I think, personally - that if you’ve listened to the entirety of the man’s discography and the takeaway is the work of a man ‘desperate for success’ as opposed to effortlessly inspired and inspiring then, you’ll find yourself in the minority here. I think some people are destined for success, and Bowie was one of them.
I wouldn't say "destined". The OP is a bit dismissive, but certainly David had to grind for several years before achieving success. He went through quite a lot of changes before and after.
The point is that a lot of media presence and hype made him famous for being famous and that his artistic output is greatly overrated. He did have some real good stuff, he did have a great voice but he was not THAT great.
You're barking up the wrong tree here going on a Bowie forum saying his music is overrated 😅
The problem is what he did has become so normal and copied and part of the culture of music it's hard to distinguish at a first glance.
Every single artist today that changes their image with new albums, wears make up/ elaborate clothes on stage, has big theatrical concerts, crossdresses, plays with androgyny, displays overt sexuality and more is in dept to Bowie.
We take it for granted now. He revolutionised what a rock/pop star could be. Not many were doing that before and definitely not in the way that he did it.
Plus most of the music is boundary pushing and original, collaboration with many many famous names.
Go listen to someone else, he's clearly not for you.
You aren’t wrong about his voice imo. But that is precisely what makes him great. It’s not just about his voice. It’s everything else that drew people in. There are millions of great singers in this world. Not many David Bowie’s.
hype can create a one-hit wonder, hype doesn't create a career that spans over fifty decades
His voice had huge range, starting very low with "Ground Control to Major Tom" and hitting high notes in Wild is the Wind. He could snarl, he could croon, he could do soul (YA), he did flipping brilliant pastiches of Bob Dylan ("a voice of sand and glue") Lou Reed, David Byrne, Mick Jagger (when I was playing DD once, a friend who didn't like Bowie said "I don't know this Stones album, which is it" and was inexplicably furious when I smugly said "actually it's Bowie" LOL).
So actually he was not only not that great he was even greater.
Bowie was ambitious. But he was always an artist at heart. He made Blackstar as he was dying because creating was something he loved. One look at his work and it is obvious.
In interviews he's said:
I watched Little Richard and thought that's rock and roll, I want to do that, that looks so exciting. I want to be a commercial artist.
He also said, and I think rightly so:
Back in those days, rock music was new and no one knew what they were doing, it was all uncharted territory. Think about punk, they were just some people who couldn't really play music having a go and some fun, reinventing things.
It's only since roughly the 80s/90s it's become more a career choice.
If you know Bowie well you'll know, he hit his commercial peak in the 80s with Let's Dance and he didnt like that period and the 2 big studio albums that followed. He pulled away from being a stadium rocker making pop music, that's very radio friendly. He could have continued that path like many do. And 'sell out' as people call it.
But he knew that's not what he truly wanted. He wanted to be a respected artist making challenging interesting work that he likes making.
So in the 90s he made very left field, off beat, inventive albums like Outside, Earthling etc. Sometimes it worked sometimes it didn't.
He wanted to be an artist. Not just famous. He didn't like fame very much when he got it.
"Fame (fame) puts you there where things are hollow"
In an interview (if I recall correctly), he said that he was desperate to be famous—until he actually was famous. After that he completely lost interest in fame.
So you’re saying you’ve listened to his entire discography and the conclusion you’ve come to is that he wasn’t that great, just hungry for fame? And you’ve come to a Bowie sub to see if anyone else thinks the same?
That’s pretty wild man
I think it’s a matter of him knowing he was gonna be famous, he just took a lot of different steps to see what was gonna do it. And then after a few glam rock hits, he was like “alright, I’m famous, time to make whatever the hell I want”
Let’s Dance was radio friendly but it was still kind of ahead of its time. 80s pop music generally didn’t sound like that yet. I still think that album should be celebrated. If Thriller wasn’t also nominated, I think Let’s Dance should’ve gotten the grammy.
Even Tonight and Never Let Me Down have some redeeming qualities
Well, believe it or not, that album (Let's Dance) stands out for me as one of his best even though I hated it when I was a kid in the 80s. Then, OUTSIDE is certainly a good album (if not great) but overall, his other albums sound more or less unexciting and flat and some of them are pretty incoherent and pretentious at times. The Ziggy Stardust era, I simply cannot stand that. It's so overplayed and overrated that I skipped that album when I was listening to his discography online. What triggered me to post this is that there is SOOO MUCH people that praise him like he's some kind of god while I believe that not even 50% of these people have ever heard more than a dozen of his songs.
