When David Bowie died, there was something unique that appeared on social media. It wasn’t anything posted on official pages, but it was everyone posting on my timeline. Everyone who posted a David Bowie song was different. Not one was the same. It’s something that’s stuck in my mind ever since.
As it has been five years since Bowie’s death, I thought it would be a good idea to talk about one of the most overlooked periods in his career. In the late 1970s when he went to a divided European city and needed a break for his sanity, he decided to take a drug-addled friend with him, and they ended up creating some of their best music to date. This week the beat goes on to January 10th, 2016 with a side-track of 1976.
The 1970s was David Bowie’s decade. From the Man Who Sold the World to Lodger with an intervention of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. It wasn’t all fun and games for the superstar throughout this decade as the usual rock n roll excesses hit in as hectic schedules were starting to become a problem. He needed to get away from the scene.
To start the story between Bowie and Iggy we need to rewind to 1971. After multiple attempts to try and launch a pop career, Bowie went to New York to find inspiration for a new album. Space Oddity which was famous for being broadcast during the Moon landing in 1969, was the only single that broke through to the top of the charts. Worried he was becoming a one-hit-wonder he befriended Lou Reed who just launched a new solo career and asked him for advice. Through him, he met Iggy Pop whose band was on the verge of breaking up.
This period in New York helped shape Bowie’s career helping him create the persona of Ziggy Stardust. The Iggy part in the name of Ziggy was inspired by Iggy Pop. Bowie even went on to produce Pop’s band The Stooges final album Raw Power.
Fast forward to 1976 and the two promising musicians in New York are now drug-addicted shadows of their former selves. Bowie is addicted to Cocaine and Iggy is addicted to Heroin. Bowie claimed that he was so whacked out on the drug that he couldn’t remember recording the Station to Station album! Iggy Pop had to be institutionalized to help him get clean. The Starman helped Iggy after his stay in the asylum by bringing him along for the rest of his tour. They then travelled halfway across the world to get away from the toxic environment.
The two travelled to Berlin. Bowie would stay there for the rest of the 1970s and Iggy Pop would stay there for around 18 months. In this period the two would record five albums between them. Two under Iggy and three under Bowie which would later be known as the Berlin trilogy.
Once the two started to clean up their addictions they got to making music. Bowie bought in producer and long-time collaborator Tony Visconti as well as a then-little-known musician called Brian Eno.
They started to record “The Idiot” first. This was Iggy Pop’s first solo album and the first thing he had recorded without his previous band, the Stooges. As Pop wasn’t as famous as Bowie (the Stooges recognition took a while to hit the public domain) it allowed him to use Iggy as a Guinea Pig and take more chances. They used drum machines, which were still in their infancy at the time, which was a worry to Bowie if he used them in case he might lose some of his fans. This album had the first appearance of the song China Girl with a completely different structure to the Bowie version which appeared some six years later.
Five months later Iggy released a second album; Lust for Life. This one is more Pop’s sound than Bowie’s but you can see that he’s been influenced by the Starman. You can hear a lot of backing vocals from Bowie. The title track was influenced by the two when they were waiting for their favourite TV show, Starsky and Hutch, to start on the Armed Forces Network. The news on AFN had a morse code opening and inspired Bowie to write the celebrated riff on Lust for Life. This became bigger for Iggy than any of the previous Stooges albums put together. It also was revitalised by the 1990s film Trainspotting. This one was much less experimental than the Idiot but gave inspiration to the new wave bands of the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Bowie hadn’t been quiet at this time as he released an album too. The first recorded in Berlin: Low was adored by critics and influenced a generation of musicians to come. Providing two singles: Sound and Vision and Be My Wife. It was the start of a new clear direction. Gone were the long songs from station to station (seriously the shortest song was just over four minutes) and short sharp three-minute songs became the new approach.
Low was just the beginning for Bowie as the second of the trilogy (as it is in most film trilogies) was set to be the biggest. The next album would give Bowie his biggest song since Ziggy Stardust maybe even bigger. It would just be one name: Heroes.
It’s often thought that the song Heroes was derived from the opposite sides of the Berlin wall as it was a mere 500 yards away from the recording studio. Actually, it’s about forbidden love inspired by producer Tony Visconti sharing a discreet kiss with a woman who wasn’t his wife. In 1987 Bowie returned to Berlin and performed the song at a three-day rock concert where the stage backed onto the wall. He performed Heroes and dedicated it to those on the other side of the wall. Thousands were on the other side listening in. Upon his death, the German Foreign Office said this performance was the beginning of the end of the Berlin Wall.
After much praise of the Heroes album Bowie went on a world tour to promote his two Berlin albums with a narration of Peter and the Wolf in between stops. He returned in 1978 to produce some new material. The third of the trilogy was called Lodger. A more experimental album than the other two using more world music. The album gained critical acclaim again but at this point, Bowie could do no wrong.
This four-year period in the career of David Bowie launched so many careers. It didn’t just help his own but Iggy Pop’s, Tony Visconti’s, and Brian Eno’s. None of them knew when they arrived how significant this music-making period would be and how it still would influence people over 40 years later.
It helped two fledging musicians kick their habits giving them a fresh start and attaining cult status from fans and critics alike. It gave them purpose and a new lease of life. It turned Iggy Pop into the Godfather of Punk and Bowie from a Rock star to a Pop icon.
The Beat Marches On is a music blog written by Jimmy Whitehead. Jimmy has been blogging for six years specialising in Sports (especially American Football). If you want to follow Jimmy on Twitter: @Jimmy_W1987
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If anyone reading this would like to read more about this story, the websites used for research are:
The Truth About Iggy Pop And David Bowie’s Relationship (grunge.com)
Iggy Pop: ‘David Bowie’s friendship was the light of my life’ | NME
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