So he up and moved to Berlin--the brooding Bohemian center of the avant-garde with its hulking, graffiti-covered wall slicing it into West and East. It was a place where no one seemed to care that he was an international rock superstar, and that suited him perfectly.
The first of three albums born of his German expatriation was Low (1977), a direct reference to how he was feeling at the time.
Upon its release, Low confounded critics and fans, who were expecting another installation of R&B-flavored rock, à la Young Americans (1975) or Station to Station (1976). Instead, what listeners got was a record where Bowie navel gazed over buzzing/burbling/quivering guitars (courtesy of long-time Bowie cohorts Carlos Alomar and Ricky Gardiner), futuristic synths (courtesy of kindred spirit Brian Eno), and Dennis Davis's thunderous drums, which sounded like they were exploding with every lick (courtesy of producer Tony Visconti's then-new gadget, the Eventide H910 Harmonizer--one of the first combo digital pitch shifters/delay effects boxes.)
A perennial favorite of mine from this timeless album is the track "Sound and Vision." It sneakily presents itself as an upbeat pop song, but then takes a left turn when Bowie finally shows up to croon after a 1:30 instrumental intro. Quite simply, he's singing about being hole up in his room with the blinds drawn, cut off from the rest of the world, watching TV. He's not really lamenting his isolation or particularly celebrating it; he's simply observing it like a bystander, hypothetically asking the listener, "Have you ever wondered about isolation, too?"
No comments:
Post a Comment