tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post6810570030750628563..comments2024-02-04T05:13:04.501-05:00Comments on Nik at Nite: David Bowie: The Next DayNikki Staffordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04463618183850438914noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-1529190985232705912013-03-12T17:02:14.852-04:002013-03-12T17:02:14.852-04:00Thank you Rob. I would only add a little more abou...Thank you Rob. I would only add a little more about Bowie's awareness of the very issues you raise. "Where are We Now?" to me addresses directly the idea of the legend returning. You reference "Double Fantasy" which if not my favourite John Lennon by far but there is something so of the moment answering the question "Where are We Now" that I understand why some raved about it. Unfortunately, the tragedy makes it representative of something more than an ephemeral "now".<br /><br />Bowie's return is not simply an attempt to capture a particular now as Lennon's was. The song "If You Can See Me" seem to me to invoke multiple personae of Bowie's yet never let one clearly enter the conversation. To me, the album repudiates the stereotype that so many fall into as they reach a stage of maturity; that is the desire to "be here now"; to be "of the moment." Lennon sought to do that; David Byrne seems to want that every time he reinvents himself; artists seeking to escape their past talk about it all the time in interviews. But there always seems to be a vague rejection of the past when they imply they have reached a new and seemingly wiser place. David Bowie the private (very private) citizen may well have done that, but David Bowie the artist is incapable of such lying to himself. I hear these new songs as part of a conversation with rather than a repudiation of what came before.<br /><br />I think your review points to this well. To me, in addition to some very good songs, the genius of this album is that it is going to inform how I respond to things for which I thought I had already had a clear response. 5 years from now (and I hope that is not all I've got), I will almost certainly be more inclined to listen to HUNKY DORY over "The Next Day" but somehow I think how I hear Hunky Dory will be informed by "The Next Day" in ways that "Double Fantasy" simply does not really effect my listening to "Mind Games."<br /><br />Bowie the artist in giving us "The Next Day" to me is overcoming the comeback cliche of "here is the me of today" and instead keeping us seeing that the present is never severed from the past and there is always renewed newness on the next day.<br /><br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-52642333296006292202013-03-12T09:44:48.631-04:002013-03-12T09:44:48.631-04:00Wow. Welcome, Robert. I can't believe this i...Wow. Welcome, Robert. I can't believe this is the first time you've written something here. I knew you were real! :)<br /><br />Great review, you've got me excited for a new Bowie album (for me, it all begins and ends with Ziggy, but there you go).<br /><br />Also, Nik, great story about your firstborn responding to Heroes! Although, it would suck if she was still like that, just hearing Heroes and then spontaeneously kicking you in the stomach. Kids, eh?Batcabbagehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16609077644806458692noreply@blogger.com