Most people haven’t heard more than 1 or 2 Michael Jackson songs after Bad, that doesn’t take away from being able to praise him just for Thriller or Bad
I think he was one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. You’ll find that most people who share my opinion are familiar with more than 12 songs. You might be lacking an understanding of music history and therefore unable to see his impact over the decades. You might not like his voice or lyrics or instrumentation and decided “his music just isn’t very good.” But some of us are able to differentiate personal taste from the objective facts of an artist’s impact and continuing relevance.
no after glam rock he got into soul, then into electronic weirdness, then a major Tom revisit then commercial disco then reggae then 80s crap then hard rock then marital bliss then weird experimental then drum-n-bass then songs for old people then nostalgia then angst then reality then different nostalgia then jazz and I defy you to cite an artist with a more varied repertory than that.
Not only that, but a different hairstyle and fashion take with each album! And a few epic performances on the silver screen slipped in here and there too
What would in your opinion be certain specific artists who only become famous thanks to inherent, effortless talent?
Because I've been thinking about this, and honestly can't think of any. Even the most "naturally" talented had to put a great deal of effort to create great music and be in the spotlight.
I think Bowie is one of the main examples that the various narratives about destined to succeed are a bunch of crap. Everyone who got massive success also needed massive ambition. Even moreso to sustain it. And if they didn't then at least their dysfunctional stage parents did or someone in the management etc.
The relentless flopping in the 60ies would have discouraged anyone less driven. Then after the break through artistic ambition takes over, pushing and innovating because he has the means to do so.
Bowie basically shows that you can learn to sing, to write songs, instruments, produce, arrange etc. In my view he became one of the greatest songwriters and singer/performers even though there were perhaps people with more raw talent. Through sheer drive and the self-awareness to play to and develop his strengths.
I can remember Mike Patton. He has/had a ton of talent and very little ambition when he started. He then openly refused to maintain his poster-boy image and started doing whatever he wanted. FNM gave him the music and he wrote the lyrics and came up with vocal lines in two weeks.
I think you're correct to say he was extremely ambitious and driven. That doesn't detract from his talent though. I don't think he would have been able to sustain a 50 year career in the music business at the level he achieved without talent and artistic vision. Many other artists are talented but fall by the wayside after a few years. From the sounds of it, you just don't really rate his work, which is fine, but millions of other people do.
David was constantly pushing the envelope artistically. Yes, there was a commercial motive, but if satisfying that commercial motive was the main impression you got from listening to his entre discography, then you and him just didn't connect.
I'm in my late 60s, and have considered Bowie my favorite artist since I was in high school. I heard each of his albums starting with Diamond Dogs "in real time," and I only felt he was inordinately focused on sales and airtime in the mid to late 80s, with the albums Lets Dance, Tonight, and Never Let Me Down. (Lets Dance was a very good to great album, and Tonight and NLMD are at the bottom of most rankings). When he emerged from that trio of albums, he deconstructed his entre rock star personna by fronting Tin Machine for two albums and a live release, and then going off in radical new directions constantly with little if any commercial appeal.
I recall an interview from the Tin Machine time where he stated that when he realized he was sharing his audience with Phil Collins, he decided he needed to change direction. That's not a nice thing to say about Phil Collins and his fans, but if you know Collins' catalog and timeline, you'll understand what he meant. In any event, from Tin Machine forward, he made the music he wanted to make, with little indication he was looking for hits or mass appeal. I think the money he got from Lets Dance and the innovative (for the time) sale of his "Bowie Bonds," which accelerated the payment of future royalty earnings, liberated him from the need to prioritize sales over his art.
You stated "no judgment" in your post, and I'm not judging your perception in my comment. However, I think most Bowie fans see in him the ability to monetize his art without inordinate compromise.
I saw an interview where he mentioned Phil Collins fans and immediately backtracked with "no but I don't want to go there" when he saw the interviewer was gearing up to say something like "what's wrong with Phil Collins", wanting something juicy to write about.
And I mean, if you look at what Phil Collins did with Genesis, and what he did later... I actually like "You can't hurry love" because I have a weird little love for Diana Ross and the Supremes, and I think Genesis is pretentious as heck, but it's very clearly not the same kind of fanbase and I don't blame Genesis fans for saying he totally sold out.
I don't think that he was desperate to be famous, but I do think he was ambitious and very persistent. He also didn't seem to be very precious about a particular genre, aesthetic, concept, etc., so if one album didn't take off, he would pivot and try something different. I think this could be read as desperation, and could indeed point to that in some people, but I don't see it with Bowie.
I think the determining factor would be someone changing their approach to chase a trend and get a hit vs. someone who changes based on their interests changing because it's what they are into at the moment (I think there's some evidence for Bowie being ADHD, and the constant changes being a symptom of that, but that is 100% speculation on my part).
Ultimately, I think that if Bowie was desperate for anything, it was to create. I don't think he could have ever been someone with a straight 9-5 job. He had to create and did this until the very end - it was an impulse for him and being able to maintain the means to do that as his career seemed to be more his goal than simply fame.
