The Man Who Polled the World, aka DAVID BOWIE POLL RESULTS

Wow, Marilyn Manson, would've never thought of that. thanks...

that's right!

I totally remember that! I never got into Manson but some of my friends were into him, and he was heavily promoting that album as glam/Bowie-influenced. I remember he even named his guitar player something like "Ziggy".

twiggy ramirez?

Bingo.

Twiggy played guitar?

Oh man, I can't believe I didn't know this was happening!

― wolf kabob (ENBB), Wednesday, March 7, 2012 10:26 AM (4 minutes ago)

I don't want to be a dick about this, I just want to understand -- how do people "do" ILX in a way that a thread that spends a day and a half at the top of Site New Answers and ILM New Answers can go unnoticed?

Well, to be honest, I've been pretty sick the last couple days and haven't been checking as regularly as I normally do. Also, I just skim SNA and guess I missed it. I rarely check ILM on its own.

at the same time as the Nirvana cover there was the whole Britpop/glam thing, this was when I was in college, and you had Morrissey's "Your Arsenal" and REM's "Monster" - and 70s Bowie was totally a major influence on all of that.

My college experience was entirely different from Alfred's; I started in the Fall of '91, and the still recent reissues from 1990 were passed around and talked about amongst both the radio station people I hung out with and with the more general populous in the dorms (my cassette copies were never in my room, having been borrowed by one person or another).

Also, the David Bowie vs. 808 State "Sound And Vision" was played at raves and clubs and fraternity parties. The reissues seemed to make him current and relevant when it seemed that Tin Machine had pissed away whatever good will he had remaining.

I was working at a record store when Black Tie came out and there was great anticipation from customers and staff. What was it going to be like? He's working with Lester Bowie! "Jump She Said" has a neat video, if nothing else. It was disappointing, but still sold well.

I remember Outside as a big deal. Bowie goes industrial! People were talking about him ripping off Nine Inch Nails, but "The Hearts Filthy Lesson" got a lot of MTV airplay, and was his highest charting record since the mid-80s. I had a hard time getting tickets for the tour; it sold out rather quickly, and nobody walked out of the show as far as I could tell. His band was amazing and we all thought he blew NIN away.

Earthling seemed to continue the resurgence, getting better reviews despite dropping sales. Hours was crap but his legacy seemed secure by then.

he named his guitar player

whoa

That's great to know! For the record my college station played "Jump They Say" quite a bit, and perhaps it's nostalgia that forces me to rate it higher than it should. I'll defend it as one of his best-ever, with by far the best post-'83 video.

Don't know why I called it Jump She Said. Total space out, mixing Julian Cope (Drive She Said) and Bowie.

Glastonbury 2000 was a BIG turnaround for a lotta folk in the UK. he played a Greatest Hits set at the close of a scorching Sunday at the end of a Glastonbury that was famously doubly over-subscribed in attendance (the last year before the superfence in 2002). he went from an old guy trying to play Drun And Bass on the previous tour and album to well, THIS the December just after
http://ebid.s3.amazonaws.com/upload_big/1/8/5/1307029494-28716-0.jpg

easy to sneer and say 'huh NME so what' but essentialy being named the single most influential musician of all time by the leading rock weekly in the world on its cover was pretty key. there's no way that'd have happened in the late 80s/ early 90s.

also key in the years just prior IMO; this
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3l4h3_generique-seven-david-bowie-david-f_shortfilms

I bought most of the reissues in late '93 at a national mall chain call called Tracks. Every Friday for three weeks I bought a different entry in the Berlin Trilogy. Good times.

i feel so lame having to explain this but lol dudes Twiggy Ramirez is in the exact same 'first name from a model/actress, last name from an infamous psycho' format as Marilyn Manson, it has nothing to do with Ziggy Stardust

oh I know. Besides, Twiggy was on the cover of Pin Ups.

first bowie i bought was ryko's changesbowie comp

i feel so lame having to explain this but lol dudes

it's cool -- def. not as lame as arguing about the provenance of internet noodz photos

"The dope show" has a really good chorus

there's no way that'd have happened in the late 80s/ early 90s.

