Evolution is an integral part of the carrier of any musician worth their salt. It keeps fans engaged, pushes them as artists and proves they haven’t just been riffing (pun intended) on the first hit record they had. As an audience we need to hear new things. We may not always like the changes but they are essential none the less. We all miss the days of Whatever People Say I Am That’s What I’m Not but you can only sing about trying to do a runner on taxis and getting rejected from clubs for so long before it begins to stagnate.
Artistic reinvention comes in many shapes and sizes. Some change slowly over time, subtly reconfiguring their image to make them more palatable to a wider audience, think Johnny Cash going from shooting a man in Reno just to watch him die, to being a boy named Sue. Others are completely rebranded and rereleased with an edgier, sexier sound. Think the new and improved molly popping, salaciously tongued Miley Cyrus. Some defy their fans and explode into a completely new sound, think Dylan rejecting his folk hero status for rock and roll stardom. I could go on but you get the idea.
Fresh ideas that push expectations and boundaries have an inherent importance in all artistic pursuits, whether they be of the individual or the genre. However all changes are not made equal. Often artists try to reinvent themselves to tepid reactions or worse: out cry and scorn. But where are so many artists going wrong in their reinvention? Why are some so held in such reverence while others are briefly mocked and quickly forgotten? What separates the Snoop Lions from the Lou Reeds?. To help us find out let us look back at the greatest transformer of them all, the chameleon prince of metamorphosis, the late and great David Bowie.
The baby faced pop folk singer; the man who sold the world, Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, The Thin White Duke, Bowie has had more phases than every millennial teenager put together. Each distinct from the rest; each loved for its own reason. Each of Bowie’s faces are a testament to his genius, but to truly understand what made him such a great artist (apart from his ineffable talent and all that) we must first understand the two pillars of musical reinvention, sound and image. Image being the artist’s aesthetic: how they look, dress and behave. And sound being pretty self explanatory. To achieve a successful reinvention, both sound and image must be considered and balanced. When they are not, things go a bit south. For instance, when Snoop Dogg wore a green, yellow and red tracksuit for a while and made some rastafarian friends then half arsed a couple of reggae tracks we weren’t impressed. And this is because he didn’t commit to his new sound, it felt forced. A superficial attempt at revitalizing his career and a contrived moment of spiritual clarity induced by the rap equivalent of a mid life crisis.
To demonstrate the importance of sound and image let us turn our attention back to the master. The year is 1972 and Bowie is at the pinnacle of his glam rock stage, The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars has just been released, and Bowie has pretty much become Ziggy Stardust. He embodies every element of Ziggy, the outfits, the makeup and the eccentricity. He fully realised another persona and let himself be ingested by it. And no one mourned the death of Bowie. Ziggy was fully embraced because he was totally convincing. The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars is the epic story of a rock star who acts as a messenger for extraterrestrials, it deals in themes of stardom, sexual exploration and social commentary. These themes are organically epitomized in the character of Ziggy Stardust, he was otherworldly and transcendent, androgynous and provocative. Songs like Lady Stardust seem to refer to Bowie as much as any character and Ziggy’s fall was prophetic of Bowie’s dive into excessive drug where the psychological lines between Bowie and his characters became blurred. The album stands alone as one of the great Rock & Roll albums, but Bowie’s total immersion in Ziggy is what makes it one of the great classics.
And as if we weren’t already convinced by his chameleon prowess Bowie then became the Thin White Duke. Where Ziggy was a flamboyant meteorite of lycra and make up, the Thin White Duke was a subtle, detached american psycho. Whilst being a little understated by Bowie standards sporting an undeniably cool shirt and waist coat, he was the antithesis of Ziggy. “A very Aryan, fascist type; a would-be romantic with absolutely no emotion at all but who spouted a lot of neo-romance.” The Duke made his first appearances on Young Americans and was fully manifested on Station To Station. The albums are Bowie’s foray into Soul and R&B but contrary to what the genre suggests the albums are very much lacking in soul. As funky and invigorating as tracks like Golden Years and Young Americans are, Bowie himself seems distant, robotic. He positions himself as a cold commentator, passively observing his inspirations. The Duke is Bowie’s expression of the style. The Duke assimilates Soul, R&B and Disco and synthesises something sanitized and clinical. All the elements of rhythm and movement remain, but the Bowie is hollow. The Duke, Young Americans and Station to Station work in perfect harmony. They create an idea that surpasses the sum of it’s parts. The Duke contextualises the albums and Bowie’s unusual take on a traditionally impassioned genre.
If Bowie is the master chameleon, his albums are the log, leaf or tree that the chameleon sits on. They are the background for him to emulate, he loses himself in the transition until he disappears into the idea, or better yet, becomes the idea. Not all musical reinventions have to be as conceptual or as cogent as David Bowie’s were. He went above and beyond any rational expectation of what is necessary to execute a compelling transition. However, artists hoping to change their direction, whatever that direction may be, could all learn a little something from Bowie.