On Bowie

This was an easy day and half read for me. The subject matter is something that anyone reading this book would devour and adore, which is, of course, David Bowie. I appreciate that Rob Sheffield is not only a music critic, but presents himself as big a geeked out Bowie fan as any of us who read his book. This comes through with his personal anecdotes of where he was when he first learned of Bowie and first heard his voice and where he was and what he was doing when he learned of his passing. It truly is a magical and a very personal thing, for any Bowie fan to recall where they were when they laid eyes on him and how they learned he died. Sheffield's love of Bowie throughout his career is something I identify with as a bit younger Bowie fan (only by 9 years, but younger nonetheless). On that note, Sheffield's book is two-fold. On a personal level, his Bowie adoration and knowledge is evident and yet, from his music critic's perspective, Bowie's catalog, specifically his work after Let's Dance and up to The Next Day are glossed over and somewhat dismissed. It should be noted that 1993's Black Tie White Noise goes beyond Jump They Say as a song Bowie wrote about his older brother's suicide or his campy cover of Morrissey's I Know It's Going to Happen Someday (Bowie singing Morrissey singing Bowie). The album Black Tie White Noise came shortly after he married the love of his life, Iman and after the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles. The album was also a chance for Bowie to re-connect with his Let's Dance producer Nile Rodgers and his Ziggy bandmate Mick Ronson, shortly before he died of cancer that. The album did receive critical acclaim as BBC proclaimed it to be "a revival of the next stage of his career" as his previous albums, Tonight and Never Let Me Down yes, commercially flopped. Instead, Sheffield glossed over this album and his follow up album Outside, other than mentioning it was a concept album which reunited him with Brian Eno. The Outside album also put Bowie back on the road as he toured in '95 with Nine Inch Nails. It was probably because of this tour and these two albums in the 90's in particular, that Bowie gained a younger fan base. Although I had been a long-time fan of Bowie's work before the Outside tour, it was a huge deal for me as I got to see Bowie live, for the first and only time ever. The video for I'm Afraid of Americans featured Trent Reznor, who again, appealed to people my age during that time. To not even give Reznor an honorable mention in this book (but apparently Kanye West?) is indeed insulting and disappointing. Maybe Sheffield didn't find this period of Bowie interesting or noteworthy, but this period of Bowie was highly regarded by the Gen Xers and performers of the 90's (Nirvana's cover of The Man Who Sold the World on MTV Unplugged anybody?). But again, this is just my opinion. Other than that, I enjoyed the book and would recommend it to my fellow Bowie brothers and sisters.

Sheffield's love for Bowie apparently didn't extend to doing any actual research - there's practically a factual mistake or misinterpretation of lyrics on just about every other page of this quickie book (he brags in the intro how it was written in 30 days). Dates are wrong - Bowie changed his name in 65, not 66; Bowie's manager Ken Pitt introduced him to the Velvet Underground, not a friend in New York; "Dead Man Walking" is not about marriage and neither is "Slip Away" - Bowie commented extensively on his inspirations for both, just google 'em. "All The Young Dudes" is not a boy song and "Rebel Rebel" is not a girl song - the point of both is gender confusion (Lucy is a Dude, the Rebel wants to be there when they count up the dudes). Sheffield gets the lyrics wrong to "Young Americans" too, then complains that he's never seen an accurate lyric sheet (again, google). These might seem like quibbles, but a book about Bowie should get its Bowie facts right, especially when those errors lead to serious misinterpretations of art. Too often the author seems to be recalling "facts" that he vaguely remembers off the top of his head, without re-checking (no, Bowie's famous 1979 SNL appearance did not include a "Bowie doll" carried onstage for "Man Who Sold the World," nor was Marc Bolan "riding high" with hits in 1969, and Peter Schilling's largely forgotten "Major Tom" is hardly "just as famous as Space Oddity or Ashes to Ashes"). Instead, we got the "All my friends in college loved him" and "I was a nerd in high school and Bowie saved me" etc, padded out with that hoariest of all music writer tricks: The repetitive use of song lyrics and titles. "Maybe it even makes him break down and cry," ends one chapter. "It's like putting out a fire with gasoline," ends another. And so on. I'm giving the book an extra star just because the author's heart seems to be in the right place, but honestly this book would never have been published without Sheffield's Rolling Stone credentials. I'd suggest reading Chris O'Leary's "Rebel Rebel" instead - I'm sure Sheffield has, even if he didn't learn much from it.