Yeah, I started reading the NME in 89 and Bowie was not cool at all then. When Suede came along things changed. It seemed a big deal when Bowie was on the cover with Brett.

Maybe it was a new wave hangover at the time

i got into bowie because i wanted to go to the nine inch nails/bowie concert back in 1995. i was 15, and my mother never would have let me go to a nin show, so i told her i wanted to see bowie (i remember that conversation... i think she knew, but she was good enough to not say anything). so to complete the illusion, i bought scary monsters, really having no clue who bowie was (thought he was famous because of his movie roles, i guess i'd seen labyrinth--which i just saw again last year, and i must say it's is an incredibly creative movie), then i rented the man who fell to earth and witnessed bowie's dick with my dad, then i bought heroes and station to station, and by the time the concert rolled around i was yelling at my friends about how "a warm place" was just bowie's "crystal japan" and how much of a rip-off nin was and how bowie was a god and they wouldn't understand.

bowie's down there with eno and new order and prince in the primordial branches of my little family tree of music exploration. trent reznor had the good taste to provide that for me, i suppose.

xp perhaps it had something to do with Tonight -> Never Let Me Down -> Glass Spider Tour -> Tin Machine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xnr_RAexqxg

I might be alone here but they all look like they're trying too hard

Carlos Alomar's paisley shirt and leather pants combo scariest elements btw

didn't seem that way in person. Or on the boot I found.

Here's a review from Spin of Bowie's 50th Birthday Show*, which seems a reasonable summing up of his status in the US in '97.

*(pgs.64 & 65 if it dosen't link up exactly)

i'm quite glad that my top 3 (at least, and if i'm remembering correctly,) are all out of the top 20. bowie's had so many good songs, and it's good to see that people are passionate about a great many of them. and he's a vital enough artist that my top 20 could completely turn over in the next few months. i think i've gotten more pleasure out of bowie for the last half of my life than i have anyone. just in the last year or so, my favorite album by him has changed several times. but fuck man who sold the world. that album sucks. think i'll listen to it now.

^^^ I remember that review. That's exactly how I remember the response.

xpost

Spacehog

First time I ever heard "Life on Mars" was the Flaming Lips cover

it's cool -- def. not as lame as arguing about the provenance of internet noodz photos

― mookieproof, Wednesday, March 7, 2012 9:30 PM (41 minutes ago) Bookmark

please just trust i know how lame i am whether or not i say it at all times and don't bother dogging me about something across multiple threads

Xpost. I was at that 50th birthday show, with rather good seats. It was pretty forgettable, unfortunately. Sadly, the only time I ever saw him live. I was a fan of a lot of the guests too, but left feeling pretty much nothing. Really should have been held in a tiny club as a super top secret thing...

I rember hearing radio ads for the PAY-PER-VIEW simulcast of the Birthday show. "Classics David hasn't played in years!".

haha some dude <3

Wonder where or if "Absolute Beginners" will place. Those of you around at the time: was it regarded as a Brief Return To Form, as it is now?

If I remember correctly, the thing that really hurt him in the USA was Never Let Me Down and the Glass Spider tour. It was one of the high (or low points) in terms of 80s bigger is better schlock.

After that he was pretty square. The Sound and Vision box set helped rescue him. I remember seeing him play Giants Stadium around 1990 in support of the reissue. He kept saying that it was the last time he'd ever play those songs again.

Absolute beginners was considered a good song, it was on the radio a lot. But he was still kind of cool then, that was years before any glass spiders.

only a year!

Bowie sold out the Orange Bowl in '90, so he was still an arena draw.

My main memory of Never Let Me Down: there was a local radio premier of "Day In Day Out" and Pepsi was a sponsor. After performing the song, Bowie asks specifically for a Pepsi before taking questions. I don't remember the exact wording, but the first question was basically "Who's responsible for this disaster" which Bowie brushed aside w/grace, and then went on to promote the album. I was just under 20, I guess, and spent most of my time listening to ChangesOne and Ziggy at the time. The whole thing kind of slapped me across the face...

If I remember correctly, the thing that really hurt him in the USA was Never Let Me Down and the Glass Spider tour. It was one of the high (or low points) in terms of 80s bigger is better schlock.

