Brian Eno is MORE DARK THAN SHARK

INTERVIEWS, REVIEWS & RELATED ARTICLES

Mojo JUNE 2007 - by Ian McCulloch

DAVID BOWIE: LOW

Brixtonian/ET hybrid sets record for successful consecutive reinventions.

"I didn't get it when Charles Shaar Murray in the NME said he hated Low because it was so bleak and detached. I loved its poppy qualities, like Sound And Vision and Always Crashing In The Same Car; his voice is fantastic and magnetic, just pure Bowie. The album had a radiance and crispness to it, particularly the first side. It still makes me smile and not feel low. I loved the wordless vocals too on the second side, they're so mesmerising and different. Eno helped, but Bowie was running that show. Low pretty much invented the '80s, alongside Kraftwerk, just as Bowie had invented the '70s. Kraftwerk was the seed, Bowie was the laboratory. Low was like a guidebook to synth punk. If The Pistols and Ramones drove you to pick up a guitar and add plenty of chords, Low was what you can do with one finger, a synth and your imagination. Any band with a side parting, especially coming out of Sheffield or Leeds, owes it to Bowie."

Without this, no... synth-pop, wedges, "getting Eno in", the '80s generally.