Bowie In Berlin by Thomas Jerome Seabrook

valuing the Berlin-era b-side instrumentals over contemporary ambient background enosound because the former “demand the listener’s attention” and are thus heard as more authentic.

Indeed, these choices are telling: Seabrook is rockist through and through, e.g. The dismissal of “TVC15,” “Be My Wife,” “Moss Garden,” and “Move On” as “throwaway” tracks from their respective records is baffling, as are the tenuous parallels drawn between late-70s Bowie and, for example, Talk Talk and Radiohead. Unfortunately, it contains so little original info as to render it superfluous in any case, there are much better places to start for those uninitiated with Bowie’s work. It took me almost a year to finally find it. This chronicle of the Bowie, Eno and Visconti (and, okay, Iggy) Berlin triptych was difficult to read on account of it having been the last music book a best friend was reading before he died. Painstakingly researched and vividly written, the book casts new light on the most creative and influential era in Bowie’s career. īowie In Berlin examines that period and those records, exploring Bowie’s fascination with the city, unearthing his sources of inspiration, detailing his working methods, and teasing out the elusive meanings of the songs. He also found time to produce two albums for Iggy Pop- The Idiot and Lust For Life -and to take a leading role in a movie, the ill-starred Just A Gigolo. In this intensely creative period, Bowie put together three classic albums- Low, “Heroes”, and Lodger -with collaborators who included Brian Eno, Robert Fripp, and Tony Visconti.

There he sought anonymity, taking an apartment in a run-down district with his sometime collaborator Iggy Pop, another refugee from drugs and debauchery, while they explored the city and its notorious nightlife.

Driven to the brink of madness by cocaine, overwork, marital strife, and a paranoid obsession with the occult, David Bowie fled Los Angeles in 1975 and ended up in Berlin, the divided city on the frontline between communist East and capitalist West.

Bowie In Berlin by Thomas Jerome Seabrook