…spoke of many powers that he had…
This morning’s Daily Express here in the UK has a rather strange comparative feature that looks at the careers of David Bowie and George Michael. The piece is basically a knives out for George by David Robson, and it is the latest in a long line of features that prove the tabloids are seemingly hell-bent on finishing off the ex Wham! star’s floundering career. Fleet Street is not known for it’s restraint when it comes to kicking a man when he is down.
Using a headline of “Why Bowie is still a star and George is an apology for one”, Mr Robson’s piece seems to have been triggered by the Mercury Music Award nomination for ‘Heathen’ and the relative “failure” of George’s latest controversial single, ‘Shoot The Dog’.
Though I’m not the biggest fan of George Michael’s music, I won’t go into the attacks on him contained within the article…having said that, you all know I blow Bowie’s horn at every opportunity (oooer) so here’s a few of David Robson’s reasons for DB’s thirty plus years of success:
“…For contrast, consider the case of David Bowie, a smarter, cooler, older man who this week was shortlisted for the Mercury Music Awards. The two have things in common. Both reinvented themselves ? Bowie started out plain David Robert Jones, George was born Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou; both have had decades of success; both have worn very short pants on stage. The difference is that Bowie has never got his knickers in a twist. He never apologises, never explains.
Some say that Bowie has been nominated to bring glamour and stature to the list rather than because his new CD, Heathen, demands inclusion (though it was well received). Either way, nobody would disrespect him, a 55-year-old who is 21st-century cool. His concerts this summer were greeted with acclaim and you only had to see the slavering worship of Jonathan Ross the other Friday to appreciate what happens when a man meets a god.
It is hard for a rock star to remain cool for 20 or 30 years. Bowie, always elusive, pretentious, changing, always trying something new, has managed it. His music, which has moved sinuously through the gamut of idioms and styles, is both the most influenced and influential in rock. For years on end it didn’t really work, it didn’t sell. It was out of whack but there was something magical about him, a sort of genius which let people know that, if this twist wasn’t a winner, the next one would be.
As he said in his song The Bewlay Brothers more than 30 years ago, he is “Chameleon, Comedian, Corinthian and Caricature”. The beautiful boy and his divine African wife Iman have become the most beautiful middle-aged couple on Earth.”
There is more, but it would be a little tacky of me to continue at George’s expense, so we’ll leave it there. Not that David Robson has anything to say about David Bowie that we didn’t already know.