Bowie made the most of ‘Last Five Years’
worse albums over half a century, stumbles and recoveries, failed experiments and brilliant new forms. (“Blackstar,” made with New York avantgarde jazz musicians, was especially exciting.) There was looking backward, but mostly to move forward — Bowie was always folding who he’d been into who he’d be, remaking old material in new voices — and“thelastfiveyears,” title notwithstanding, moves back and forth along a longer timeline, beginning when the singer was still using his given name, David Jones. Which of the Bowies we see was the “real” one, if any were, was beside the point; creating characters was always part of the game; change was a constant.
“Always go a little further into the water than you feel you’re capable of being, go a little bit out of your depth, and when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting,” says the artist.
This attitude is what kept him interesting when most of his peers had grown contenttoliveoffthe successes of their youth.
And it’s what made him appealing to successive new generations — that and what comes across as a genuine mix of intelligence, ambition, charm, humor, modesty, generosity, borderless sex appeal, good looks and youthfulness.
“He did seem that he had the gift from the gods,” guitarist Gerry Leonard says, “that he was never going to get old.” He did and he didn’t, but in either case, Bowiemadethemostofit.