My first encounter with David Bowie was 1983s Let’s Dance, an album widely derided by Bowie fans when it came out, and for a number of years after, for being a commercial sell out. James Hartley’s Advanced Genius Theory teaches us that one of the things required for an artist to AdvanceTM is they must sell out spectacularly, and that’s what many accused Bowie of doing with the slick pop, singles-based record, that while perhaps anti-Bowie was very pro-1983 and all that entailed (shoulder pads, big hair, make-up on men, cocaine). And, of course, as is usually the case with AdvancedTM artists like Bowie, retrospectively their most derided works are re-evaluated as in fact great, the problem having been that at the time we, the non-AdvancedTM, were simply unable to understand what we were being presented with. I believe this theory to be true with one exception: Lulu. I firmly believe that there will never, ever be a future positive reconsideration of this atrocity. However, my adherence to the Advanced Genius Theory means I also recognize such a reconsideration is inevitable, that my current belief is entirely wrong, and that the problem is, in fact, me.1
Stage is a live double-album released in 1978, two-thirds of the way through Bowie’s Berlin Trilogy and after he sold the world, became The Thin White Duke, and came to earth as a space alien. The 17 tracks were culled from four live shows that took place in Philadelphia, Providence, and Boston in April/May 1978. I was lucky enough to get my hands on a Japanese pressing from my friends over at Volver Records, and I have to tell you – it’s impeccable (don’t let anyone every tell you that the quality of Japanese pressings is overrated; it is not). Sonically perfect. Not even a hint of crackling, the sound perfectly balanced with Bowie’s voice perched out in front, where it belongs. The band is tight, but they aren’t doing anything overly fancy – we’re here to hear Bowie sing, and they’re giving us the space to hear that special voice.
I won’t pretend to be any kind of expert on Bowie. I have listened to albums from various stages of his career, but I’m confident I haven’t heard all his studio records despite the fact the are all in my pocket basically at all times. Even a casual Bowie fan like me can see how many hits are on Stage – “Ziggy Stardust”… “Fame”… “Heroes”… But here’s the thing – every song on this record sounds great. Every last one of them. The operatic “Warszawa” will blow your damn mind. Listening to Bowie sing about the return of the Thin White Duke throwing darts is as perfect has hearing about the Spiders From Mars. He simply can’t miss.
Every time I listen to a Bowie album I find myself thinking, “you know, I need to listen to more Bowie”. Which in its own way is a testament to the man’s greatness as an artist, and in another an apt example of the problem of choice. Given the choice between having Spotify in my pocket or going back to the 80s when you had to physically obtain an album to hear it, of course I prefer the immediate access to everything. But that also means there are so many things competing for my attention that sometimes it’s hard to pick anything, the result being I fall back to what I know or generic playlists that require no thought. That’s probably one of the reasons I continue to buy physical media – when something is sitting in my “To Listen To” pile, I feel an obligation to play it, to experience it intentionally. Maybe that means I need to buy more Bowie records… hmmm…
- Hartley’s The Advanced Genius Theory (2010) is an absolute must read. It is equal parts hilarious and thought provoking, and legitimately has shaped how I think about music and art in general. ↩︎