So my Bowie binge had come to a crossroad - is he prog/progressive or not? Certainly albums like "Man Who Sold The World" are very much of the era, progressive, as are the Berlin Trilofy. But in all honesty, it's all prog to me....
Righter or Wrong?
So my Bowie binge had come to a crossroad - is he prog/progressive or not? Certainly albums like "Man Who Sold The World" are very much of the era, progressive, as are the Berlin Trilofy. But in all honesty, it's all prog to me....
Righter or Wrong?
"Always ready with the ray of sunshine"
Certainly was between 76-79 when his bands included members of Yes, King Crimson, Hawkwind and Utopia.
You might be able to find bits here and there that fit the bill, but on balance, no. The Chameleon was practically the poster child for Glam in the 70s. If Bowie is Prog, than the word is even more meaningless than commonly used these days.
It's good or not. Categorize as you want.
I want to dynamite your mind with love tonight.
Innovative, interesting, unusual... I say yes.
Bowie is progressive in that he reinvents himself every few albums. I love him for that very reason.
Originally Posted by polmico
Music isn't about chops, or even about talent - it's about sound and the way that sound communicates to people. Mike Keneally
Completely agree.
Regards,
Jon
Outside & Earthling are very "progressive".
"Henry Cow always wanted to push itself, so sometimes we would write music that we couldn't actually play – I found that very encouraging." - Lindsay Cooper, 1998
"I have nothing to do with Endless River. Phew! This is not rocket science people, get a grip." - Roger Waters, 2014
"I'm a collector. And I've always just seemed to collect personalities." - David Bowie, 1973
Progressive? Perhaps. Prog? Perhaps not.
(Bela Lugosi mode off)
Is he prog? No. He's better than prog!
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actually, I don't like his work so much (except the Berlin Trilogy and Scary Monsters) but I don't have to like someones work to recognize that they did capital P Progressive things using Rock music and that, my dear IS Prog.
Now, if you ask 'is Bowie Symph style Prog or not?' the answer is an obvious, no. But then Symph is just a mere portion of the world of Prog music. The work of Yes and Genesis and other Brit bands who sound like them constitute a mere fraction of a percentage of all Prog music and IMO there are MANY better examples than those bands... though Bowie is not one.
Why is it whenever someone mentions an artist that was clearly progressive (yet not the Symph weenie definition of Prog) do certain people feel compelled to snort "thats not Prog" like a whiny 5th grader?
Certainly not !
Width of a Circle was the closest he came to prog , completely lost interest in the bloke after Diamond Dogs !
The way he treated his Ziggy band was awful!
I'd more or less agree with this
Bowie changed his image regularly, but his music stayed more or less the same and was instantly recognizeable (beit the Ronson-era or the Berlin-era >> let's not go in that Let's Dance crap)...As opposed to Floyd who changed sonically radically different (yet also remaining instantly recognizeable themselves
my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicts to complete nutcases.
I beg to differ. Hunky Dory is more folk influenced with, but containing the Velvet Underground-inspired Queen Bitch. Ziggy was glam rock, as was Aladdin Sane. However, some '60s influence did start to creep into Aladdin Sane with tracks like The Jean Genie, Panic In Detroit, and Watch That Man. Pin-Ups(a covers album) would continue to '60s influence. Diamond Dogs was mostly rock, with some soul creeping in. Young Americans was a European reworking of soul, dubbed "plastic soul". Station To Station was more experimental, Low was more electronic, and Heroes was a mix of STS and Low. I have the albums I described on CD, and I can tell that each one is different from the last. Like I said before, Bowie changed his sound every few albums, as did Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, and Queen.
One of those artists that arguably is a genre all to himself. A towering legacy.
He's done at least one fully fledged Prog album (Outside) so we can argue interminably about those others 'on the cusp' (Low, Scary Monsters)- brilliant songwriter who assimilates the prevailing Zeitgeist into everything he does (but never ventures beyond the cusp of 'accessible' and intuited wisely that Prog affectations would be tantamount to Rock'n'Roll Suicide)
For me it's the early albums that are less definable, in particular, this one:
"Always ready with the ray of sunshine"
Outside is prog? That's news to me.
Me too ! I guess we can call any album prog ?
Huh?
I mean, it's a concept album and has narration in parts, but I don't think that those things have any bearing on whether or not an album is prog. Frankly, that just plays into the idea that progressive rock is pretentious. I like to think that non-prog has every capability of being pretentious, too.
Funniest thing I've read all day. Yep, all of Bowie's stuff sounds the same.
Happens here every day.
guys, taking out of context 1/4 of a sentence to quote your disapproval is not
Glad I made your day, but.... same remark as above
first, my comment spoke of the 70's album (fom Space Oddity until Monsters), so you third link is really out of bounds (why not take a track of his 67 album in that case.
yeah, sure, there some differences between the songs of different albums and even sngs of the same album, but his albums as whole but separate entities are really fairly similar (outside the obvious Pin Ups all-covers album) throughout the 70's... you instantly knoew you were on a Bowie album, every time a new one came out during that decade
Man Who, Ziggy, Aladdin, Dogs, Station, Monsters, Low are much closer sonically, than Ummagumma, AHM, Meddle, Dark Side, WYWH, Animal or Wall are ...
my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicts to complete nutcases.
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