David Bowie
Young Americans

THE REVIEW

NEW SOUNDS FROM THE GHOST DRESSED IN BLACK
or "one damn song that can make me break down and cry"

There's something in my milk chuckles David Bowie as he sinks into the limousine seat. The man has an extremely pale, thin, and emaciated face, weighing no more than 90 pounds, hiding his eyes under the shadow of a hat placed firmly over his faded red hair. As the limousine races through the American deserts, David scatters his thoughts in front of the camera. We're in a desolate area sometime between '74 and '75, a few minutes before the "Cracked Actor" showed us how he packed away his Japanese theater costumes and his masks with the trademark lightning bolt into a trunk... now he's anchored to the back seat with a few bags of cocaine and the fear of being stopped by the police. There's something in my milk says Bowie, peers into the glass, explaining that he is like that fly in his drink while in America: he absorbs everything, and "Young Americans" is an absolutely instant snapshot of how the artist is experiencing music and how he's hiding his life.

According to the words of the English artist, this would just be a hit album to consolidate my position in that country but in my opinion, beyond the funky riffs, the R'n'B choirs, and the black voice, there's much more. For this reason, it has been described as a controversial record: on one hand, just a commercial album made to climb the American charts, on the other, a product of white soul music arranged in an extremely refined way. It may be that there are only eight songs, but in fact, not one is out of place or doesn't work. David gathers all the black influences of the "Philly sound" that hovered around him like cocaine ghosts during the "Diamond Dogs" tour, summons great professionals including guitarists Carlos Alomar and Earl Slick, saxophonist David Sanborn, and backing vocalist Luther Vandross, and finally locks himself in the Sigma Sound Studios in Philadelphia, where he literally spends days and nights. From here he also calls a certain John Lennon who lends his new voice in the Beatles cover "Across The Universe" and in "Fame". Trusty producer Tony Visconti is there, and he tells us nothing was organized, it turned into a massive jam session.

Forget space ballads, Weillian cabaret, alien orchestras, and hard-blues distortions, and forget the immense Gothic cathedral of the previous work: Bowie is moving more and more towards the essence of music, focusing solely on it and working obsessively to make the melodies and his voice reach their fullest potential. I won't go into detail about each track: I want to challenge anyone to resist the drums of the title track or the contagious rhythm of the bass in "Fascination". How can one not sway slowly when the saxophones of "Win" and "Right" become sensual breaths? But David Bowie is fake, he always has been: this album is just the facade of a palace of despair, it's a facade that, before exploding with "Station To Station" and the Franco-Berlin production, sometimes loses its plaster and reveals the tormented and paranoid world of the artist’s psyche, and to glimpse into the abyss, the falsettos of "Somebody Up There Likes Me" are enough. The toxic spirit of Bowie's hoarse and trembling voice in "Across The Universe" permeates this black and white atmosphere, like the condensed smoke of a Philadelphia gay bar, on whose stage a tense ghost drags his voice beyond the choirs of "Can You Hear Me". This ghost was the first white artist to participate in, in '75, the "Soul Train" program, and speaking of fame, he's also among the first to denounce, in the last track "Fame", that "it puts you there where things are hollow (...) it ain't your brain, it's just the flame that burns your change to keep you insane (...) what you like is in the limo, fame, what you get is no tomorrow". The future White Duke finally lays his cards on the table, telling us how things truly are without masks and, for the last time, expressing emotions understandable to the human ear before becoming the man who fell to earth, before the caustic turn, before the escape ... but this is another story, for now let's settle for "one damn song that can make me break down and cry", let's settle for a white and thin soul-boy who, slumped in the limousine, hums "Natural Woman", wandering through the streets of Los Angeles and Philadelphia fleeing from the police and from himself, glances at the glass and tells us "there's something in my milk"...

from "Young Americans"

Just you and your idol sing falsetto
‘bout Leather, leather everywhere, and
Not a myth left from the ghetto
Well, well, well, would you carry a razor
In case, just in case of depression?

Thanks to VelvetGoldmine.it for the lyrics, Nicholas Pegg's Bowie Encyclopedia for the quotes, the "Cracked Actor" footage for the images, and, of course, "Young Americans"!