Wednesday 20th June

In 1976, Bowie decamped to Berlin where, with the assistance of Brian Eno, he recorded three totally different albums; so different in fact that on first hearing them you wouldn’t know they were even Bowie albums.  I first heard ‘Low’ on a friend’s new stereo, he had one of the first really good stereo cassette players and this was one of the first albums released in good stereo on cassette.  It was incredible, the instrumentals especially were so different, slightly reminiscent of Tangerine Dream, but with such a menacing edge.  ‘Heroes’ followed and was slightly more conventional, and then ‘Lodger’ which was less accessible but I really like.  After that Bowie seemed to be a bit hit and miss; great occasional songs like ‘Ashes to Ashes’, ‘China Girl’and ‘Blue Jean’, but the albums seemed to have too many fillers in, and Bowie not sure what direction to go in.  The 1980’s were difficult for a lot of sixties and seventies artists; it was as if they wanted to keep trying something different, looking for a new sound where the old one seemed stale.  Bowie kept plugging on, and made a couple of interesting records and a few dire ones when he decided to become a band; ‘Tin Machine’ was as poor as the name suggested.  And David has now gone quiet altogether; there have been rumours that he is ill, but these are unconfirmed – he has simply disappeared from the scene.   Maybe he just feels that he has nothing new to say, or is just having a long break, who knows.  But his old albums still sell well, from ‘Ziggy’ to ‘Let’s Dance’, and maybe he is right; why should artists continue to just pump out records when they maybe do not want to anymore.  No-one criticizes sportsmen for retiring at the top of their game, yet we expect musicians to just keep going.  So, hat’s off to Bowie, the true karma karma chameleon of pop.