Why do people tend to ignore Bowie’s funk/soul phase when assessing his legacy and mainly discuss his glam era and the Berlin trilogy?
I don’t see much discussion of his funk and soul songs on this board, yet he wrote arguably the best soul song of all time in Young Americans and arguably the best funk song of all time in Golden Years. I’m not memeing. He wrote contenders for the best song in both genres. They’re both incredibly tight masterpieces with amazing vocal performances despite Bowie literally just dipping his toes in this kind of music during a brief phase. Yet for some reason this is mostly ignored because of muh glam and muh Berlin and muh 90s meme shit
Why do people tend to ignore Bowie’s funk/soul phase when assessing his legacy and mainly discuss his glam era and...
Aiden Rogers
Chase Reed
it's alright, but golden years isn't even top 50 funk songs, and young americans isn't even top 500 soul songs.
Luis Gray
Utter pleb
Aiden Perry
arguably one of the best gnome songs of all time
Samuel Brown
Because they don't know much about funk or soul
Gabriel Nelson
Right is one of my all time favourite Bowie songs.
Carter Campbell
nah, you're a rockist genre tourist.
Jayden Ramirez
I listen to more soul than rock, and only marginally less funk. But still a lot.
>a white guy moved to America for a couple of years, did a load of coke, and made better songs than most of his contemporary black musicians in two black genres
Kek
John Sullivan
Would be one of his best if it wasn't for that godawful cover of Across The Universe.
Brody Hernandez
Are all of Bowie's songs about gnomes? Gnomes going into space, tranny gnomes, gnome rockstars fallen from grace, Golden Dawn gnomes, gnomes moving up to London and getting mixed up with the wrong crowd, gnomes getting clean in Berlin, fascist gnomes, drum and bass gnomes?
Isaiah Myers
yeah, no.
Zachary Sanders
Seething
Christopher Anderson
indeed
Matthew Perez
The dude ripped off Scott Walker and made a massive career out of it. He had three good albums, mostly aided by Brian Eno.
Easton Perez
Young Americans [RCA Victor, 1975]
This is a failure. The tunes make (Lennon-McCartney's) "Across the Universe" sound like a melodic highlight, and although the amalgam of English hard rock and Philly soul is so thin it's interesting, it often overwhelms David's voice, which is even thinner. But after the total alienation of Diamond Dogs and the total ripoff of David Live, I'm pleased with Bowie's renewed generosity of spirit--he takes pains to simulate compassion and risks failure simply by moving on. His reward is two successes: the title tune, in which pain stimulates compassion, and (Bowie-Lennon-Alomar's) "Fame," which rhymes with pain and makes you believe it. B-
Colton Harris
Fame is literally the pimp anthem. Probably one of the most funky songs ever.
Bentley Hernandez
he looked really cool around this time and doesn't get enough credit for his wardrobe
Brandon King
he gets plenty of credit for his wardrobe.
Elijah Baker
referring to soul era
Benjamin Gray
yes
Colton Hernandez
I'm sure Scaruffi rated YA a 1/10, right? :^)
Ryder Gutierrez
They're called Eidolons
Carter Phillips
>yet he wrote arguably the best soul song of all time in Young Americans and arguably the best funk song of all time in Golden Years.
>I’m not memeing
Jaxon Cruz
Because it's just not good.
Alexander White
Funk is pure sex, it sounds like it belongs in a porno but it’s still great
Mason Gutierrez
Fame* lel
Carter Harris
original post still makes sense