Bowie reinvented himself musically, but I believe as much is communicated through the album art, as sparse as it is, and through the videos, as is communicated through its music and lyrics. It begs for visual interpretation.
Tag Archives: Bowie
What David Bowie Had to Say About Donald Trump and Fascism
Bowie was prescient, and he saw in advance where the United States was heading.
When David Bowie Was a Muppet
In many ways, Bowie defied categorization by transcending binary identities like male and female or heterosexual and homosexual. Bowie even escaped fixed labeling as a musician, artist, actor, or performer, thereby asserting that rational order’s authority over individuals is illusory. His embrace of opposing images (male vs. female, public vs. private) was the linchpin ofContinue reading “When David Bowie Was a Muppet”
Bowie in Berlin, Part 2
The new persona that we might call “David Bowie in Berlin” was created through a turn to the art of a past era that also grappled with capitalist realism: Expressionism, an artistic movement that deepens the Romantic vein of expressing emotional experience. . . A future is mourned in the spectral fade-out that closes “SpeedContinue reading “Bowie in Berlin, Part 2”
When David Bowie Fell to Earth
Newton’s mission clearly suggests a Romantic “return to origins,” specifically the pastoral origins of a lost homeland, so as to redirect his profits toward reviving a dying community that will presumably be founded on use rather than exchange values for his alien race and earthly allies. This restorative vision also would allow the fulfillment ofContinue reading “When David Bowie Fell to Earth”
The Philosophy of Contemporary Song 