14th January 2015 or Feeling A Bit Low

Today is the anniversary of the release of David Bowie's 11th studio album Low. It came out on this day in 1977 and was something of a commercial failure at the time. A lot of copies were returned to record stores, who in turn returned them to RCA, Bowie's record label. They were quite concerned about the downturn in sales, but apparently Bowie was unperturbed.

I went through a pretty massive Bowie phase in the early 2000's. I had always been a casual fan, particularly of his hit singles in the eighties. I was given The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars for my birthday early on this century and it became something of a gateway album. When Bowie announced that he would tour Australia in early 2004, I set about getting all of his albums. Knowing he would be an artist who would play anything from his then thiry-five-year-plus career, I thought it best to bone up on his back catalog. I was lucky enough that EMI had just re-released all his albums before 1993, and had remastered them all. It was perfect timing to get into some serious Bowie. 

My first listen of Low underwhelmed me. It seemed like a lot of noise without purpose and some very disjointed songs. The only track I was familiar with at the time was Sound And Vision, which I kinda liked. With each subsequent listen, it grew on me. I had initially dismissed most of the album, but slowly I was being won over.

There's been a lot said about Brian Eno and his contributions to Low, and I always assumed he co-produced it. While he did play on a lot of it, Tony Visconti co-produced the album with Bowie, and Eno is only credited on one of the songs (Warszawa) as a co-writer. You can't deny Eno's influence on album though, particularly the sounds of the synthesisers and the ambient moods of some of the tracks. 

I imagine listening to it for the first time in 1977 would have been quite jarring. After the poppy, blue-eyed soul of Young Americans and Station To Station you are given an album that starts with an instrumental piece before assaulting you with six unpredictable tracks that feature squelching keyboards, nonsensical lyrics and odd rhythms. If that wasn't enough, the entire second side is totally instrumental. 

As I write this blog, I'm listening to Low on repeat. While it's my favourite of the so-called "Berlin trilogy", it's not my favourite Bowie album. I mean, it's up there, but the top spot has been reserved for Hunky Dory for some time now. However, I think each listen gives me a higher appreciation of it. Of the instrumentals, it was Warszawa that I became drawn to. It's so haunting, but somehow beautiful as well. It reminded me of Angelo Badalamenti's work, particularly on Twin Peaks. The instrumentals are all quite different from each other, and when they are put together they create something quite unique. For a musician like Bowie, releasing an album with over half of the music sans vocals must have been hugely brave. It's not something you could imagine Bruno Mars or Taylor Swift doing now.

When Rhona and I saw David Bowie live in 2004 we flew over to Melbourne. He hadn't announced a Perth show at that time, but we loved the city and were happy to return. One of my friends, Kieran, was just as big a Bowie as fan as me, possibly more so, and decided that he'd go to both the Melbourne AND Perth concerts. Being Bowie, all his Australian shows were slightly different and Kieran managed to score his cover of Neil Young's I've Been Waiting For You, which he recorded for the Heathen album. I was even more envious of the people who went to the second Melbourne show. Bowie pulled out four tracks from Low: Sound And Vision, Always Crashing In The Same Car, Breaking Glass and Be My Wife! On the night we saw him though, they attempted Quicksand from Hunky Dory which was awesome!

But I digress! We were talking about Low. The older I get, the more I am in awe of Bowie and the innovations he has made during his career, and continues to make. If you haven't listened to Low before, today is a good day to do it. Even after 38 years it is just as important and vital as it was on the day it was released. Actually, it's probably more important now. In an industry where artists find it hard to change musical direction, Bowie has shown that the only important thing is the belief in yourself and the music you choose to make.