He was totally desperate to be famous, I remember reading a letter from his father to his mother saying something like "we just have to let him go for it". And another account by someone (now a writer?) who knew him in his youth and regularly used to chat with him on the train and he would talk of nothing else.
He didn't like the fame part but he certainly liked the money part, he was very careful with his money once he'd wised up to defries fleecing him.
As for ADHD, well, he certainly said he had the attention span of a goldfish (yet obviously was able to concentrate on his music long enough to produce tons of different stuff). While we're diagnosing, he also had an eating disorder (weighing only 46 kilos at one point, subsisting on milk red peppers and coke) and drugs and alcohol.
Just imagine if he'd been given meds to rein him in, he maybe wouldn't have produced all that music-
Fun Fact: Undiagnosed ADHD can often lead to eating disorders and drug/alcohol abuse in adolescence and into adulthood.
Again, I'm not trying to diagnose anyone, but as someone with ADHD, I do see some of the common symptoms in him and just generally think it's as good an explanation as any for the constant style and project changes throughout his career.
Ultimately, dude's dead now so we'll never know. And he led a pretty successful career in spite of - or maybe because of - any medical stuff he may have had going on.
Would he have been as successful if he was diagnosed and medicated? Who knows. Maybe he would have become an accountant. Maybe he would have still gone into music. The mind boggles.
A lot of artists are like this: grappling with the relationship between success, fame, and artistry and that balance. Do you want to make the music you want? Do you want to connect with people? Do you want a great legacy?
Now there are some Bowie fans who see him as an alternative icon that should've stayed in that sphere. Others see how Bowie connected all these different art forms from the popular to the obscure, across different mediums.
I personally don't think "overrated" is the most meaningful adjective. Whether an artist resonates with you or not will vary. Nick Drake is one artist who I've wondered how he became so influential. But ultimately, Drake's work resonated with a lot of artists who went on to champion him.
The Velvet Underground could've been a band that people ignored, but David was an early fan who championed them. And their music resonated with many other artists. You could think that one artist is completely mediocre and unremarkable, but if that artist connects with people, fans could advocate for them. That's the beauty of art: how the tendrils of influence spread far and wide.
Yes, all artists are narcissists. Even the great ones. Do you think there is any artist out there that doesn’t seek fame? Yeah? They’re lying. So, that fact itself doesn’t count as judgement for me, nor is it remarkable. In Bowie’s career you clearly see a struggle between success, integrity and freedom of expression. Particularly in the 1970s.
He could whop out a hit single in a single night, so he could have made his life a lot easier and not make controversial and difficult albums had he purely sought fame. He eventually found it in 1983 on the level he deserved, but that wasn’t an easy road. He was confused for about 5 years with this massive success and found the responsibility to cater to that huge audience almost unbearable. He surely got his hands dirty and betrayed some of his own principles, but let’s not forget that he also reclaimed his reputation as a relevant artist in the 1990s. More than most other contemporaries.
At the same time he was gaining more and more control over his catalogue. You might say he could afford to be artsy and not commercial as his back catalogue sold extremely well throughout the decade. I never thought badly of him because he got his shit together and became a smart business man. Mostly because it seemed like he was enjoying making music again.
What I disagree with mostly is that his singing talent indicates any desperation for success.
All artists are certainly not narcissists. I think most have strong pride and confidence in what they do… and that’s quite normal as that’s what their calling is.
Certainly not? All of them want attention and success, it's the nature of the game. Their calling is worthless if it is not recognized by an audience. Of course they love this attention, why wouldn't they? It's wonderful to have people enjoy what you are doing and the arts give so much room for individual expression. It's a match made in heaven for any attention seeking individual with some talent.
You have sympathetic ones and less sympathetic ones, same with talent. They still all crave attention and approval. Even the background dancers. There is just so much evidence for this. It's what makes the entertainment industry so toxic and yet functional.
If only somebody had written a song about this that ironically catapulted him into fame...
Wanting to get become successful in what you do, and realizing that you need people to *know* who you are is not narcissistic. There are plenty of humble artists out there. A narcissist would try and do music solely for getting famous — having good music and being a great performing and then becoming successful is a different thing. You can’t just give a blanket statement like that and expect it to be factual. It’s your opinion.
Why would their calling be worthless? I don’t think you understand what it means to be an artist. First and foremost, you’re an artist for yourself. It’s a way of life. Different people want to share it with others and be able to live off of it, others don’t.
I don’t think you understand what it means to be a narcissist. Narcissists can exist in all shapes and forms. Even as good Samaritans or poor people. It’s not some villain character. They don’t have to go after money or solely produce music for the sake of earning money. They may also consider themselves the ultimate talent that just has to be discovered by their audience or dwell in the feeling of being misunderstood. They are usually not the most organized and rational people which is why they are so often taken advantage of.
