Two Sad Drunk Guys Talk Bowie

Jan272016January 27, 2016January 26, 2016No Commentby Beef Wellington

Posted in Music

Cam: Wow “Blackstar” is a pretty weird album.

Bake: More weird than the fact that Stevie Ray Vaughn played guitar on “Modern Love”?
Actually, he played on a half dozen songs from Let’s Dance including the title track. I’ve heard these songs a hundred times and never knew it was him. I like them even more now. I’m still like 10 albums away from catching up to “Blackstar”.

Cam: Ya I think it is… they were probably just hanging out at some 80’s cocaine party and figured fuck it we’re both here let’s do some more of this cocaine then go and make an album. Seriously though, holy shit Bowie put out a ton of albums.

Bake: That is probably at least 90% factual.

But yeah…the albums. It’s fucking insane. Whenever I listen to a new album I like to revisit all of the artist’s old work but in the 70s alone Bowie put out more records than people release in a lifetime. It’s been fun to revisit all this old stuff and listen to some tracks I’ve never heard but this is starting to get exhausting.

A lot of the Ziggy Stardust and Berlin trio stuff is supposed to represent how weird Bowie is but mostly it’s still recognizable as rock and pop. Some more glam, some soul, some disco, some harder rock, but still mostly accessible with the exception of his instrumental track that are like whales sounds mixed with piano farts. I bet at the time though it really blew some peoples dicks off.

Is the new album weird like 70s Bowie standards or weird like today’s standards? After 40 years of people trying to out Bowie themselves weird by today’s standards is like critically acclaimed throat singing accompanied by didgeridoo solos and samples of actual murders in the background.

Cam: Granted that I’m not that familiar with most of his catalog past the Ziggy Stardust era but I think it might be weird by both standards. Blackstar gets into some pretty strange spaces… and I’m into in. It sounds a bit like the semi electronic stuff he was doing in the 90’s and I’m still not a big fan of most of that but it seems to work well on Blackstar.

It seem like the thing to do when you know your dying is to make an emotionally heart wrenching acoustic album. So it’s kind of rad that Bowie stayed real weird with it right up until the end.

Bake: I’ve had a chance to listen it now and it’s not THAT weird. There are some cool, dark jazzy songs on here like “Lazarus” and “Dollar Days” and while some of the songs don’t really grip me, honestly I expected worse. His work over the last 20 years hasn’t been bad, but man it has been pretty inconsistent. Really the best thing that could be said for Bowie is that at least he kept mixing things up. After the ’80s dance pop thing fizzled out he kept experimenting with industrial and drum & bass and whatever he could fit under the rock and pop umbrellas. It wasn’t always pretty but you could always say at least he’s not just making “Rebel, Rebel” over and over again for 30 years.

Blackstar is definitely most similar to his ’90s and beyond work but it doesn’t really sound all that much like any of the other two dozen records that he released. The title track is all over the place and I really don’t enjoy the part that seems like creepy monks would sing it as they performed some sort of ritual sacrifice on a goat and/or virgin. But aside from that it’s pretty enjoyable.

Cam: Oh man that’s the best part. I don’t know why but I love that track. It has all the elements of a song that I normally wouldn’t like but for some reason I’m draw into it. Also it’s a pretty ballsy move to put 10 minutes of weirdness right at the top of your album. I guess once you’re dying you don’t really give a shit anymore.

I was also surprised by the amount of sax on this album, it’s all over the place and I like it.

Bake: I flippin love the sax on this album. I know Bowie didn’t play it himself but he should probably be forgiven with the whole cancer thing. But he could do it if healthy. Probably. I just found that he played sax on a half dozen tracks from his album Black Tie White Noise so I’m more impressed with him than ever. He may not be the most talented musician of all time but he definitely was good at saying “I’m going to create this sound on this album and it’s probably going to be weird, and you’re probably going to like it anyway.” And even if it sucked he was just going to make another album soon anyway so fuck you.

Cam: Yep I guess that was pretty much the Bowie way. He was a little bit like Neil Young in that respect but Bowie definitely got way weirder with it. I mean… have you seen the music video he did with Jagger for Dancing In The Streets? It looks like they’re singing into each others mouths. I’m going to chalk that one up to cocaine as well.

Bake: Hah yes I was just showing it to someone a few weeks ago. It’s a ridiculous product of the ’80s and I’m sad to say it was the last time I listened to Bowie before he died. I doubt he wants to be remembered for that. I mean I think he threw in a few high kicks which is impressive but the clothing was horrible enough without considering the over the top everything else. It’s honestly hard to not be embarrassed for him when watching it.

But at the same time I can’t help but laugh my ass off every time I see it. That’s not the worst legacy to leave behind. You know in addition the other 700 songs he wrote.