Coming in at number 21 on the Best of the 70's list is this 1977 release from Bowie. Half pop tunes, half instrumentals this album went in a new direction for Bowie and for music. He teamed up with Brian Eno on this one to produce a real cutting edge piece of work to add yet more influence that Bowie would have on the future. You can't listen to "Subterraneans" for example and not think of the Dire Straits song "Brothers in Arms."It is truly incredible how important Bowie was in the 1970's. If I had never followed this countdown of the 70's I would have never understood what an important figure he was, by far the most important figure in music in the 70's.
Good for a dinner party, because of it's structure.
Following the Rhapsody rating method I give it 2 out of 5 stars for Not Bad.
By far the most important figure of the 1970s?
ReplyDeleteI'm going to need some more support for that conclusion. Please give me some examples of major artists whose careers were significantly influenced by David Bowie.
You should go back and read his previous Bowie reviews.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, this declaration must've been as devastating for the Brian Eno camp this morning as was Google's for Berea.
ReplyDeleteWell it still doesn't cut into Eno, I said he was the most influential person since the Beatles and I'll stick by that. He was working with Bowie in the 70's who I just said was hugely influential, he would go on to work with U2 in the 90's which were hugely influential, so obviously Eno sort of stands alone in some place.
ReplyDeleteSee to me Stephen it is all stepping stones. So if you go back to the 80's and you look at the influential artists of the 80's a lot of them were heavily influenced by Bowie. People like the Talking Heads, The Cure, Duran Duran, you can go on and on.
His direct influence obviously faded as you get further away from the 70's but he was hugely influential on the musicians coming of age in the early 80's.
I guess it depends on what you mean by influence. To me, a lot of stuff that happened in the 80s was really ephemeral and didn't go anywhere. I would say that someone like Hank Williams, Jr. or even Lynyrd Skynyrd -- who are sort of the founders of modern country music -- are more influential, because their influence is still being felt.
ReplyDeleteWell there is an artist out there called Lady Gaga who was hugely influenced by Bowie. You're mistaken if you think Bowie's influence died in the 80's, I was just making the point that his direct influence died because he quit producing and recording, unlike Brian Eno.
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