David Bowie
Let's Dance

THE REVIEW

"The Chameleon of Rock": this is the most used (and abused) definition by the mainstream press to describe David Bowie. Undoubtedly, his albums up to 1980 offer a repertoire of different styles and languages, and represent works largely essential for the rock music aficionado as well as the pop culture scholar. "Let's Dance" apparently stands at the antipodes of the musical exploration path followed until then, which is why it represents a disappointment and a definite step back for longtime fans.

To put things into context: in 1983, Bowie comes from 5 albums not adequately supported by his record label at the time, RCA, which barely tolerated the path of musical exploration undertaken with "Station to Station", the fusion of new age, ambient, and electronic in a pop sauce of "Low" and "Heroes", the embryonic ethno pop of "Lodger", and the synthesis of "Scary Monsters". However, the singles (with their respective videos) from the last work demonstrate an intact commercial appeal, which at the expiration of the RCA contract, after a bidding war, allows him to join EMI, with a multimillion-dollar advance and an option for five records.

The scent of money, destined to multiply with a global round of concerts, demands immediate and more accessible material, a glossy dance pop, with soul tinges but without any musical exploration ambitions. The disengagement is also evident in the studio: the one who once tinkered with all the instruments now doesn't play a single note and entrusts the production to Nile Rodgers and his chart instinct (Chic and Diana Ross, before being lured by Miss Ciccone for Like a Virgin). The other musicians summoned are honest session players, nothing to do with the Davis-Murray-Alomar trio employed in the late '70s albums: Steve Ray Vaughan stands out, an excellent blues guitarist who, however, does not manage to "characterize" the new songs much (as, for example, Fripp did on "Heroes" or Scary Monsters). In terms of appearance (we’re in the '80s!) the hair is shortened and dyed platinum blonde, good for teenagers but also for families, the former aloof white duke is now a heterosexual who flirts dancing and making out on the beach in the video of "China Girl," a boxer on the album cover, and a classy entertainer at concerts.

It's a smart move: first place everywhere, driven by "Let's Dance", "China Girl" and "Modern Love" which reach the podium almost everywhere in the world. The singles, in their genre, are three excellent songs, they have choruses that stamp in your head, and they start a series of hits that will infest the charts for the decade, in which the desire to please the audience and to ride the wave of success is evident, between a TV commercial, a movie, and a soundtrack. In this sense, "China Girl" is exemplary, a remake of a song written with Iggy Pop and recorded in 1977: where the original sung by Iggy is irritating, a proto-grunge with a vocal line more and more shouted and disturbing, the 1983 remake is pop (in the literal sense, i.e., popular and accessible) polished, keyboards and a nice bass line, a guitar riff pinned like a postcard from China, vocally starting low and confidential, then exploding in power and returning intimate ("oh baby, just you shout your mouth, she says ...shhh....") at the end.

Outside of the three aforementioned pieces, the album is forgettable, trivial, at times embarrassing, and it is not even an effective snapshot of those years, unlike other pop records of the era that have aged better (just to name one, Rio by Duran Duran): some of the material is also valid, but it is downsized by a production not up to the singles, "Cat People" is spoiled by a too stampeded drum, "Ricochet"  has a vocal style too baritonal and self-satisfied, "Without You" has an annoying falsetto, not to mention the synthesizers honking a bit everywhere.

The umpteenth transformation of the chameleon, however, brings him the big audience and the real bucks: it is the start of a regression that traps Bowie in a creative swamp from which he will emerge after two decades, but that’s another story.