To underline the 75e anniversary of the birth of the British icon, on January 8, we asked some of our journalists to tell us about their favorite album.
Let’s dance
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The album Let’s dance, by David Bowie
I am 14 years old when I left Let’s dance in 1984: it’s my first meeting with David Bowie, I love pop, but I’ve never heard anything like that, the rhythms, the voice, the sex appeal, everything about him hypnotizes me and me seduced. I danced and danced on Let’s dance, on Modern Love, even on China girl. I know the 1980s are considered minor in Bowie’s discography, but I treasure this catchy album where the king of the counterculture turned into a pop star that looks like nothing and that led me to him in the following years, the blissful discovery of Ziggy Stardust up to its immense Glass Spider Tour at the Olympic Stadium in 1987. And the use of Modern Love in Bad blood, by Leos Carax, in 1986, gave one of the greatest scenes in cinema history – even my 18 year old son agrees with me. The circle is complete.
Low
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The album Low, by David Bowie
The truth is, I mostly listened to compilations of David Bowie’s best songs rather than entire albums: ChangesBowie (1990) first, then Best of Bowie (2002). From the most elegant iconoclast of rock, I still and always know mainly the iconic songs, from Space Oddity at I’m Afraid of Americans, Passing by Life on Mars?, Heroes and China girl. If I had to choose just one official album, it would be Low. That I have not worn out, but I like the bass that strangely grooves the momentum, the tension and especially the ambient side where Bowie and Brian Eno are inspired by krautrock. Dense without being arid.
Blackstar
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The album Blackstar, by David Bowie
Blackstar, the last album of David Bowie, released on the day of his 69e anniversary, two days before his death, is as abundant as it is inventive in its marriage of unusual musical forms. Like the experimental 10-minute title song, made up of military rhythms and a liturgical atmosphere. And the essential Lazarus, with his ethereal guitar-drum intro, his indolent saxophone, that elegant crooner voice with the familiar tremolo, and that tragically premonitory opening phrase: ” Look up here, I’m in heaven. »Music of eternal youth, current and timeless, by an avant-garde artist. A timeless album, like Bowie himself.
Hunky dory
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The album Hunky dory, by David Bowie
Hunky dory is, according to many people, the album through which David Bowie found his style, his voice, his message. Released exactly five decades ago, Hunky dory is the album through which my love for Bowie was born, thanks to which I understood the extent of his genius. Pop art, folk, cabaret come together to form this masterpiece on which no song (none!) Disappoints. After the more rock tones of the previous one, The Man Who Sold the WorldDavid Bowie composed much of this album by sitting at the piano rather than his guitar. The piano is omnipresent, its melodies are the common thread of the opus, whether it is to embody melancholy, install a dancing cadence or guide the other instruments. The complex sound valleys of Hunky dory, its fragmented aesthetic, its words embodying a transitional phase for Bowie, make it an exceptional object.
Let’s dance
PHOTO DENIS COURVILLE, ARCHIVES THE PRESS
David Bowie at the Montreal Forum during the tour The Serious Moonlight in 1983
A dancing Bowie? Even Nile Rodgers, director of what would become Bowie’s most popular album, was initially skeptical. However, it appears that this collaboration between the composer and guitarist of the disco-funk group Chic and the one in whose honor Serge Gainsbourg composed Beautiful yes like Bowie for Isabelle Adjani set the turntables on fire in 1983. The album begins with Modern Love, a cult title that Leos Carax immortalized three years later in an unforgettable scene from his film Bad blood. China girl, Let’s dance, Putting Out Fire (song co-written with Georgio Moroder, another god of dancing pop at the time), in short, hits from cover to cover. The release of this album also coincided with the releases of two of the most landmark films in which David Bowie has starred: The Hunger (The predators), by Tony Scott, and Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (Furyo), by Nagisa Oshima. The grandiose tour The Serious Moonlight, organized in the wake, crowned a royal year.
Station to Station
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The album Station to Station, by David Bowie
In 1975, David Bowie weighed around 80 lbs, the kind of risk you face when you eat exclusively peppers, milk and cocaine (a diet that neither Press nor Canada’s Food Guide endorse). It is in this physical state, which would lead anyone else directly to intensive care, that the Thin White Duke manages to record yet another masterpiece. He would later say that he has hardly any memory of the creation of his 10e album, halfway between the plastic soul of Young Americans and the Kraftwerkian reinvention of its upcoming Berlin trilogy. It’s too late to be grateful ? Not at all.
The Best of David Bowie 1969/1974
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The album The Best of David Bowie 1969/1974, by David Bowie
Except Blackstar, among other things for the reasons judiciously explained by colleague Cassivi, the album that I listened to the most is without a doubt The Best of David Bowie 1969/1974. Eh yes ! Sacrilege, a compilation… In adolescent frugality, the discovery of classics – excuse the generational delay – was done more through affordable “best of” than studio albums. That said, I remember very well the effect when I was 16 or 17, a brand new driver in his old car, of the “grichonnonn” estate of Space Oddity, Starman, Ziggy Stardust, Oh You Pretty Things, Changes, The Prettiest Star, Life on Mars? or All the Young Dudes. I discovered in an hour that all these songs heard by the band, all these songs sent by other voices, all these songs created in a short period of five years, were the work of one and the same. genius.