David Bowie - Let's Dance

In 1983 David Bowie ruled the world. After years of flirting with mainstream success, he was suddenly the flavour of the day. It was the latest strange turn from one of rocks most durable and creative voices. 

I'll also freely admit I was not a fan. At all. Not at first. To me he was the guy who did "Space Oddity" and that song weirded me out as a kid. I didn't like it, and thought it sounded terrible. It didn't help that when I was in my teens there was a young Bowie singing a duet with Bing Crosby on a Christmas Special where he mashed up some ridiculous counterpoint "The Little Drummer Boy." I hated it. Ick, phooey.

Somehow I'd gotten it into my head that Bowie was unlistenable. He was a dinosaur who kept desperately throwing whatever he could against the wall trying to make anything stick to make so that  his 15 minutes would last a little longer. It didn't matter that there were quite a few of his classic songs that were pretty amazing. I had passed judgment and that was that. I liked and disliked him at the same time, more disliked, but who was fooling who? I could compartmentalize that kind of stuff without any problem.

Dinosaur or not, Bowie had been around a while, and the stuff that stuck to the wall managed to keep him relevant. While he was a rock star, he wasn't a superstar. Then came Let's Dance, his 15th release and all that changed. I tried to keep up appearances, but dang it the songs on the radio were catchy. I had a few friends whose opinions I really respected and they were all over the album. They couldn't stop talking about it. They also kept going on and on about Bowie's new guitar player, a guy who played the blues, but was melting faces on a rock album. That guy was Stevie Ray Vaughn. That same year Stevie would release his debut album Texas Flood and the rest, as they say, is history.

Let's Dance went double platinum in the US which is pretty respectable, but it would sell over half a million copies here in Canada. Which proportionately is a big deal. Worldwide he'd move over 10 million copies of Let's Dance, and it seemed like the album had a song on the radio whenever I turned it on that year. Bowie toured the world in '83 selling out stadiums and with his extensive back catalogue he was able to introduce a whole new audience to his work, at least that was the plan.

Fans are fickle ... but more on that later.

Now with all this glowing hyperbole you'd think I had my conversion experience on the road to Damascus and was now proclaiming the power of the Bowie. Nah. But I did find myself revisiting my previous prejudiced opinions and had to agree that when he was good he was pretty special. It's not like I ran out and bought up all his albums, but I was no longer changing the station when his songs came on, and I even got to the point where I loved his duet with Bing, and as for "Space Oddity" that took a little longer, but I'm hooked now.

When I found this copy of Let's Dance I was a little surprised because his albums don't pop up that often in the bins, but didn't look the gift horse in the mouth I just snatched it up and brought it home. It had been a long, long time since I'd sat and listened to this one all the way through. So I made myself comfortable and dropped the needle. Right from the opening track "Modern Love" I was transported back in time. This still sounded so fat. Whether it was Omar Hakim or Tony Thompson pounding it was FAT, and Nile Rodgers brought the right amount of funk to the grooves to bring things to life, and to get the music to your speakers Bob Clearmountain mixed and engineered the album and it was so tasty. Still sounds so good.

While not every song here is masterpiece, there are more than enough killers here to qualify this as a classic album. Heck, I'll even give a nod to his reworked version of "Cat People" but I still prefer the Georgio Morodor version. I know that the true Bowie fans are sort of ambivalent to this period, but to most of us who were slightly better than casual fans, this is essential listening, and serves as a gateway to his other work.

Oddly it was fame that would be the double edged sword that would impale Bowie's career. Bowie seldom remained in one place and  was always finding ways to reinvent himself. His core audience was used to the chameleon-like nature of David's various personas and David Bowie as Davie Bowie was a bit of a conundrum. As good as Let's Dance was, it didn't please everyone and while the hits and videos were commercial gold, artistically Bowie had been stuffed into a box by his new fans. Let's Dance is what David Bowie sounds like, and that's that.

Trying to appease this new segment he released Tonight hot on the heels of Let's Dance, expecting lightning to strike twice. Of course things don't work like that, and the backlash against Tonight was swift and crushing. The new fans weren't really fans at all apparently and it was considered a dud by the critics. I never bought it, but I kind of liked "Blue Jean" because it felt familiar. This apparently was a problem to his real fans, and while the album would go platinum it did seem to mark a strange no man's land for a few years. Apparently Bowie would even refer to this time as his "Phil Collins" era. Ouch. No wonder he was so keen to embrace his Tim Machine period.

Anyway, I digress. As far as Let's Dance goes, I found myself enjoying the album probably more so now with the passage of time. When it's good it's amazing. Whether this is attributed to him selling out and embracing the commercial side of rock or just finding a way to reinvent himself as a rock superstar doesn't really matter anymore - there's too much water under the bridge now. The proof was in the pudding, and this is the album that got me to revisit my long held opinions and turn me into a fan.

Bowie may be gone now, but his legend will live on.