While most of his peers softened into water-treading middle-age, David Bowie’s view on art was that it was almost worth drowning for.
“If you feel safe in the area that you’re working in, you’re not working in the right area,” he once advised. “Always go a little further into the water than you feel you’re capable of being in. Go a little bit out of your depth. And when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you’re just about at the right place to do something exciting.”
It was a soundbite that Bowie lived by, right from the start. Flying in the face of that overused ‘chameleon’ tag, after the release of his first batch of singles in 1966, the young songwriter forced the background to blend in with him. Then, invariably, once it did, he shed his musical skin and set out in search of fresh inspiration.
Across his career, we watched Bowie repeat this thrilling pattern countless times, right up until the release of Blackstar in 2016, which he recorded with long-time producer Tony Visconti and a troupe of previously unheralded New York jazzers. The catalogue he leaves behind is, quite simply, one of the boldest in rock’n’roll.
When young rock bands cite their ‘experimental’ new album, it typically means they’ve learnt a new chord. Bowie’s interpretation of the word was a bonfire of the old ways. When he reinvented himself, everything that went before was scattered to the winds.
The musical direction might flip from crunching glam to breezy plastic soul. The production might trade sumptuous for scabrous. The persona could leap from visiting spaceman (aka Ziggy Stardust) to emaciated sieg-heiling provocateur (the Thin White Duke). Even Bowie’s musicians – always a vital strand of each new era – had little job security, as the artist hired and fired according to his muse.
Bowie’s flair for reinvention made him both irresistible and inconsistent. He ditched genres and collaborators when it seemed there was more gas in the tank. He hung around longer than we’d have liked in dubious territories like electronica and dance. Now and then, his skin-shedding seemed contrived – and during his final quarter-century there’s a case he missed the target more than he hit it.
And yet, as he proved with 2002’s excellent Heathen, with 2013’s The Next Day and with Blackstar, you discounted David Bowie at your peril. While most bands settled into their groove, he refused to be tied down: one of the few marquee artists who shocked, innovated and kicked out against familiarity, right until the end.
