Far from David Bowie’s first “comeback”, thirty years ago he emerged from a protracted period of self-imposed exile in Berlin where he had virtually singlehandedly co-opted the best elements of Kraut Rock (Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Can, Amon Duul) into a series of critically lauded if not best-selling albums Low, Lodger, Heroes and Scary Monsters, whose influence can now be seen in full bloom in today’s wildly popular Electronica movement. When Bowie’s Let’s Dance emerged in Spring 1983 with songs “Modern Love”, “China Girl”, “Cat People” (with young unheralded Texas blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan), Metro’s “Critical World”, and the seven minute title strut, it put David back in heavy rotation on North American rock radio where he had been MIA since his previous “comeback” to rock, 1976's #1 seller >Station to Station. This week IN THE STUDIO program host Redbeard shares some of his conversations over the decades with Bowie, who made startling predictions about the internet and who explained the difference between rock music as change agent versus popular music.
“It’s very important for an art form to be the way that only a certain group of people think. That’s when it’s still an incendiary device. But then when it just becomes the way that we ALL think, it’s popular music. We all love popular music. Access to it is so easy. It’s everywhere.” - David Bowie