After that he was pretty square. The Sound and Vision box set helped rescue him. I remember seeing him play Giants Stadium around 1990 in support of the reissue. He kept saying that it was the last time he'd ever play those songs again.

Anyway... Sweet Thing/Candidate/Sweet Thing was my #1. So glad to see it as high as it is. And the most #1 votes so far.
― smash williams, Wednesday, March 7, 2012 6:46 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

My #1 also!

God, all of these songs are so classic. You forget sometimes...

Bowie asking for a Pepsi?? what the hell. UK Bowie and U.S. Bowie were very different things at the time i guess, as i'm sure there was none of that Pepsi/ radio phone in stuff here. also the Sound And Vision box was no big deal over here. i barely recall it even coming out.

xpost - to Alfred: I think "Absolute Beginners" was so tied to the fiasco of the movie and the Heaven's Gate of Style Culture, in the UK anyway, that its qualities as a song were a little overlooked.

I can't comment on the US but after NLMD ended in critical and commercial failure the only way was up. Although it's considered a joke now the first Tin Machine album got good reviews and the feeling was that he was back in the game even if the work wasn't all there. BTWN and especially 'Buddha of Suburbia' built on that feeling, so by the time 'Outside' came out his rep was more or less restored.

There's a terrific interview he did with Jack Docherty in 97 which had Bowie fans raving. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yL4xxGE73E

Caught up with the thread/poll over morning coffee. What a great read. Will not go into the (good & interesting!) discussions, but rather pick out some remarks that clicked...

Disappointed that Song for Bob Dylan has not placed, and not expecting to see it now. If Be My Wife dosen't appear I'll sulk badly....

Ha, I had "You've Got A Habit Of Leaving" on my ballot.

I say "if she says she can do it then she can do it, she don't make false claims" around the house so often that my kids say it too, & they've never heard the song.

"Look Back In Anger" is the Lodger standout to me; I've been waiting so long for the album to click for me but this one's immediate

Loved the Glasto/amyl nitrate/Starman story and Bolder's blue face accident(omg)

Am I reading history correctly?

when Suede came along things changed

Definitely true over here. After Tin Machine he was a joke figure, the target of weekly mockery in the press - yet at the same time so embedded in the culture via his huge hits & Berlin coolness that the party line was 'brilliant until 83, irredeemably shit thereafter - and then there was all that nazi stuff, and The Laughing Gnome, so we knew all along, really'.

The guitar sound on The Drowners, specifically, is what changed things. It was an incredibly audacious gesture (within equally limited parameters obviously) and at a stroke opened up the whole glamBowie era for thieving, including lumpy attempts at sexuality.

The Brett/Bowie interview was kind of a crowning moment, though I never really felt Bowie was particularly engaged. He's done the rest himself by not really putting a foot wrong since as 'cool older guy you'd love to be'.

Brett's line, when asked for his reaction afterwards, was 'he wafted in in a suit and smelt beautiful', which I always found oddly charming.

Songs I had on my ballot that placed (position on my list in brackets)
39. "Fantastic Voyage" (14)
34. "Sweet Thing/Candidate/Sweet Thing (reprise)" (2)
22. "Stay" (11)
20. "John, I'm Only Dancing" (12)
19. "Look Back in Anger" (9)

I think Sweet Thing probably has the highest points/votes ratio, at least up to now. I think only StS has a chance to beat it, but it probably won't. At least three of my top 10 will still show up I'm sure. Looking forward to the final 15!

xpost - yeah I remember that interview. Maybe I've still got it stored somewhere...

I too went to the Sound & Vision Greatest Hits tour - August 1990 at Maine Road, Manchester...with James supporting! The NME infamously ran a campaign to get everyone to vote for The Laughing Gnome in Bowie's phone poll to decide the pool of songs he'd play on that tour. So that's approximately where he was wrt NME ten years before that cover upthread.

"Absolute Beginners" the film - I put "That's Motivation" on my ballot. Doubtless, the only one 2 do so...

Re: Five Years, I've known Starman and Ziggy Stardust since I was a kid but I only heard FY about five ten years ago, on one of those Whistle Test repeat shows. It was an instant "holy shit!" moment and it's been my fave off that album ever since.