{"id":1625,"date":"2008-08-27T23:50:28","date_gmt":"2008-08-28T03:50:28","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2010-11-09T07:53:25","modified_gmt":"2010-11-09T11:53:25","slug":"david-bowie-s-blue-jean-is-as-good-as-an","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/david-bowie-s-blue-jean-is-as-good-as-an\/","title":{"rendered":"David Bowie\u2019s \u201cBlue Jean\u201d Is as Good as Anything on <em>Low<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Some of you are aware of my longtime struggles with the works of <strong>David Bowie<\/strong>. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/index.php\/2007\/11\/29\/mr_mod_releases_the_list_of_30_bowie_son\">I&#8217;ve come a long way<\/a>, but there are still issues to explore. <\/p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/qsiC1GpDyEg?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><p>Recently I was discussing the artist with a <strong>friend<\/strong>. He&#8217;s a longtime Bowie lover&#8211;with limits. Although we&#8217;ve been generally like-minded music friends for years, we were a bit surprised to realize that, after accounting for his limits in loving this artist, we had essentially the same views on the man, for instance, agreeing that <em>The Man Who Sold the World<\/em> and <em>Diamond Dogs<\/em> pretty much sucked and that <em>Let&#8217;s Dance<\/em> was worthy of Rock Crimes. <\/p>\n<p>As part of the discussion on <em>Let&#8217;s Dance<\/em>, we candidly acknowledged the superiority of <strong>&#8220;Blue Jean&#8221;<\/strong>, which was considered a weak lead-off single from <em>Tonight<\/em>, Bowie&#8217;s disappointing follow-up album to his mainstream blockbuster, to anything on <em>Let&#8217;s Dance<\/em>. Then, as is often when the two of us get together, our deep rock discussion on Bowie turned especially candid.<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/kB7skYEv_EM?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\n&#8220;What do you think of <em>Low<\/em>?&#8221; he asked.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m not a big fan of that Berlin Trilogy stuff,&#8221; I replied.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You don&#8217;t like <em>Lodger<\/em> &#8211; the one with &#8216;Boys Keep Swinging&#8217; and &#8216;DJ&#8217;?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Oh,&#8221; I felt a little embarrassed to have forgotten about that album, &#8220;I love those songs &#8211; and that &#8216;Ashes to Ashes&#8217; song,&#8221; compounding my ignorance by confusing the single from <em>Scary Monsters<\/em> with a track from <em>Lodger<\/em>. I went on to speak with more authority, however, about <em>Heroes<\/em>, an album that features the brilliant title track and a bunch of other songs that sit there like a bowl of spaghetti without sauce&#8211;or even salt. I mean, what&#8217;s the point?<\/p>\n<p>We got back to <em>Low<\/em>. I forget which one of us said it first or whether we said it simultaneously: &#8220;You know, &#8216;Blue Jean&#8217; may be better than anything on <em>Low<\/em>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><em>Almost&#8230;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;&#8216;Sound + Vision&#8217; and that &#8216;Breaking Glass&#8217; song are cool,&#8221; I confessed, &#8220;but side two is a snooze, and the other songs are far from the level of any of his classic singles.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It makes you think, doesn&#8217;t it?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Beside the title track, <em>Heroes<\/em> is not worth the strain on my ears. <\/li>\n<li>The supposed high point of the Berlin Trilogy is not that much better than the relatively disappointing single from a highly disappointing follow-up to a publicly acclaimed album that real Bowie fans don&#8217;t even like.<\/li>\n<li><em>Lodger<\/em>, which is considered the end of the line of the Bowie-Eno-Berlin connection, is by far the best of the bunch.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p> There&#8217;s no doubt that <em>Lodger<\/em> is better than &#8220;Blue Jean&#8221;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some of you are aware of my longtime struggles with the works of David Bowie. I&#8217;ve come a long way, but there are still issues to explore. Recently I was discussing the artist with a friend. He&#8217;s a longtime Bowie lover&#8211;with limits. Although we&#8217;ve been generally like-minded music friends for years, we were a bit <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/david-bowie-s-blue-jean-is-as-good-as-an\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[153],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1625"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1625\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}