroes" anyway -- just opened up to me after that. It was great!


i am honestly curious about this (after all, i am not a guy).

did you feel the same initial weirdness for, say, elton john or queen?

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Re: What Bowie has meant to me - then and now

Postby kath » 16 Feb 2019, 01:42

GoogaMooga wrote:
kath wrote:
GoogaMooga wrote:We all knew about Bowie as kids, but unlike the more mainstream glam, he was a bit alienating, too other-worldly, with his androgyny and nihilism.

er... what?

GoogaMooga wrote:We needed something more earth-bound.

errr... earth-bound? please do list the glam bands who were so dominated by the laws of gravity. are you really using glam as a cornerstone for clear sexual identity? okay, too many problems here to handle.
[/i]


It was a combination of things, we weren't put off by the androgyny per se. I had long hair and wore platform boots at twelve. He was just hard to figure out, and his image was that bit weirder, shaven eyebrows, spiky hair, emaciated look, no wonder his band concept was dubbed Spiders from Mars. But think about it, the other big glam bands, their sound, their lyrics, were a lot easier for kids to grasp, they did seem more down to earth.


it really doesn't bother me if you were weirded out by bowie's image.

but that doesn't equate to other bands being down to earth. you still haven't gotten specific about those glam bands who allegedly were down to earth. i'm guessin you mean some kinda meat-n-taytas glam, like slade?

was marc bolan more down to earth? was his image less weird?

i would like to go off on an alice cooper kick (i guess guillotines on stage makes one more... masculine?) but i'll hafta come back to it.

what i don't buy~~ever~~ is trying to draw a parallel between *image* and actual quality of music. the reason moonage daydream is fucquin fantastic has nuthin to do with how his eyebrows looked. yer own post on that was entirely contradictory. the same principle applies to *any* of his music, whatever his image du jour.

so. any time you wanna get to the "nihilism" of bowie (which, of course, has zero to do with "look"...)

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Re: What Bowie has meant to me - then and now

Postby Quaco » 16 Feb 2019, 03:11

kath wrote:
Quaco wrote:When I first started seeing images of him, he was a bit weird for me. Or so I thought. It was mostly down to the image. I also thought KISS was too hard rock for my tastes, when they actually rocked less hard than Cheap Trick and The Who, two bands I was already well into.

When I finally started giving Bowie a good listen, I realized he was absolutely down my alley. Maybe I had grown up in the interim, and maybe he wasn't that weird after all. "Life on Mars?" and "Quicksand" got me hooked. Was this guy really just as good as The Beatles and I hadn't realized all this time?

His whole discography -- up through "Heroes" anyway -- just opened up to me after that. It was great!


i am honestly curious about this (after all, i am not a guy).

did you feel the same initial weirdness for, say, elton john or queen?

No, not at all. Elton was one of my first loves -- and fashion icons -- and I was very much into Queen as well. (And they rocked harder than KISS too!)
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Re: What Bowie has meant to me - then and now

Postby GoogaMooga » 16 Feb 2019, 05:23

kath wrote:it really doesn't bother me if you were weirded out by bowie's image.

but that doesn't equate to other bands being down to earth. you still haven't gotten specific about those glam bands who allegedly were down to earth. i'm guessin you mean some kinda meat-n-taytas glam, like slade?

was marc bolan more down to earth? was his image less weird?

i would like to go off on an alice cooper kick (i guess guillotines on stage makes one more... masculine?) but i'll hafta come back to it.

what i don't buy~~ever~~ is trying to draw a parallel between *image* and actual quality of music. the reason moonage daydream is fucquin fantastic has nuthin to do with how his eyebrows looked. yer own post on that was entirely contradictory. the same principle applies to *any* of his music, whatever his image du jour.

so. any time you wanna get to the "nihilism" of bowie (which, of course, has zero to do with "look"...)


You can put that red pen down, "prof", can't you even see that it was written from the POV of a ten-eleven-twelve year old back in the early 70s? That was the impression we had back then, of course I felt differently as I got older, and learnt more about music. Our musical horizon was not that broad back then.
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Re: What Bowie has meant to me - then and now

Postby GoogaMooga » 16 Feb 2019, 05:34

kath wrote:what i don't buy~~ever~~ is trying to draw a parallel between *image* and actual quality of music. the reason moonage daydream is fucquin fantastic has nuthin to do with how his eyebrows looked. yer own post on that was entirely contradictory. the same principle applies to *any* of his music, whatever his image du jour.