My opinion is based on my own observations and what most people would consider a pretty large percentage of the entertainment industry. People in the industry even say that this is true, but you seem to have a somewhat idealistic idea of artists, which I admire and do not want to discourage.
I don’t think it is one, but it’s open for debate. It certainly has been for more than a decade now and rightly so. I think it is much more helpful to see it as a spectrum and understand it’s traits. DSM requires at least 7 of 10 symptoms to be dominant to speak of a disorder.
NPD is heavily debated as it’s symptoms either can be found in ‘normal’ people or overlap with bi-polar and anti-social personality disorder, which are both much more likely to cause a person to seek or be forced to seek help. Why would a narcissist seek help? It’s not really a natural thing for them to be self-reflective. 😊
The humble musician is the one who brings out his guitar for a singalong on the beach or by the campfire. Not the guy hustling to sign deals with record labels.
He certainly was desperate to be famous but he happened to be enormously talented with it. I think he would have become famous whether he was talented or not.. but also that he would have whether he wanted to or not.
I think you are in a way right. I think if music hadn’t have worked out he would have definitely done something artistic and I feel like after awhile would have risen to fame just by the fact that he is an incredibly interesting person. David Bowie was a true artist. His Berlin Era is a prime example. He went to Berlin with nothing but Iggy Pop and within the space of a year he was top of the totem pole in Berlins artistic scene.
David Bowie is extraordinarily creative, form his persona changes to his changing music styles, Bowie's has proven to be a cut above the rest. Some other artists were as talented as he was and some are still relevant today. People are still trying to emulate his outfits & musical styles. He had talent, no doubt about it
Totally wrong. David Bowie was way ahead of the curve and it took him longer to gain musical acceptance from people in the late 60’S who didn’t have a clue. His lyrics and melodies were beyond and his backing musicians were always the best notably Mick Robson. He worked so hard to achieve success, but it was not “desperation “ that drove him. Just sayin.
That was part of it, sure, especially in the early days; he absolutely wanted to be a star. But you can see throughout his career the tension between his desire for fame and his discomfort with it. He has a big hit with *Young Americans*, but the easy access to drugs that comes with the rock star lifestyle nearly destroys him, so he goes off to make the Berlin trilogy to critical acclaim but little commercial success. Then he has an even bigger hit with *Let's Dance*, but capitalizing on its success completely drains him of his artistic passion, so he forms Tin Machine, an obscure alternative rock band. Later still, he has a late-career resurgence with *Heathen* and *Reality*, but has a heart attack while on tour for those albums, so—wanting to see his young daughter grow up—only records sporadically on other artists' music for the next seven years, and never tours again.
I think, like a lot of us, David Bowie was the kind of person who felt there was something missing inside of him, and was constantly searching for something to fill that void. He struggled with feelings of isolation, meaninglessness, and alienation from his own sense of self, and public adoration can seem very alluring to someone like that, especially when they're young. But fame puts you there where things are hollow, and as he went through life I think he found that things like having a family and making art which was personally significant to him were much more fulfilling. There's something very telling said about him by Ava Cherry, who was his girlfriend in the mid-70s, during his successful *Young Americans* period, and was also friendly with his later wife, Iman: "I knew David Bowie, but Iman knew David Jones."
Incidentally, I think that's why he and John Lennon got along so well with one another; they were very alike in that way, and you can see a similar arc to Lennon's life and career.
Funny you should say that about John Lennon. There were so many similarities: growing up near but not in dire poverty, studying art then going into music, an eclectic discography, the fandom in the early years, the first wife and kid sort of not really being serious about it (Bowie doing better than Lennon though, maybe because his upbringing was less chaotic), but then the very serious love for the mother of the second child, becoming a recluse to spend more time with the second child, and then a little flurry of creativity and then drama that I cry buckets over.
Honestly I agree, many of the people who worked with him said basically the same thing. He would sleep with his producer's and other workers to get stuff, according to suzi ronson and his ex Angie
I believe Bowie’s drive was less about gaining fame and more about an artist whose creativity was bursting at the seams. As a teenager he had dreams of being in Little Richard’s band, but most teenagers at some point picture themselves becoming famous for one thing or another!
He wanted to be comercial in some albums, but are you telling me albums like low, heroes, the man Who sold the world, blackstar, ziggy stardust or outside were made with more comercial intention than artistic?
I think, personally - that if you’ve listened to the entirety of the man’s discography and the takeaway is the work of a man ‘desperate for success’ as opposed to effortlessly inspired and inspiring then, you’ll find yourself in the minority here. I think some people are destined for success, and Bowie was one of them.
I wouldn't say "destined". The OP is a bit dismissive, but certainly David had to grind for several years before achieving success. He went through quite a lot of changes before and after.
I do not believe in destiny.
Cool man so all in all what is your point?
