David Bowie
ChangesNowBowie
Tracks from fiftieth-birthday concert highlight the magic touch in Bowie’s songwriting.
Bowie singing ‘I ain’t got the power any more’ at 50 has a different resonance to Bowie singing it at 23 (when Quicksand emerged on Hunky Dory). In November ’96, when he recorded this semi-acoustic session in New York for broadcast on his January ’97 half-century, his reputation was in an odd state of suspension. Outside and the just-around-the-corner Earthling confused but confounded. He wasn’t the critics’ darling, but he was giving snipers a sense of doubt. Rock-centric birthday celebrations at Madison Square Garden gathered the old (Lou Reed) and the less old (Pixies, Foo Fighters). It was once again hard to define where he was at, and such mercurial zig-zagging naturally nourished his confidence.
He exudes that confidence on this honest, ungarnished recital of a cherry-picked selection of nine greatest non-hits, on an album that’s simply gorgeous. From a beautifully sung The Man Who Sold The World (which an Unplugged Nirvana had recently covered; he wanted to reclaim it) to Shopping For Girls, he’s in sanguine stride. It’s lovely to hear contrasts from diverse eras like Aladdin Sane and Repetition performed under the same umbrella, there’s a warm, touching feel to this heavenly half-hour.
Much of that is down to the deft tactility of bassist/vocalist Gail Ann Dorsey, Mark Plati (keyboards), and Reeves Gabrels who for once doesn’t spaff own-brand Fripp histrionics over everything. Bowie sounds comfortable, the songs his old slippers, his voice as ever a graceful blend of agility and artifice. White Light/White Heat and Andy Warhol snap along, with teeth, and The Supermen shows that it’s a wondrous being even shorn of its thundering percussion. The soft-focus, easy-does-it versions of Lady Stardust and Aladdin Sane are joys that only a curmudgeon would overanalyse, while Quicksand is divine symmetry.
What the sensitive but searing take on Shopping For Girls confirms is that if you strip away the pop-cultural moments, the haircuts, the ebbs and flows in credibility and Gabrels at his worst, Bowie’s songwriting rarely lost contact with magic. It was always the secondbest Tin Machine song (after I Can’t Read), but here it relaxes, regally, like it’s kipping on Young Americans’ sofa.
Supple but robust at 50, Bowie’s power glows undimmed. ■■■■■■■■■■