I would never dream of doing that. I am trying to explain why we didn't listen to Bowie. The other glam rockers were easier for us to understand, the ones we even knew about. I had not even heard "Moonage Daydream" back then. I am sorry, but you don't have a case here. Unless you can't accept that image did mean something to a ten-eleven-twelve year old little boy back in the early 70s.
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Re: What Bowie has meant to me - then and now

Postby The Modernist » 16 Feb 2019, 07:42

GoogaMooga wrote:
kath wrote:
GoogaMooga wrote:We all knew about Bowie as kids, but unlike the more mainstream glam, he was a bit alienating, too other-worldly, with his androgyny and nihilism.

er... what?

GoogaMooga wrote:We needed something more earth-bound.

errr... earth-bound? please do list the glam bands who were so dominated by the laws of gravity. are you really using glam as a cornerstone for clear sexual identity? okay, too many problems here to handle.
[/i]


It was a combination of things, we weren't put off by the androgyny per se. I had long hair and wore platform boots at twelve. He was just hard to figure out, and his image was that bit weirder, shaven eyebrows, spiky hair, emaciated look, no wonder his band concept was dubbed Spiders from Mars. But think about it, the other big glam bands, their sound, their lyrics, were a lot easier for kids to grasp, they did seem more down to earth.


I do know what you mean actually. The likes of The Sweet and Gary glitter had a cartoon like image and straightforward sound that was more kid friendly. I think you had to be older to appreciative Bowie. I was about 14 when I started to get really interested in him.

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Re: What Bowie has meant to me - then and now

Postby The Slider » 16 Feb 2019, 07:57

I was 9 years old when I saw him do Starman on Top Of The Pops.
Let's put this into some sort of perspective - he didn't look that much weirder than anyone else at that time and his music was not particularly challenging.
I liked him / it instantly and became a fan - bought Ziggy and Aladdin as they came out

Ultimately he was just another one of my musical likes - which did include Bolan, Slade and Sweet in particular, and Roxy, Gary Glitter and Wizzard (soon after) as well.
It was only with a lot of hindsight that he stood out above - and apart from - his contemporaries.
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Re: What Bowie has meant to me - then and now

Postby kath » 16 Feb 2019, 14:17

GoogaMooga wrote:You can put that red pen down, "prof"...


is this sposed to be an insult? mwhaha. i'm red-inking you cuz i have a problem with yer over-reliance on image or yer singling out bowie's as androgynous and nihilistic? i'm guessin there could be some teacher issyews floating around.


GoogaMooga wrote:... can't you even see that it was written from the POV of a ten-eleven-twelve year old back in the early 70s? That was the impression we had back then, of course I felt differently as I got older, and learnt more about music. Our musical horizon was not that broad back then.


it wasn't my impression or my musical horizon. you have a case, and i don't? bullcrap.

of course image can play a part. it's also a double-edged sword. some people could argue that the very image you found off-putting was part of his appeal. they'd have a case, too.

in my case, i turned 9 late in '72. in the months after that, i fell in love with bowie, the same way i fell in love with elton or t. rex or todd or zep. i heard the music. i heard it on the radio. sibs and friends spun the albums. the guy who owned the local record store would hand me records and say try this. the idea that an image would prevent me from getting into music... that's alien to me. conclusion: we must've been very different kids. so you might wanna drop the whole "why we didn't listen to bowie" bit.

it's good that you say you got over that as you got older and learnt more about music. i'm glad for you. but obviously, there are people who didn't share that same problem/trajectory. the idea that yer case represents some worthier consensus is ridiculous.

by the way, if you wanna insult me for not sharing yer case bubble of experience, at least get it straight: the ink was purple.

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Re: What Bowie has meant to me - then and now

Postby Goat Boy » 16 Feb 2019, 15:22

There was a lot of androgyny around at the time of course: Bowie, Bolan, Freddie, Cooper, the whole glam thang basically.

Bowie naturally took things a bit further though. He came out in an NME interview in 72 remember. Something like John, I'm Only Dancing (again, '72) expanded on his gender bending, sexual fluidity pretty explicitly as well. Is there anything that his glam contemporaries released that suggested bisexuality to that degree? I dunno, I don't know of anything anyway. It seems to me like others were hinting at it, playing around in a non-threatening way. Sure Bolan looked looked "gurly", pixie like with his cork screw hair and lipgloss but you still probably thought he was going home with female groupies after the gig. Bowie? Hmmmm, not so sure about that one....

Diamond Dogs used to scare the lass when she was a kid. The sleeve, the dystopian nightmare of the lyrics. The general feeling of decay and unease. Look at Five Years, the opening track of Ziggy. I can easily understand how such songs could scare a child and of course Bowie was communicating something that was around at the time - a general feeling of paranoia and malaise - that adults would have felt and maybe passed onto their children without even knowing it. Bowie was a conduit for communicating this feeling and he did it deliberately. His apocalyptic paranoia is all over Ziggy and Diamond Dogs

I wasn't there obv but I can see how Bowie could be freakier and scarier, more alienating than his contemporaries. More out there. Ziggy was of course a literal alien but figuratively too Bowie possessed an alien Otherness he was clearly aware of and which he accentuated brilliantly. Christ, he even had a FREAKY eye, you know? And FREAKY teeth. Even his cheekbones seemed sculpted by some unseen hand.
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Re: What Bowie has meant to me - then and now

Postby kath » 16 Feb 2019, 16:53

Goat Boy wrote:There was a lot of androgyny around at the time of course: Bowie, Bolan, Freddie, Cooper, the whole glam thang basically.

