Bowie Bites Back

The colossal news broke a few months ago: David Bowie, flamboyant 70s pop-rock icon and all-round extrovert, alias Ziggy Stardust/the Thin White Duke, would be releasing new material.

My initial feelings were mixed. Whilst the prospect of something new from an old star was exciting, the crushing doubt that the music simply wouldn’t be able to live up to his heyday – and frankly just end up a bit crap – was terrifying.

So I simply ignored it, pretended that one of the 20th century’s biggest names in rock ‘n’ roll wasn’t actually attempting to make a ‘comeback’.

Whilst sitting around during the vac making a point of not listening to his new singles, I began to wonder why I really cared about Bowie at all. I still had 21 years to wait to be born when Ziggy Stardust burst onto the scene, shocking the 1970s with his androgynous allure and ambiguous sexuality.

I’m not a nostalgic 30-something yearning for my youth, so why am I so compelled by an artist I only know through YouTube and my mum freaking out in embarrassing situations to Let’s Dance? Is Bowie even still relevant to today’s generation?

Eventually I worked it out: even in this enlightened and apparently liberal age the many faces of Ziggy Stardust still represent something revolutionary, unusual and alien to modern society.

Photo: morethings

Bowie’s career itself was a metamorphosis, as he continually adapted his personalities (or just killing them off in Ziggy’s case) to always be one step ahead of everyone else – including his band members.

He’s also commonly accused of being a cultural magpie, picking and choosing from a wide tapestry of music influences.

It is hard to undermine the impact he made on the youth of his generation, if only in making glitter an acceptable substance to wear on one’s face.

Photo: Telegraph

But what of the youth of this generation? To many, Bowie is probably just a name, or known as an excellent artist to cite to sate the vintage fetish embraced by a certain kind of person.

When Bowie was reborn as Ziggy Stardust he was looking both for a vehicle for self-expression and a way of shocking the public into noticing him, telling various music magazines that if he didn’t get a reaction, then he had failed.

Photo: DiamondRags

Well, he didn’t fail. Bowie’s legacy to modern music and artists is all around us – just look at Lady Gaga.

However, with modern music continuously pushing the boundaries and seeking to shock us, it is questionable whether the world needs Bowie again, in any of his mystical incarnations from the last century.

To a certain extent we have become desensitised: Lady Gaga’s meat dress and impossible shoes ruffled a few feathers when she arrived on the scene, but that passed, and her music fails to match her choice of clothing in terms of innovation. If I want to be shocked, I watch the news.

Where is Bowie now? He’s sixty-six, he has wrinkles, a dog and no make-up but he has made the most refreshing piece of art, both the song and the video, that I have seen for a while.

Stripped of youth and extra-terrestrial mystique in The Next Day, Bowie is indeed an alien in 21^st century society. It’s controversial stuff, and it is why Bowie, in human guise, is just as important as he was forty years ago.

Who knows if this is ‘the real Bowie’ or just another character to add to his portfolio? I wouldn’t dare say, but either way, Bowie is back with some bite.