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Thursday 28 March 2013

A Bowie perspective, 'The Phenomenon' Part 2 - continued

I'm fairly certain that there are legions of Bowie fans out there who would scorn and spit at the notion that the man of the music, the music of the man (of the idea, I add) could be only a performance artist with the meaning of artist not of the same use as musician.

So I'm not going to force that one, the research for to make any more clear assertions in that direction is not there. I hadn't really intended to go further than making a bare suggestion alone, in any event. So there it is, I've made it, just the suggestion alone, mull over it, take it or leave it, see if it leads you anywhere. (Perhaps it's a foregone conclusion that hardened Bowie fans may be much more unlikely to go down the route of considering as seriously as more detatched others, perhaps I'm prejudging and quite blind to a phenomenon I don't really understand.) Yes, there is a lot of much loved music surrounding - or being surrounded by, I don't wish to exclude just now - the obsessive vision of personality cult.

What type of personality cult is it? In simple terms, the personality cult of the rather obessesively mad - not just pretty darn different - individual of legendary porportions. Indeed legend can also easily be analysed to be a good part of the starting points of the blueprint into cultural voyeurism within the framework of the notion of an individual. BOWIE: How big can you go? This is the cultural aspect itself. Another aspect one might consider could be elements of savant, visionary, chosen one, even serious jester or holy fool (remembering of one time, the mime elements of Bowie's act, and that he was taught by actor, dancer & mime artist Lindsey Kemp), Russian style Yurodivy. The Messianic pop star? Surely the limit of the familiar elements of this well known cultural position, the star, are taken to the limit.

I want to avoid going further where I know many would be feeling gradually more and more disappointed as if the music and the man of the music was being given less and less respect, inappropriately. I can't, anyway. I feel I'd need a major investment in refamiliarising myself with Bowie's work, of which I don't remember much from all of those years ago I made some foray in there, trying to remain as objective as possible. One thing I do remember feeling, and I was very young, is that it felt like relatively uncharted territory in the sense that one wondered just how many of the millions who loved Bowie had chosen or were able to remain so objective and judgement reserving in their experience of the legend. But this was not my time. It was of a different era, and young people naturally, typically seem to tend to make faces at these bygone eras in general terms, unless attracted by particular artists. I never thought of myself as someone particularly interested in 'the spirit' as 'the spirit of an age' where particularly 'the spirit' may come second to musical or identifiable elements, so I don't think that's why I would have been more sidetracked by the sounds and movements of my own age.

(I could be wrong, but I did wonder strongly if these rock music elements of the previous eras in popular music were much more defined by 'the spirit' of human energy spirit before content than the stuff of my era. Perhaps in a similar fashion to after 'my time', meaning these contemporary times. And perhaps that was why I wasn't so pulled there. But then, most people from before, during or after the prime time of 'my era' would hardly consider my real love, House Music, had any spirit, or any to much content of any kind whatsoever, anyway! Perhaps, I am actually a spiritilessly obsessed soul, someone happily ensconced by the drone of digeridoo or the beat of a shamanic, jungle drum, rather than the presented human, kind of gutsy, physical but also somehow, somehow potentially, or at least purportedly, cerebral energy of the modern pop eras. I am entitled to disagree but I feel it's more healthy for myself to leave my verdict open, at least for now. Take such thought contexts whenever available - they help, believe me.)

Recapping from last time, when suddenly compelled to think about it, I couldn't even find the context of viewing Bowie's musical catalogue as basic musical selections in themselves. The stuff did not fit conceptually into the category or contexts of musical catalogue for me. And I know this is because in my mind at the moment, Bowie is Art itself, not particularly the artist of musical performance (also that, of course), but the artist of performance itself. So self-contained, if there had been a Turner Prize in his earlier days, he'd never have acknowledged it appropriate to who he was! Hahahahahaha. And so, yet, while acknowledging my vision of Bowie could never be verified by the man or what his essential spirit embodies, I continue with the argument of my perspective, for better, for worse.

Perhaps it is time to mention the argument that an essential part of a blueprint for something which if ever spoken out loud, admitted in any slight way, would destroy the essence of what it is, of course, well, what can I say? ... ... shh ... Must remain a secret. If even a rather dramatic, seldom or never precisely voiced or identified, Pulcinella's secret (open secret). Perhaps it is also that I have a more fortunate (from one perspective) position than real Bowie fans, who could never see or be able to admit to and see at the same time what I experience. Granted, being outside the time of his works, the scope of the core pull of his fandom leaves anyone voicing what I have been voicing wide open to the knock down criticism, "It's only because you didn't get the music - it would be the same for any act you didn't like or become seriously affected by their music." But isn't Bowie different? Yes. Surely?


to be continued ...


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