Brian Eno is MORE DARK THAN SHARK

INTERVIEWS, REVIEWS & RELATED ARTICLES

Beat Instrumental FEBRUARY 1981 - by John Morrish

...BEHIND THE SHOULDER OF THE AVANT-GARDE

1980 may well prove to have been one of the more significant years in the career of David Bowie. Or rather, the careers of David Bowie, because 1980 saw him finally establish himself as a legitimate actor.

By all accounts, Bowie's performance as John Merrick, the Elephant Man, in Bernard Pomerance's stage play was a remarkable one and would seem to point in the direction of further theatrical work. Where this leaves Bowie's musical career remains to be seen. Perhaps it will become a secondary activity, eventually fading into insignificance. On the other hand, it may be that having proved his acting ability, he will return to music with renewed interest.

Either way, this looks like a good time for taking stock of Bowie's achievements over the last few years. And something of the same spirit seems to have touched the man himself, for there on the cover of the 1980 album we see a paste-up of Bowie portraits from the last three albums.

Every Bowiephile has his or her own time-chart of the artist's development, with significant moments inked in and crucial works underlined. My personal interpretation marks the watershed in Spring 1977, with the release of Low. As RCA's crafty publicity put it, there is old wave, there is new wave, and there is Bowie. The album prompted a reorientation of rock aesthetics that is still bearing fruit today, for better or worse.

More important than that, the album pointed out one of the most important of Bowie's qualities, that is the ability to surround himself with the right people at any one time. And in 1977, the right people were European in outlook and background. Of these, the most significant was Brian Eno.

It is to Bowie's credit that he was able to get the most out of Eno, whose previous record was one of dilettantism and sporadic brilliance. Eno brought new areas of enquiry, new experiences and, most useful of all, new methods of working.

The results of the collaboration are obvious: they are most evident in the instrumental textures of the work they produced together. The formalism of the proposed trilogy is another reflection, although whether the fragmentary Lodger actually completes the trilogy is a moot point. Low and "Heroes" were opposites: Lodger reflects by turns both the former's gloom and the later's bravado. Bowie has called it a 'sketchpad' album: it is also, as its artwork makes clear, a collection of postcards home from exotic places and cultures.

And that is one of the dangers of Eno's magpie approach to music. I have a daydream, or rather daynightmare, in which I see Eno, Bowie, Byrne, Fripp and the rest of rock's intellectual élite flying round the world in a private jet. From time to time they stop in a remote desert or jungle or valley and leap out, cassette recorders at the ready, and note down each new musical form almost before it has emerged. Then they take the whole lot back to New York and start putting together a whole set of unlikely musical fusions. Unfortunately, some evil genius steals the master tape and starts pressing up copies of this universal music. Before long every radio station in the world is playing it, and on street corners from Bolton to Bangkok kids are doing their best to imitate it. Goodbye cultural diversity, hello homogeneity.

Far-fetched, of course (though think of McDonalds...), but the story points out a worryingly colonialistic trend in certain musical practices. Rock music started with a cross-cultural fusion, but it was a natural one that had had time to develop and gain strength before it was marketed wall-to-wall. That is not the same as deliberately engineering artificial fusions for the sake of stylistic variety.

Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) marks the end of the Bowie/Eno collaboration, at least for the time being, and a return to the mainstream. It is also a resounding critical and popular success, with the ever-adaptable nucleus of Davis, Murray and Alomar in fine form. The new sound this time round is carried along on searing lead-guitar lines, mainly from one Robert Fripp, and Bowie's vocals have a new presence and urgency.

It could be argued that the album does not represent anything new, but then, despite appearances, innovation has never been Bowie's forté. He has always preferred to follow just behind the shoulder of the avant-garde, pick up some idea and bring it screaming into the market-place. He may not do things first, but he usually does them better. Even today his electronic experiments, for instance, sound rather better than anything else in the same vein either before or since.

Meanwhile, Bowie himself remains as much a mystery as ever. He seems to have mastered the art of giving long and wide-ranging interviews without actually saying anything. And while that makes life difficult for journalists, you can see his point of view. Besides, his records give us more than enough to ponder upon.