Today David Bowie turned 65, and celebrities and fans are off Tweeting for him to do a comeback tour. I could offer a long essay on how important he is to contemporary music, but I present the montage above accompanied with some of the most stark music he ever created in his later period. This is “The Mysteries” from the 1993 soundtrack for the Buddha of Suburbia, an album he once called a personal favorite (Support the Independent Ethos, purchase on Amazon).
He is practically solo on the album. The only other musicians present are multi-instrumentalist Erdal Kizilcay, a Bowie collaborator since the mid-80s, and his long-time keyboardist Mike Garson (If you really want to go in-depth on Bowie, read my 5-part interview with Garson: From the Archives: Mike Garson on working with David Bowie (Part 1 of 5)). Some of the best work Bowie did in his career was when he was at his most singularly creative. He also recorded most of 1974′s Diamond Dogs on his own, including drums and guitars and began a series of his greatest albums with 1977′s Low, while defying the pleadings of his record label to go back and record Young Americans Part 2.
The man is a creative genius well worth something more than aping his greatest hits on stage (again? He did it in 1990 already). It’s time for him to come out with something original and new, damn the celebrities and fans and their Tweets (Bowie isn’t even on Twitter).
One more taste of the creative high-point that was Buddha of Suburbia, shows that the soundtrack also offers the opposite of stark and atmospheric. Here’s the driving and catchy “Dead Against It”:
This stuff could have been outtakes from Low!