I've enjoyed Sheffield's articles and reviews in Rolling Stone over the years, so I wasn't surprised that I would find his tribute to Bowie just as entertaining. Its also a bitter-sweet remembrance which brought back for me memories of one of rock's most influential and varied careers. My initial introduction to Bowie, along with countless others, was my sophomore year(1972) in college when I purchased The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and was instantly hooked! Then catching-up by obtaining his 3 previous studio albums, I've followed and bought each album on its release. Like Sheffield I was very impressed with Blackstar but then totally shocked three days later with Bowie's death. As for On Bowie, Sheffield does a nice job of intertwining numerous Bowie lyrics throughout the book with his narrative. I think I got most of them, but I'm sure I missed a few! Quite a few "fun facts" are revealed also. I've always wondered if the lyric from Joni Mitchell's great 1975 album(and song), The Hissing of Summer Lawns, was a Bowie reference("Diamond dog, carrying a cup and a cane..."). According to Sheffield, it was. Over all, the book is a moving tribute from not only a talented music critic but a true admirer and fan. Well done.

Book was a nice light read with a lot of great personal stories. Highly recommended for a Bowie or Sheffield fan.

If you love/admire/want to know more about Dave Bowie, this is a decent book.

Ok

Let’s face it folks, 2016 has not been kind to out celebrities. Out of all of the celebrity deaths that have happened so far David Bowie was one of the harshest for me. I loved Bowie. I couldn’t tell you exactly when I discovered my love for David Bowie but being a child of the 80s my introduction to him must have come from the movie Labyrinth. From then on my love grew.My love and indeed obsession with music came (like most) in my teen years and it was then that I discovered Bowie the musician not Jareth the Goblin King. Bowie wasn’t and still isn’t someone that you can listen to passively. His music dictates that you give him your full attention. Likewise this is what I gave to Rob Sheffield when I read his book On Bowie. The book was written in light of Bowie’s death in January and released a few months after and what I loved about it is that the biography (I feel weird calling it this) mixes moments from David Bowie’s life and shows the resonance that Bowie had on his audience. How what he did and how he did it impacted people. That is what, in my humble opinion, makes Rob Sheffield’s writing really exciting. You see it in his previous books and you definitely see it in On Bowie. It is the book that makes you shout “Yes! You get it. That is exactly how I feel.”If you love Bowie then read On Bowie. If you love music then read On Bowie. And if you love it when an author just gets it then read On Bowie.On Bowie by Rob Sheffield is available now.For more information regarding Rob Sheffield (@robsheff) please visit [...]For more information regarding Headline (@headlinepg) please visit [...]

On Bowie, starts off ok with a heartfelt and quite moving account of discovering Bowie had died. Sadly that's as good as it gets. His writing style includes trying to throw in as many of Bowie lyrical quotes as possible into each sentence, which is mildly amusing to begin with but become downright annoying after a while. Like most of us who didn't know Bowie personally, we learn about him through articles and interviews. Sheffield doesn't appear to have done any real research and relies on a cut and paste of other people's writings, YouTube and Wikipedia to inform his writing and when he does add his own opinion, it is in my opinion a little wide of the mark.He does however make a valid point that not everyone likes all of Bowie's phases, but to dismiss Outside as a dull Eno collaboration and to favour the rather sterile Stage over the raw emotion of David Live is questionable.I rather lost interest after he devoted a disproportionate amount of time to Space Oddity and raved on inexplicably about the German novelty hit Major Tom (Coming Home).I'm sure to some folks this book is . For me it's not