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

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.

x-post to Mark G: ha, doubtless, yes. Though I did like it when I saw the movie I'd never consider it one of this top 20 songs :)

Sound & Vision tour, sweet memories. I can remember a day long program on public radio during a sunday where people could vote for which songs were to be played. I'm sure Bowie didn't do anything with those polls, anywhere.
Ran into my German language teacher in the park where it was held. I had to look this up, but apparently we had Kim Wilde supporting, wtf.

Oh, and the only version of "Five Years" I know well enough to recall is Frank Sidebottom's...

Bowie has just been awarded a black plaque on the street where the Ziggy Stardust album cover was taken.

Seem to recall the S&V set in Manchester being fairly short - 15-16 songs, maybe? Started with Space Oddity and Adrian Belew's Pretty Pink Rose was in there fairly early on...FFS. Four wasted minutes right there. But, still, I was pretty excited. It was my 22nd birthday.

My brother saw him in Stafford in 1978 - this was the setlist that night:

Warszawa
"Heroes"
What in the World
Be My Wife
The Jean Genie
Blackout
Sense of Doubt
Speed of Life
Breaking Glass
Fame
Beauty and the Beast
Five Years
Soul Love
Star
Hang On to Yourself
Ziggy Stardust
Suffragette City
Art Decade
Alabama Song
Station to Station
Stay
TVC15
Rebel Rebel

xp Bowie won't even be there for the unveiling. Gary Kemp will be doing it instead.
That's like having a plaque put up for Robbie Williams and having Olly Murs unveil it instead.

That's quite the setlist.

No Sound & Vision? Wasn't that his biggest hit five years or something at that stage?

biggest hit IN five years

He did three nights at the Bingley Halls in Stafford in June '78 and didn't do S&V at any of them! My brother raved about this show; he was a member at Eric's in Liverpool and saw any number of post-punk legends over the next year or so (followed Joy Div around on tour for a bit) but I don't think anything eclipsed seeing DB for the first time.

Aha, re: Sound & Vision...

The track was initially performed live only once, at Bowie’s concert at Earl’s Court on July 1, 1978. However, in 1990, for Bowie’s Sound + Vision Tour, it was a regular number

What did the gigs look like at that time? What size was the venue? What did he wear?

When I listened to S&V off the album, comparitively recently, I was surprised at how short it is.

Actually, thinking now, is it not his 'version' of a song like "Gonna write a classic, gonna write it in an attic' Adrian Gurvitz?

I can imagine DBowie thinking it as a 'jingle' more than a song..

no spoilers

Photos from Bingley Hall, 1978:
http://www.nme.com/nme-video/youtube/id/TfMH8Xrob38

40min of live performance (for German TV? Not sure the 21/5/78 Bremen show was part of the tour):
http://youtu.be/_a9bt8XGNz8

The Tina Turner-Pepsi commerical is grislier than you guys remember. Note how Cool Bowie is Mullet Bowie.

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

They always like to think they are on *this* level, when they do these ads:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pi5zFQ9plxU

As for Suede...yeah, the blitzkrieg of promo interviews in spring '93 restored Bowie as a cool figurehead even in the States, but remember: the Suede album flopped here and BTWN disappeared too after Savage Records went under.

I remember watching Velvet Goldmine at the pictures and [SPOILERS], at the end, when we have the faux-Bowie figure as a near-conservative corporate shill, I thought "Ooh, bitter fanboy. DB never sunk that low." But, actually...

Well, for a spoiler, it took me 'the appearance of the character' right at the beginning for me to think "is that not him", so...

Ah, Bowie's route isn't such a bad place to end up. Look at how Iggy's doing it.

Alice Cooper too.

