Tom’s long slow comfortable screw through the history of Britain’s Number Ones has reached David Bowie’s ‘Let’s Dance’, (April ‘83, since you’re asking) which is a troubling record in all sorts of ways, I mean, how hard is he trying in order to make it sound like he’s not really trying, he’s just effortlessly hitting the mainstream because he can if he chooses to, but just try and not like it, try and not feel that little kick when the intro starts. Maybe he (and the kids) just deserved the trust fund. Anyway, it made me remember that this was always my favourite song from that time in David’s being, and made me think of having another read of this great book (a fantastic history of popular music through the seventies and eighties in the form of an epistolary* novel), and what a lovely summery record this is, in its own way, more let go and just having fun than Britain’s Number One.
* “That’s a nice hat – Saint Peter wrote the epistles to the apostles wearing a hat like that”
June 1, 2009 at 4:06 pm
I really like Bowie’s vocals on the Lets Dance stuff, ‘under the moonlight, the serious moonlight’ on Lets Dance itself is one of my all time favourite moments in a song, it just feels really weighty and throwaway all at the same time…
June 1, 2009 at 5:39 pm
I really like Modern Love too. That would have been one of the, ooh, first fiteeen or so singles I ever bought. (which admittedly doesn’t quite have the same lustre as if it’d been the *first* *ever* single, but what can you do?)
June 1, 2009 at 5:42 pm
That’s right, I said fiteeen.
Stark staring bonkers.
June 5, 2009 at 7:20 pm
only musical snobs would completely dismiss this as crap.
Tin Machine on the other hand…