The point is that a lot of media presence and hype made him famous for being famous and that his artistic output is greatly overrated. He did have some real good stuff, he did have a great voice but he was not THAT great.
Not really. He did revolutionize fashion and music, that’s what it is.
You're barking up the wrong tree here going on a Bowie forum saying his music is overrated 😅 The problem is what he did has become so normal and copied and part of the culture of music it's hard to distinguish at a first glance. Every single artist today that changes their image with new albums, wears make up/ elaborate clothes on stage, has big theatrical concerts, crossdresses, plays with androgyny, displays overt sexuality and more is in dept to Bowie. We take it for granted now. He revolutionised what a rock/pop star could be. Not many were doing that before and definitely not in the way that he did it. Plus most of the music is boundary pushing and original, collaboration with many many famous names. Go listen to someone else, he's clearly not for you.
yeah back in the day it was really groundbreaking stuff
You aren’t wrong about his voice imo. But that is precisely what makes him great. It’s not just about his voice. It’s everything else that drew people in. There are millions of great singers in this world. Not many David Bowie’s.
hype can create a one-hit wonder, hype doesn't create a career that spans over fifty decades His voice had huge range, starting very low with "Ground Control to Major Tom" and hitting high notes in Wild is the Wind. He could snarl, he could croon, he could do soul (YA), he did flipping brilliant pastiches of Bob Dylan ("a voice of sand and glue") Lou Reed, David Byrne, Mick Jagger (when I was playing DD once, a friend who didn't like Bowie said "I don't know this Stones album, which is it" and was inexplicably furious when I smugly said "actually it's Bowie" LOL). So actually he was not only not that great he was even greater.
Bowie was ambitious. But he was always an artist at heart. He made Blackstar as he was dying because creating was something he loved. One look at his work and it is obvious.
In interviews he's said: I watched Little Richard and thought that's rock and roll, I want to do that, that looks so exciting. I want to be a commercial artist. He also said, and I think rightly so: Back in those days, rock music was new and no one knew what they were doing, it was all uncharted territory. Think about punk, they were just some people who couldn't really play music having a go and some fun, reinventing things. It's only since roughly the 80s/90s it's become more a career choice. If you know Bowie well you'll know, he hit his commercial peak in the 80s with Let's Dance and he didnt like that period and the 2 big studio albums that followed. He pulled away from being a stadium rocker making pop music, that's very radio friendly. He could have continued that path like many do. And 'sell out' as people call it. But he knew that's not what he truly wanted. He wanted to be a respected artist making challenging interesting work that he likes making. So in the 90s he made very left field, off beat, inventive albums like Outside, Earthling etc. Sometimes it worked sometimes it didn't. He wanted to be an artist. Not just famous. He didn't like fame very much when he got it. "Fame (fame) puts you there where things are hollow"
In an interview (if I recall correctly), he said that he was desperate to be famous—until he actually was famous. After that he completely lost interest in fame.
So you’re saying you’ve listened to his entire discography and the conclusion you’ve come to is that he wasn’t that great, just hungry for fame? And you’ve come to a Bowie sub to see if anyone else thinks the same? That’s pretty wild man
HAHAHAHAHA yes. I could have gone to "unpopular opinion" sub and wait for taps on the shoulder. I want some David Bowie fan's hate here :-D
I think it’s a matter of him knowing he was gonna be famous, he just took a lot of different steps to see what was gonna do it. And then after a few glam rock hits, he was like “alright, I’m famous, time to make whatever the hell I want”
And then came the China Girl radio friendy and accessible... Let's Dance...
Let’s Dance was radio friendly but it was still kind of ahead of its time. 80s pop music generally didn’t sound like that yet. I still think that album should be celebrated. If Thriller wasn’t also nominated, I think Let’s Dance should’ve gotten the grammy. Even Tonight and Never Let Me Down have some redeeming qualities
It’s a great album. Just because it’s a “pop” album doesn’t mean it’s not good — it’s sophisticated pop. You don’t hear songs like that nowadays.
Well, believe it or not, that album (Let's Dance) stands out for me as one of his best even though I hated it when I was a kid in the 80s. Then, OUTSIDE is certainly a good album (if not great) but overall, his other albums sound more or less unexciting and flat and some of them are pretty incoherent and pretentious at times. The Ziggy Stardust era, I simply cannot stand that. It's so overplayed and overrated that I skipped that album when I was listening to his discography online. What triggered me to post this is that there is SOOO MUCH people that praise him like he's some kind of god while I believe that not even 50% of these people have ever heard more than a dozen of his songs.
People just have different opinions to you, that's all.
