BOWIE STANDS ALONE
DAVID BOWIE: " Station
To Station" (RCA APLI 1327).
IN AN interview which appeared
some two years ago in the magazine Image, Nicholas Roeg offered as an
illustration of his approach to film making this observation: "I like
the idea of secrecy. I like the idea of a magician. I don't think the
personalities of the director or artist should be made public. It destroys
every kind of illusion."
Those critics who have
characterized David Bowie's career as no more than a series of casual and
superficial flirtations with fashionable musical forms and popular ideas
will, I'm sure, find it entirely appropriate that Roeg should have directed
Bowie in his movie debut, The Man Who Fell To Earth. The two artists would
seem to share a mutual admiration for ambiguity and disguise - qualities
which mark their respective endeavors.
Bowie, for instance, has preferred
throughout his recording career to immerse himself in carefully contrived
roles and personae through which he has sought to elaborate his various
concepts and futuristic visions. He has established a reluctance to adopt
any kind of intimate, confessional stance and a determination to assimilate
a multiplicity of styles and technique, which has led his detractors to
conclude that he has no real or substantial identity of his own.
That argument has however, become
less persuasive and has lost much of its credibility since Bowie made
public his confusion and desperation with the audaciously conceived "David
Live", an album of documentary intensity. Bowie it
seemed, had become less concerned with the manipulation of fantasy and, on
that album, was approaching his work with an hitherto unexpressed
directness. With "Young Americans", released early last
year, Bowie established a mode of expression which made it possible for him
to explore the anguish of his isolation with articulate insight.
"Young
Americans" was a protracted examination of a particular
predicament (the loneliness of stardom etc.); much of his earlier work,
though expressing similar strain or melancholic despair has been less
specific. The appeal of "Young Americans"
was however limited by its insularity. It is difficult, after all, to
sympathize with such privilege. Bowie may have been suffering all kinds of
confusions, but he, at least, had the material benefits of his stardom to
alleviate his pain if the going got too tough. All that, though, has gone
out the window with "Station To Station".
The album has all the
desperate and immediate drama of say Neil Young's "Tonight's The
Night" And white it bears certain stylistic similarities to "Young
Americans" this record is entirely devoid of the luxurious
and erotic arrangements which graced much of its predecessor. The music
here is mostly dominated by the vivid cutting guitars of Alomar and Slick.
There are only fleeting moments of musical extravagance from Bittan, whose
baroque keyboard flourishes flicker through the album like echoes of Mike
Garson's work on "Aladdin Sane" (though it should be
stressed that Bittan most efficiently avoids Garson's unfortunate tendency
to sound like Liberace on a bender).
Overall, the sound can be
compared to a mutation of the kamikaze guitar riffs which provide the
driving force behind "The Man Who Sold The World" and the
insistent disco beat which propelled "Fame". There are also
occasional flashes from Alomar or Bowie's own guitar work on "Diamond
Dogs".
In short, a strange and
confusing musical whirlpool where nothing is what it seems. The title track
opens the album, and is, at ten minutes, the longest song Bowie's recorded
since "The Width Of A Circle" (which opened "The Man
Who Sold The World"). The first sounds we hear are of shunting
trains panning across the speakers (which also, of course, allude to the
kind of uncomfortable static precipitated by fiddling with the dials on a
radio - "hazy cosmic jive"?).
The band look into a savage
relentless riff which only begins to disintegrate with Bowie's utterly
chilling vocal entry. If the finst line he sings ("The return of the
thin white duke/Throwing darts in lovers' eyes") doesn't immediately
faze you, then the peculiar operatic, if detached quality of his voice
surely will.
The significance of the Iyrics
remains elusive, but there's a terrifying anxiety here which runs through
all the subsequent compositions even "Golden Years".
It's as if Bowie is performing with the knowledge of the fact that there
is, as R. D. Laing once wrote "nothing to be afraid of" because
outside our own private self there exists nothing else. If anything, it's
this kind of cosmic anguish which forms the emotional Centre of "Station
To Station".
And the tension which is
precipitated stems from Bowie's refusal to believe this, and his attempts
(expressed most forcefully on the lunatic ballad "Word On
A Wing") to confront some omnipotent deity which he
suspects may have deserted us. All the nightmares came today, and they
looks as if they are here to stay.
The terror implicit in the
opening section of "Station To Station" is - assuaged
slightly by the infectious climax which has Bowie stressing the need to
believe in something and concluding that "it's not the side effects of
the cocaine/I'm thinking that it must be love."
The aforementioned "Word On
A Wing" finds Bowie seeking to enter a dialogue with,
gulp, God (the boy's nothing if not ambitious), Against Bittan's eloquent
and Lyrical piano and Slick's stylish guitar, Bowie - crooning like a
debauched balladeer - asserts that he is willing to relinquish his
independence to the Lord's "scheme of things" if only he had
conclusive proof of his existence. As if in answer to those agnostics who
would question this decision he sings. "Just because I believe don't
mean I don't think as well/Don't have to question everything in heaven and
hell.
It's an incredibly disquieting
performance which leaves the listener, at least mortally confused.
The second side of the album
offers some respite from the psychic turmoil. "TVC 15"
is, on the surface, hilarious, with Bittan's bar-room piano and rousing
guitars stabbing away at yet another infectious riff, and a fabulously
looney chorus. Bowie's vocals are exhilarating and reckless, though he
still manages to unnerve the listener with unexpected, off hand
observations like "One of these nights I may just jump out of that
window". The following cut, "Stay",
is probably the most straightforward statement on the album: a simple
request for someone to share the author's isolation. It features the same
claustrophobic intensity as "Fame",
with Slick and Alomar (and, rumour has it, Ron Wood) slashing across the
impenetrable rhythm section with colossal urgency.
"Station
To Station" closes as enigmatically as it began with the
Dimitri Tiomkin/Ned Washington ballad, "Wild Is The Wind",
a full blown romantic recalls earlier Bowie pieces like ''In The
Heat Of The Morning" (from his first Deram album). Its
forceful, unashamedly dramatic, totally appropriate to the record's overall
sense of barely controlled hysteria.
I realize that I might check
my enthusiasm, but I must say that I find "Station
To Station" to be not only the most important recorded
statement Bowie has ever made, but also one of the most significant albums
released in the last five years. I don't pretend to understand completely
the complications and paranoia of Bowie, but as a commentary on the
spiritual malaise of this decade it is as powerful as anything by Thomas
Pynchon, and In rock it stands alone.
A.J.
Melody Maker 24 January
1976