Bowie naturally took things a bit further though. He came out in an NME interview in 72 remember. Something like John, I'm Only Dancing (again, '72) expanded on his gender bending, sexual fluidity pretty explicitly as well. Is there anything that his glam contemporaries released that suggested bisexuality to that degree? I dunno, I don't know of anything anyway. It seems to me like others were hinting at it, playing around in a non-threatening way. Sure Bolan looked looked "gurly", pixie like with his cork screw hair and lipgloss but you still probably thought he was going home with female groupies after the gig. Bowie? Hmmmm, not so sure about that one....

Diamond Dogs used to scare the lass when she was a kid. The sleeve, the dystopian nightmare of the lyrics. The general feeling of decay and unease. Look at Five Years, the opening track of Ziggy. I can easily understand how such songs could scare a child and of course Bowie was communicating something that was around at the time - a general feeling of paranoia and malaise - that adults would have felt and maybe passed onto their children without even knowing it. Bowie was a conduit for communicating this feeling and he did it deliberately. His apocalyptic paranoia is all over Ziggy and Diamond Dogs

I wasn't there obv but I can see how Bowie could be freakier and scarier, more alienating than his contemporaries. More out there. Ziggy was of course a literal alien but figuratively too Bowie possessed an alien Otherness he was clearly aware of and which he accentuated brilliantly. Christ, he even had a FREAKY eye, you know? And FREAKY teeth. Even his cheekbones seemed sculpted by some unseen hand.


this is a good post.

i am not discounting anyone who is scared by an artist/image/lyrics/music/album covers. i'm also not discounting the fact that i never was, mwhaha. after all, i loved alice cooper, rife as he was with necrophilia, dead babies, halos of flies, blood everywhere, trips to the dentist.

lord knows there was a ton of music apart from glam that had its share of songs about the end of the world, social problems, decay, war, addiction, overdose, the horrors of human existence. there were people who got scared by black sabbath and the stones. not too hard to understand. many a band played up that "satanic" kind of image. many wrote songs about their own spiralling down as rock stars.

but i also can't help feeling that the way you opened, on gender bending and sexual fluidity, might be the crux of the issyew when it comes to image. bowie certainly embodied otherness, and yeah, some people can feel threatened by that. but if bowie had been in a standard manly rock mode, would his musical "scariness" if we wanna call it that, would it have even really registered? obviously, he had many songs that *weren't* about some impending apocalypse (although of course diamond dogs is a perfect example of an album with that overriding theme of decay). the music itself covering an incredible range, even on one album like ziggy. the gender bending, particularly at the time, seemed so often to be an opening for fear/attack (i remember oh so well how some took queen back in the day). gender bending seems to be fine if it's just make-up and songs about getting laid or partying, but if the subject turns really dark or serious, it becomes alll the scarier. there is something there that nags at me, even if i'm not explaining it very well, mwhaha.

in any case, i do have problems using image as the definer of music, especially with someone as rich and varied as bowie. then again, i was listening to the stones in kindergarten. i don't present my view as any kind of consensus. i know i'm weird. but googa can make a clearer case of it without acting as though his view is. his not having had listened to the ziggy album back in the day isn't much of an argument for bowie's nihilistic image. but the androgyny? that's obvious from any bowie poster.

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Re: What Bowie has meant to me - then and now

Postby the masked man » 16 Feb 2019, 16:56

The Modernist wrote:
I do know what you mean actually. The likes of The Sweet and Gary glitter had a cartoon like image and straightforward sound that was more kid friendly. I think you had to be older to appreciative Bowie. I was about 14 when I started to get really interested in him.


Yes, having been a child in the early 70s I agree with this. I was aware of Bowie, but I didn't know how to process his stuff. Not least because the singles he was charting with seemed so disparate (Suffragette City, Rock 'n' Roll Suicide, The Laughing Gnome...). His competitors had more immediate and formulaic sounds that were easier to relate to.

But I turned 14 in 1979 and was finding my more mature taste. Suddenly Bowie's contemporary output made a lot more sense; a song like DJ fitted in with the Joy Division and Magazine records I was discovering, and eventually when I worked back I realised how some of his 70s music prefigured the post-punk I was enjoying.


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