“I WAS FIGHTING HIM EVERY STEP OF THE WAY!”
How Bowie vetoed Let’s Dance II
A full decade had passed by the time bowie returned to the studio with Let’s Dance producer nile Rodgers. the pair worked together on the soundtrack of Ralph bakshi’s 1992 animated fantasy Cool World, before starting on sessions for bowie’s first solo release of the ’90s, Black Tie, White
Noise. “he wanted to go back to being much more avant-garde, but i was fighting with him every step of the way to do let’s dance ii,” reveals Rodgers. “i said, ‘hey, why don’t we bury Let’s Dance? let’s just slaughter it! let’s make a record that’s more commercial than you could ever imagine.’ and david was like, ‘no way!’ he was recoiling, in a way, from that kind of mega success that he’d had in the ‘80s. i knew iman before he married her, because she and i were good friends and used to go out partying. so i’d call her and beg, ‘will you tell your husband to let me make this commercial?’ and she’d go, ‘but nile, i love this!’ the working title of Black Tie, White Noise was ‘the wedding album’, so she had a different perspective. i guess it was david’s wedding present to her. it was a case of, ‘here’s my life, iman.’”