Music DVD Review: David Bowie - Serious Moonlight

Conventional wisdom says that the '80s weren't kind to rock. For the most part, that's a bit of an exaggeration; any decade which managed to yield classic albums like Fire of Love, Rain Dogs, Imperial Bedroom and Surfer Rosa couldn't be all bad. What the '80s really weren't kind to, however, was Rock with a capital "R": those graying, fading superstars who had seemed so hip and dangerous in the 1970s, only to be revealed ten years later as charlatans in banana-yellow slacks. Even cows as sacred as Bob Dylan were unable to escape the branding - remember, this was the decade of Dylan and the Dead. But when all is said and done, few musicians of the '60s and '70s were to fall quite as precipitously, or as spectacularly, as David Bowie.

That's because, unlike Dylan, the Stones, or the former Beatles, Bowie never seemed all that dated in the first place. The waning years of the 1970s had seen him adapt all but seamlessly to the new world order of punk, releasing a trio of classic albums with Brian Eno before opening the new decade with an equally fashion-forward — but harder-edged — Tony Visconti collaboration, Scary Monsters. The stage seemed set for continuing relevance, but instead, he decided to court the charts. Any evidence necessary to prove that the David Bowie of 1983 was a dramatically and irreversibly different man than the David Bowie of 1973 can be gleaned from watching just two representative films: D.A. Pennebaker's Ziggy Stardust movie, and the promo from Bowie's "Dancing in the Street" single with Mick Jagger. In the former, all of the right elements are in place: theatrical posturing, sexual ambiguity, and a gritty, arty approach to rock'n'roll which still sounds vital today. In the latter, we have what is quite possibly a career low point for both artists, complete with campy and ill-choreographed dance routines, an utterly soulless musical arrangement, and a concept (Dave and Mick, you guessed it, "dancing in the streets!") that was about as rock-bottom as the video's budget.

Article Author: Modern Pea Pod

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