David Bowie's Natural Creativity
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
Well, what can be said about the great 'David Bowie' that hasn't already been said?
Sure he fancies himself and talks constantly, often about high brow subjects like art history and philosophy. But if you have ever heard him talk about music in any great depth, then you'll realise instantly why he's where he is today.
Unlike the chameleon character everyone seems to think he is, in actual fact I am inclined to believe he is exactly the opposite. He may change his garb from time to time, but with every step of his career he has always tried to be a real trend-setter. Ok, I admit there were a couple of exceptions, e.g. his minor blips in the mid-to-late 80's - namely the Let's Dance and Tonight albums.
However, I personally admire the way he has deliberately sort out stereotypes and exposed them for what they are. He contravenes age-old convention in order to make public statements challenging backdated attitudes. Take for example the whole Gay thing, the press were desperate to find out the score as to whether he was gay or not. He used the press in a very clever way to gain maximum publicity, exploiting the presses and the public's need to know over the issue totally for his own benefit, then ultimately said 'what does it matter one way or the other'.
He has never really sort to justify himself or apologise for anything in his life or the way he lives it as a public figure (e.g. his drug taking days). Bowie simply says, "to me this is how it is and at the end of the day I go on gut instinct. Most of the time if I disappoint or up-set anyone, its generally me as I set myself very high standards these days".
In his career he has sung about all kinds of issues, for example:
Death (My Death)
Drugs and Rent Boys (Rebel Rebel)
Suicide (Rock 'n' Roll Suicide)
Madness (All the Madmen)
Cultural Differences/Morals/Religion (Saviour Machine & Life on Mars), Political Consciousness
Public Icons (Ziggy Stardust)
Aliens and Other Life (Starman)
Raising Children (Kooks)
Acceptance (Letter to Hermione)
The Go-Getter Society (Young Americans)
Club-Culture (I am a DJ)
Loneliness (London Boys)
Well, basically the list is endless...and he has often written his own music, he plays several instruments and is a fantastic sound engineer as he has proved in the 1999 Digitally re-mastered CD versions of all his albums.
I have been a Bowie fan for 17 years now. I have all his music on Vinyl (with original covers and Picture discs) and now I have all but two of his albums on digitally re-mastered CD's.
If anyone else would like to offer an opinion, they a quite welcome, but for me he beats Elvis and John Lennon hands Down (reference the music millennium top 100 artist awards, where I think he came about third or fourth).
Sure he fancies himself and talks constantly, often about high brow subjects like art history and philosophy. But if you have ever heard him talk about music in any great depth, then you'll realise instantly why he's where he is today.
Unlike the chameleon character everyone seems to think he is, in actual fact I am inclined to believe he is exactly the opposite. He may change his garb from time to time, but with every step of his career he has always tried to be a real trend-setter. Ok, I admit there were a couple of exceptions, e.g. his minor blips in the mid-to-late 80's - namely the Let's Dance and Tonight albums.
However, I personally admire the way he has deliberately sort out stereotypes and exposed them for what they are. He contravenes age-old convention in order to make public statements challenging backdated attitudes. Take for example the whole Gay thing, the press were desperate to find out the score as to whether he was gay or not. He used the press in a very clever way to gain maximum publicity, exploiting the presses and the public's need to know over the issue totally for his own benefit, then ultimately said 'what does it matter one way or the other'.
He has never really sort to justify himself or apologise for anything in his life or the way he lives it as a public figure (e.g. his drug taking days). Bowie simply says, "to me this is how it is and at the end of the day I go on gut instinct. Most of the time if I disappoint or up-set anyone, its generally me as I set myself very high standards these days".
In his career he has sung about all kinds of issues, for example:
Death (My Death)
Drugs and Rent Boys (Rebel Rebel)
Suicide (Rock 'n' Roll Suicide)
Madness (All the Madmen)
Cultural Differences/Morals/Religion (Saviour Machine & Life on Mars), Political Consciousness
Public Icons (Ziggy Stardust)
Aliens and Other Life (Starman)
Raising Children (Kooks)
Acceptance (Letter to Hermione)
The Go-Getter Society (Young Americans)
Club-Culture (I am a DJ)
Loneliness (London Boys)
Well, basically the list is endless...and he has often written his own music, he plays several instruments and is a fantastic sound engineer as he has proved in the 1999 Digitally re-mastered CD versions of all his albums.
I have been a Bowie fan for 17 years now. I have all his music on Vinyl (with original covers and Picture discs) and now I have all but two of his albums on digitally re-mastered CD's.
If anyone else would like to offer an opinion, they a quite welcome, but for me he beats Elvis and John Lennon hands Down (reference the music millennium top 100 artist awards, where I think he came about third or fourth).
