Oh, so THIS is where the
homo superiors hang out, mm?
I've been looking for y'all.
My first real memory of Bowie was seeing that legendary 'Starman' performance replayed on TOTP2 as a wee young lad and being utterly TRANSFIXED by this weird, androgynous freakazoid preaching the creed of some interstellar messiah and imploring us lowly Earthbound folk to sparkle harder. The more I learned about the man behind the visage the more messianic he himself became for young me. I loved the iconography. The idea that you could mask your inner self through a veneer of provocative bombast. That being a scrawny degenerate who disregarded societal norms of gender and sexuality made you no less of a man. Quite the opposite, in fact. He felt like a gift for the misfits, for tortured souls lost amidst a sea of banality who needed an alien Jesus to say that it was okay to not conform, to defy the expectations of others, to try on different guises until you found your best self. And to do it all with unparalleled PIZZAZZ.
The fact that he just so happened to be the greatest artist ever was a NICE BONUS. But
Outside and
Earthling? I don't ride with them, sorry. Why can't you just listen to
Ziggy Stardust like everyone else
@Iguana wish you a Merry Christmas 🦎🎄 ffs!!!
Actually I lie, I can get on board with
Outside. I don't care much for the 'concept', but I think its sounds have aged better than
Earthling's overly-studied restlessness (and 'Looking for Satellites' feels like an attempt to undo all the marvels of an incomparable discography in the space of one song - I remain convinced sb dared him to do it). The best stuff across both records is wondrous tho: 'Hallo Spaceboy' (OG MIX ONLY), 'The Hearts Filthy Lesson', 'I'm Afraid of Americans' (NIN mix tho I like the album cut too), and the forever-underrated 'Seven Years in Tibet' which I made a point of blasting out loud when IN TIBET many moons back (it fell on deaf ears
so I thankfully evaded arrest).
Miss him much. I avoid idolatry wherever possible, but it's no lie to say that I would've lived my life
very differently if Bowie (and Prince) had never existed. To have reached for the stars at all is because Bowie went there first and showed that it could be done.
www.lostinvinyl.org