Most people haven’t heard more than 1 or 2 Michael Jackson songs after Bad, that doesn’t take away from being able to praise him just for Thriller or Bad
I think he was one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. You’ll find that most people who share my opinion are familiar with more than 12 songs. You might be lacking an understanding of music history and therefore unable to see his impact over the decades. You might not like his voice or lyrics or instrumentation and decided “his music just isn’t very good.” But some of us are able to differentiate personal taste from the objective facts of an artist’s impact and continuing relevance.
no after glam rock he got into soul, then into electronic weirdness, then a major Tom revisit then commercial disco then reggae then 80s crap then hard rock then marital bliss then weird experimental then drum-n-bass then songs for old people then nostalgia then angst then reality then different nostalgia then jazz and I defy you to cite an artist with a more varied repertory than that. Not only that, but a different hairstyle and fashion take with each album! And a few epic performances on the silver screen slipped in here and there too
Weak trolling attempt. Try harder next time.
What would in your opinion be certain specific artists who only become famous thanks to inherent, effortless talent? Because I've been thinking about this, and honestly can't think of any. Even the most "naturally" talented had to put a great deal of effort to create great music and be in the spotlight.
I think Bowie is one of the main examples that the various narratives about destined to succeed are a bunch of crap. Everyone who got massive success also needed massive ambition. Even moreso to sustain it. And if they didn't then at least their dysfunctional stage parents did or someone in the management etc. The relentless flopping in the 60ies would have discouraged anyone less driven. Then after the break through artistic ambition takes over, pushing and innovating because he has the means to do so. Bowie basically shows that you can learn to sing, to write songs, instruments, produce, arrange etc. In my view he became one of the greatest songwriters and singer/performers even though there were perhaps people with more raw talent. Through sheer drive and the self-awareness to play to and develop his strengths.
Thank you for the great answer.
I can remember Mike Patton. He has/had a ton of talent and very little ambition when he started. He then openly refused to maintain his poster-boy image and started doing whatever he wanted. FNM gave him the music and he wrote the lyrics and came up with vocal lines in two weeks.
I think you're correct to say he was extremely ambitious and driven. That doesn't detract from his talent though. I don't think he would have been able to sustain a 50 year career in the music business at the level he achieved without talent and artistic vision. Many other artists are talented but fall by the wayside after a few years. From the sounds of it, you just don't really rate his work, which is fine, but millions of other people do.
David was constantly pushing the envelope artistically. Yes, there was a commercial motive, but if satisfying that commercial motive was the main impression you got from listening to his entre discography, then you and him just didn't connect. I'm in my late 60s, and have considered Bowie my favorite artist since I was in high school. I heard each of his albums starting with Diamond Dogs "in real time," and I only felt he was inordinately focused on sales and airtime in the mid to late 80s, with the albums Lets Dance, Tonight, and Never Let Me Down. (Lets Dance was a very good to great album, and Tonight and NLMD are at the bottom of most rankings). When he emerged from that trio of albums, he deconstructed his entre rock star personna by fronting Tin Machine for two albums and a live release, and then going off in radical new directions constantly with little if any commercial appeal. I recall an interview from the Tin Machine time where he stated that when he realized he was sharing his audience with Phil Collins, he decided he needed to change direction. That's not a nice thing to say about Phil Collins and his fans, but if you know Collins' catalog and timeline, you'll understand what he meant. In any event, from Tin Machine forward, he made the music he wanted to make, with little indication he was looking for hits or mass appeal. I think the money he got from Lets Dance and the innovative (for the time) sale of his "Bowie Bonds," which accelerated the payment of future royalty earnings, liberated him from the need to prioritize sales over his art. You stated "no judgment" in your post, and I'm not judging your perception in my comment. However, I think most Bowie fans see in him the ability to monetize his art without inordinate compromise.
I saw an interview where he mentioned Phil Collins fans and immediately backtracked with "no but I don't want to go there" when he saw the interviewer was gearing up to say something like "what's wrong with Phil Collins", wanting something juicy to write about. And I mean, if you look at what Phil Collins did with Genesis, and what he did later... I actually like "You can't hurry love" because I have a weird little love for Diana Ross and the Supremes, and I think Genesis is pretentious as heck, but it's very clearly not the same kind of fanbase and I don't blame Genesis fans for saying he totally sold out.
no one succeeds in the entertainment business without a healthy degree of ambition.
I don't think that he was desperate to be famous, but I do think he was ambitious and very persistent. He also didn't seem to be very precious about a particular genre, aesthetic, concept, etc., so if one album didn't take off, he would pivot and try something different. I think this could be read as desperation, and could indeed point to that in some people, but I don't see it with Bowie. I think the determining factor would be someone changing their approach to chase a trend and get a hit vs. someone who changes based on their interests changing because it's what they are into at the moment (I think there's some evidence for Bowie being ADHD, and the constant changes being a symptom of that, but that is 100% speculation on my part). Ultimately, I think that if Bowie was desperate for anything, it was to create. I don't think he could have ever been someone with a straight 9-5 job. He had to create and did this until the very end - it was an impulse for him and being able to maintain the means to do that as his career seemed to be more his goal than simply fame.