While we're waiting for the rest of the results to come in, and on the subject of Bowie in the 90s, I've just discovered this bizarre and amazing interview he conducted with Tricky for Q in 1995.

http://www.moon-palace.de/tricky/q95.html

When I started buying the NME (bang in the middle of the britpop era) I think Bowie was fairly fashionable as an influence
(Pulp and Blur as well as Suede - even Oasis ended up covering "Heroes") but I seem to remember his then-current music getting fairly short shrift, especially Earthling. Hours... was sort of like "Well at least he's not jumping on bandwagons anymore". When those 1999 reissues came out, Uncut did a huge feature on him, which is when I started paying attention - I think he was the first pre-punk canon act I properly got into.

yeah the UNCUT Berlin feature in 2001 was fantastic; certainly the longest piece ever written on the subject at that point in a music mag (it was like 15 pages) and this was years before the Berlin books that came out too (the 33 and a 3rd Low book, the A New Career In A New Town book etc). the Bowie interview from the piece is here fyi http://www.bowiewonderworld.com/features/dbuncut.htm

Fantastically informative interview, presumably via email. They must have been whooping in the office when his answers arrived.

the PaoTD links for yesterday's countdown:

40. It's No Game
39. Fantastic Voyage
38. Breaking Glass
37. All the Young Dudes
36. Boys Keep Swinging
35. Aladdin Sane
34a. Sweet Thing/Candidate/Sweet Thing (reprise)
34b. Candidate 1 (Alternative candidate demo)
33. Fame
32. Fashion
31. Rock 'n' Roll Suicide
30. Ziggy Stardust
29. Panic in Detroit
28. Let's Dance
27. Drive-In Saturday
26. Quicksand
25. Queen Bitch
24. Modern Love
23. Under Pressure
22. Stay
21. TVC15
20. John, I'm Only Dancing (+ (again))
19. Look Back in Anger
18. Starman
17. Space Oddity
16. Five Years

Hello! Here we go -- big finish.

15. "Changes" (from Hunky Dory) - 597 points/27 votes/0 first-place votes

Album:http://youtu.be/pl3vxEudif8
from Ziggy Stardust: The Motion Picture: http://youtu.be/n8v486aUYu0

I had a manager called D4V3 CH1PCH4S3. Whenever he was out the office we'd sing "Ch-ch-ch-Ch1pchase/Turn and face the strange/Ch1pchase"

Life On Mars is a lock. Any others from Hunky Dory to come? Could Oh You Pretty Things sneak in?

I love the song Ziggy so much. I let it go by yesterday when I was distracted by something else.

(I'm struggling to think of locks btw, I can only name eight)

(For a mo, I thought you worked with someone with a car numberplate for a name!)

My daughter became obsessed with this (via Shrek) just before her fifth birthday and requested it on a loop during the party games. Kind of a poignant message for a fifth birthday party.

I could have a good guess at 12 of the 14. Then… pretty things? velvet goldmine? absolute beginners? Up the hill backwards? dunno.

I think for the top 10 I'll just keep on posting youtube links instead of embeds.

14. "Be My Wife" (from Low) - 608 points/24 votes/4 first-place votes

Official video: http://youtu.be/kB7skYEv_EM
Olympia, 2002: http://youtu.be/L-wp8JcWPqk

Be My Wife is one of my favorite Bowie videos ever. So perfect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfxIa-643zI
vs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3PIIyFxCog

woops , sorry about youtubes

Quick guess at the top ten, no order

Rebel Rebel
Young Americans
Station To Station
Golden Years
Life On Mars
Sound and Vision
Ashes To Ashes
Heroes
Suffragette City
Jean Jeanie

^ That's exactly my guess.
Top five: 1. Heroes, 2. Station to station, 3. Jean Genie, 4. Suffragette City, 5. Young Americans

Though such a high placing for "Station to station" is wishful thinking on my part

Can we not do guessing right before the top three or five? It's more fun to have them roll out totally fresh...

Jean Genie was way upthread already @ #42!

The Jean Genie has come and gone. Be My Wife was my #1 - glad to see it was so for more people.