Back in the seventies, decent pop leaned into the avant-garde, with artists transcending mere gigs. This was pop as theatre. Bowie, Kate Bush and even prog rock charlatans like Emerson, Lake and Palmer and Genesis could be found using stage craft, props and exquisite scenography to boost their strange and otherworldly music. This elevated itContinue reading “Theatre In Pop Is Back”
Tag Archives: David Bowie
Has Pop (Culture) Eaten Itself?
Have we finally reached saturation point with internet culture? I ask as I stumbled upon The Kiffness (pictured above) the other day, aka. the musician David Scott on YouTube who creates songs based around “singing cat” videos, playing an actual gig, with a proper audience, all of whom were singing along to him, and theContinue reading “Has Pop (Culture) Eaten Itself?”
Lost In Music: David Bowie – Ashes to Ashes
The best art often frightens me. When I was five, Kate Bush doing ‘Wuthering Heights’ made me think she was a witch. Now I love witches. Two years later, David Bowie freaked me out in ‘Ashes to Ashes’. It wasn’t him, per se, in his little Pierrot clown outfit, It was the strange space ageContinue reading “Lost In Music: David Bowie – Ashes to Ashes”
Lost In Music: David Bowie – Love Is Lost (Hello Steve Reich Remix)
This is a cut from The Next Day, a remix by James Murphy for DFA featuring the one and only Steve Reich, sampling his ‘Clapping Music’ and a soupcon of Bowie’s ‘Ashes to Ashes’. The clown is faded- the hat may be jaunty, but love is lost.It’s at once a jump forward and a lookContinue reading “Lost In Music: David Bowie – Love Is Lost (Hello Steve Reich Remix)”
Fallen To Earth, Low But Not Down
“It’s very, very sad… Very romantic” , David Bowie explained to a bemused Russell Harty in one of their many infamous awkward chatshow exchanges, after of course the pompous host remained fixated on the aesthetics and not substance, yet again. He was of course referring to The Man Who Fall To Earth. Low, the albumContinue reading “Fallen To Earth, Low But Not Down”
Ten Years Gone…
And missed every day. Bowie was the best. It’s the dawn of 2026, and Trump has ICE agents firing at cars. Where are we now?
Documentary Review: Bowie- The Final Act
Sadly, it’s been almost a decade since the passing of the Thin White Duke. This documentary, which aired last night on Channel 4 in the UK, is a bit lopsided. Essentially, Bowie: The Final Act, directed by James Stiasny, initially comes across as a greatest hits of Bowie information, aiming for the gravitas and inventionContinue reading “Documentary Review: Bowie- The Final Act”
Album Review: Bowie Vienna ’78
Oh, dear. This live album from David Bowie’s Isolar tour from 1978 suffers from all the problems bootlegs- official or not- often have, namely, dodgy sound, audience chatter and a general sense of immense disappointment at the quality. There’s even a sense of Bowie and the band going through the motions- witness a knackered soundingContinue reading “Album Review: Bowie Vienna ’78”
Lost In Music: Klaus Nomi
Klaus Nomi is all too often rendered a footnote in musical history, a quirk in queer culture’s lineage, as his musical outpourings veered from the sublime to the ridiculous. He’s there, lurking like a camp Zelig figure on the disco dancefloors along with his more respected peers, or wiggling on TV behind Bowie like aContinue reading “Lost In Music: Klaus Nomi”
One From The Tempo House: Cracked Actor -When Bowie Killed Ziggy
Ahead of his twenty fifth studio album Blackstar, Lorna Irvine looks at the BBC documentary which showed Bowie at a major turning point in his career. Almost forty years after its creation, Alan Yentob’s candid documentary for the Beeb on David Bowie still stands up beautifully, juxtaposing the disintegration of Bowie’s health and ego as heContinue reading “One From The Tempo House: Cracked Actor -When Bowie Killed Ziggy”
Hit The North 