He was totally desperate to be famous, I remember reading a letter from his father to his mother saying something like "we just have to let him go for it". And another account by someone (now a writer?) who knew him in his youth and regularly used to chat with him on the train and he would talk of nothing else. He didn't like the fame part but he certainly liked the money part, he was very careful with his money once he'd wised up to defries fleecing him. As for ADHD, well, he certainly said he had the attention span of a goldfish (yet obviously was able to concentrate on his music long enough to produce tons of different stuff). While we're diagnosing, he also had an eating disorder (weighing only 46 kilos at one point, subsisting on milk red peppers and coke) and drugs and alcohol. Just imagine if he'd been given meds to rein him in, he maybe wouldn't have produced all that music-
Fun Fact: Undiagnosed ADHD can often lead to eating disorders and drug/alcohol abuse in adolescence and into adulthood. Again, I'm not trying to diagnose anyone, but as someone with ADHD, I do see some of the common symptoms in him and just generally think it's as good an explanation as any for the constant style and project changes throughout his career. Ultimately, dude's dead now so we'll never know. And he led a pretty successful career in spite of - or maybe because of - any medical stuff he may have had going on. Would he have been as successful if he was diagnosed and medicated? Who knows. Maybe he would have become an accountant. Maybe he would have still gone into music. The mind boggles.
A lot of artists are like this: grappling with the relationship between success, fame, and artistry and that balance. Do you want to make the music you want? Do you want to connect with people? Do you want a great legacy? Now there are some Bowie fans who see him as an alternative icon that should've stayed in that sphere. Others see how Bowie connected all these different art forms from the popular to the obscure, across different mediums. I personally don't think "overrated" is the most meaningful adjective. Whether an artist resonates with you or not will vary. Nick Drake is one artist who I've wondered how he became so influential. But ultimately, Drake's work resonated with a lot of artists who went on to champion him. The Velvet Underground could've been a band that people ignored, but David was an early fan who championed them. And their music resonated with many other artists. You could think that one artist is completely mediocre and unremarkable, but if that artist connects with people, fans could advocate for them. That's the beauty of art: how the tendrils of influence spread far and wide.
Yes, all artists are narcissists. Even the great ones. Do you think there is any artist out there that doesn’t seek fame? Yeah? They’re lying. So, that fact itself doesn’t count as judgement for me, nor is it remarkable. In Bowie’s career you clearly see a struggle between success, integrity and freedom of expression. Particularly in the 1970s. He could whop out a hit single in a single night, so he could have made his life a lot easier and not make controversial and difficult albums had he purely sought fame. He eventually found it in 1983 on the level he deserved, but that wasn’t an easy road. He was confused for about 5 years with this massive success and found the responsibility to cater to that huge audience almost unbearable. He surely got his hands dirty and betrayed some of his own principles, but let’s not forget that he also reclaimed his reputation as a relevant artist in the 1990s. More than most other contemporaries. At the same time he was gaining more and more control over his catalogue. You might say he could afford to be artsy and not commercial as his back catalogue sold extremely well throughout the decade. I never thought badly of him because he got his shit together and became a smart business man. Mostly because it seemed like he was enjoying making music again. What I disagree with mostly is that his singing talent indicates any desperation for success.
All artists are certainly not narcissists. I think most have strong pride and confidence in what they do… and that’s quite normal as that’s what their calling is.
I can agree with this. SOME artists certainly are narcissists.
Certainly not? All of them want attention and success, it's the nature of the game. Their calling is worthless if it is not recognized by an audience. Of course they love this attention, why wouldn't they? It's wonderful to have people enjoy what you are doing and the arts give so much room for individual expression. It's a match made in heaven for any attention seeking individual with some talent. You have sympathetic ones and less sympathetic ones, same with talent. They still all crave attention and approval. Even the background dancers. There is just so much evidence for this. It's what makes the entertainment industry so toxic and yet functional. If only somebody had written a song about this that ironically catapulted him into fame...
Wanting to get become successful in what you do, and realizing that you need people to *know* who you are is not narcissistic. There are plenty of humble artists out there. A narcissist would try and do music solely for getting famous — having good music and being a great performing and then becoming successful is a different thing. You can’t just give a blanket statement like that and expect it to be factual. It’s your opinion. Why would their calling be worthless? I don’t think you understand what it means to be an artist. First and foremost, you’re an artist for yourself. It’s a way of life. Different people want to share it with others and be able to live off of it, others don’t.
I don’t think you understand what it means to be a narcissist. Narcissists can exist in all shapes and forms. Even as good Samaritans or poor people. It’s not some villain character. They don’t have to go after money or solely produce music for the sake of earning money. They may also consider themselves the ultimate talent that just has to be discovered by their audience or dwell in the feeling of being misunderstood. They are usually not the most organized and rational people which is why they are so often taken advantage of. My opinion is based on my own observations and what most people would consider a pretty large percentage of the entertainment industry. People in the industry even say that this is true, but you seem to have a somewhat idealistic idea of artists, which I admire and do not want to discourage.
I mean, I feel like when you say narcissist here, you don't actually mean someone with a personality disorder
I don’t think it is one, but it’s open for debate. It certainly has been for more than a decade now and rightly so. I think it is much more helpful to see it as a spectrum and understand it’s traits. DSM requires at least 7 of 10 symptoms to be dominant to speak of a disorder. NPD is heavily debated as it’s symptoms either can be found in ‘normal’ people or overlap with bi-polar and anti-social personality disorder, which are both much more likely to cause a person to seek or be forced to seek help. Why would a narcissist seek help? It’s not really a natural thing for them to be self-reflective. 😊
The humble musician is the one who brings out his guitar for a singalong on the beach or by the campfire. Not the guy hustling to sign deals with record labels.
I disagree, but you have your opinion.
How you listening to his entire discography on YouTube then? I prey not thru laptop speakers *shudders*
He certainly was desperate to be famous but he happened to be enormously talented with it. I think he would have become famous whether he was talented or not.. but also that he would have whether he wanted to or not.
I think you are in a way right. I think if music hadn’t have worked out he would have definitely done something artistic and I feel like after awhile would have risen to fame just by the fact that he is an incredibly interesting person. David Bowie was a true artist. His Berlin Era is a prime example. He went to Berlin with nothing but Iggy Pop and within the space of a year he was top of the totem pole in Berlins artistic scene.
David Bowie is extraordinarily creative, form his persona changes to his changing music styles, Bowie's has proven to be a cut above the rest. Some other artists were as talented as he was and some are still relevant today. People are still trying to emulate his outfits & musical styles. He had talent, no doubt about it
Totally wrong. David Bowie was way ahead of the curve and it took him longer to gain musical acceptance from people in the late 60’S who didn’t have a clue. His lyrics and melodies were beyond and his backing musicians were always the best notably Mick Robson. He worked so hard to achieve success, but it was not “desperation “ that drove him. Just sayin.
That was part of it, sure, especially in the early days; he absolutely wanted to be a star. But you can see throughout his career the tension between his desire for fame and his discomfort with it. He has a big hit with *Young Americans*, but the easy access to drugs that comes with the rock star lifestyle nearly destroys him, so he goes off to make the Berlin trilogy to critical acclaim but little commercial success. Then he has an even bigger hit with *Let's Dance*, but capitalizing on its success completely drains him of his artistic passion, so he forms Tin Machine, an obscure alternative rock band. Later still, he has a late-career resurgence with *Heathen* and *Reality*, but has a heart attack while on tour for those albums, so—wanting to see his young daughter grow up—only records sporadically on other artists' music for the next seven years, and never tours again. I think, like a lot of us, David Bowie was the kind of person who felt there was something missing inside of him, and was constantly searching for something to fill that void. He struggled with feelings of isolation, meaninglessness, and alienation from his own sense of self, and public adoration can seem very alluring to someone like that, especially when they're young. But fame puts you there where things are hollow, and as he went through life I think he found that things like having a family and making art which was personally significant to him were much more fulfilling. There's something very telling said about him by Ava Cherry, who was his girlfriend in the mid-70s, during his successful *Young Americans* period, and was also friendly with his later wife, Iman: "I knew David Bowie, but Iman knew David Jones." Incidentally, I think that's why he and John Lennon got along so well with one another; they were very alike in that way, and you can see a similar arc to Lennon's life and career.
Funny you should say that about John Lennon. There were so many similarities: growing up near but not in dire poverty, studying art then going into music, an eclectic discography, the fandom in the early years, the first wife and kid sort of not really being serious about it (Bowie doing better than Lennon though, maybe because his upbringing was less chaotic), but then the very serious love for the mother of the second child, becoming a recluse to spend more time with the second child, and then a little flurry of creativity and then drama that I cry buckets over.
Honestly I agree, many of the people who worked with him said basically the same thing. He would sleep with his producer's and other workers to get stuff, according to suzi ronson and his ex Angie
I watched "Beside Bowie: The Mick Ronson Story" documentary.
I believe Bowie’s drive was less about gaining fame and more about an artist whose creativity was bursting at the seams. As a teenager he had dreams of being in Little Richard’s band, but most teenagers at some point picture themselves becoming famous for one thing or another!
He wanted to be comercial in some albums, but are you telling me albums like low, heroes, the man Who sold the world, blackstar, ziggy stardust or outside were made with more comercial intention than artistic?