Post Modern Music

Girl talk - samples music together from now and the 60s - somebody has created a series of videos for the music - here is a example;



Dj Shadow - music from other people mixed together - digging - goes into cheap record shops and picks up good tracks to sample togther.





Cut Chemist -





Coldcut - Journeys by DJ album



- random nosies - not just mixing music - horse nosies

Timberland with Missy Elliot - sampled Joga by Bjork

Afrika Bambaataa - planet rock - created electro



Dangermouse - The grey album, created from the white album by the Batles d Jay-z black album, to create a completly different sound.




Jay-z 99 problems and Helter Skater

Beastie boys - pauls boutique



Task -
Identify a postmodern music artist
what makes the artist postmodern

I am going to look at David Bowie because his music and whole style in the 1970s I feel was postmodern. I feel this is because of his forever changing styles, both in music, fashion and persona. He took inspiration from what was going on around him at the time to create great tracks, that are still enjoyed today. Through out the 70s David Bowie produced 11 chart hitting albums.
Bowie's fame came in 1969 with his single "Space Oddity," which was released when the first person walked on space.



The fashions of space age, the idea of new technology, but also the fashion of the time, round glasses, white jump suits.

The man who sold the world, Bowie's third album released in 1970, the previous album, being acoustic guitar based was replaced by a at the time heavy rock backing provided by Mick Ronson, who would be a major collaborator through to 1973. Much of the album resembles British heavy metal music of the period, but the album provided some unusual musical styles, sound and rhymes. The front cover plays his sexuality, wearing a dress and having long hair, this was not excepted them. The idea was maybe to shock or to just be different, it would make you remember the cover. This cover is also very colourful and elaborate.









Hunky Dory, 71, Bowie returned to his pop style from space oddity. Kooks was a light hearted song, but there was a mixture, a serious song - "Oh! You Pretty Things"
The semi-autobiographical "The Bewlay Brothers", and the Buddhist-influenced "Quicksand". Lyrically, the young songwriter also paid unusually direct homage to his influences with "Song for Bob Dylan", "Andy Warhol", and "Queen Bitch". This album cover reminds me of the famous Marilyn Monroe images, with the unrealistic brightly coloured hair, he is also wearing make-up and posing in a femine way. The image looks fake almost and this album cover also plays on his sexuality.







Bowie further explored his androgynous persona in June 1972 with the seminal concept album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, which presents a world destined to end in five years and tells the story of the ultimate rock star, Ziggy Stardust. The album's sound combined the hard rock elements of The Man Who Sold the World with the lighter experimental rock of Hunky Dory and the fast-paced glam rock pioneered by Marc Bolan's T. Rex. Many of the album's songs have become rock classics, including "Ziggy Stardust," "Moonage Daydream," "Rock & Roll Suicide" and "Suffragette City."
This album cover, Bowie stangin onK.West street wearing open shirt, holding what looks like a guitar and sporting his mullet gives that album a rocker apearence.














The Ziggy Stardust character became the basis for Bowie's first large-scale tour beginning in 1972, wearing wild outfits, designed by Kansai Yamamoto and had his famous red mullet. The tour featured a three-piece band representing The Spiders from Mars: Mick Ronson, Trevor Bolder, and Woody Woodmansey.

Around the same time Bowie began promoting and producing his rock and roll heroes, Lou Reed, whose solo breakthrough Transformer was produced by Bowie and Ronson and Iggy Pop, whose band, The Stooges, signed with Bowie's management. Bowie sang back-up vocals on both Reed's Transformer, and Iggy's The Idiot.

interpretation album covers

The Spiders From Mars came together again on Aladdin Sane, April 1973. Described by Bowie as "Ziggy goes to America", all the new songs were written on ship, bus or trains during the first leg of his US Ziggy Stardust tour. The album's cover, featuring Bowie shirtless with Ziggy hair and a red, black, and blue lightning bolt across his face, has been described as being as "startling as rock covers ever got." This album cover is a very recognisable image which is simple yet extremely striking, the mark near his collor bond gives me the impression that hes melting which may be giving the idea that this is not real, Ziggy - its a act a persona. The mainly red lighting bolt may resemble danger, and the fact that he has is eyes closed is that hes not looking out for or willing in fans he just there strikingly going along with the sensation he has created.



Aladdin Sane included hits such as "The Jean Genie", "Drive-In Saturday", and a rendition of The Rolling Stones' "Let's Spend the Night Together".







Bowie's later Ziggy shows, were ultra-theatrical affairs filled with shocking stage moments, such as Bowie stripping down to a sumo wrestling loincloth or simulating oral sex with Ronson's guitar. Bowie toured and gave press conferences as Ziggy before a dramatic and abrupt on-stage "retirement" at London's Hammersmith Odeon on 3 July 1973.

Pin Ups, a collection of covers of his 1960s favourites, was released in October 1973. David Bowie was the best-selling act of 1973 in the UK. Bowie broke up the Spiders from Mars and was attempting to move on from his Ziggy persona. When he announced that he was quiting the business fans were shocked but Bowie was only quitting from the Ziggy act, and moved onto the next. This cover is remarkable different from the previous, for the first time he has someone else involved and it is a women, which takes you anyway from him being a homosexual. Bowie is staring into the you, which is also completely different from before. This makes you feel more involved. They seem to be wearing some sort of masks but not around there actual face.





The albums above were under the glam rock and psychedelic folk genre apart from The man who sold the world. The next albums created in the 70s move onto soul and R&B genres.

1974 saw the release of another ambitious album, Diamond Dogs, with a spoken word introduction and a multi-part song suite("Sweet Thing/Candidate/Sweet Thing (reprise)"). Diamond Dogs was the product of two distinct ideas: a musical based on a wild future in a post-apocalyptic city, and setting George Orwell's 1984 to music. Bowie also made plans to develop a Diamond Dogs movie, but didn't get very far. Bowie had originally planned on writing a musical to 1984, but his interest waned after encountering difficulties in licensing the novel. He used some of the songs he had written for the project on Diamond Dogs. Bowie was the UK's best selling act for the second year running.
This is a bizarre cover, which in original picture continued to the left revealing Bowie to be half human half dog. The cartoon also involved to large scary women, which are half dogs this relates to the title of the album, which I think is because of the idea of the album which is explained above.









To follow on the release of the album, Bowie launched a massive Diamond Dogs tour in North America. Choreographed by Toni Basil, and lavishly produced with theatrical special effects, the high-budget stage production broke with contemporary standard practice for rock concerts by featuring no encores. It was filmed by Alan Yentob for the documentary Cracked Actor. The documentary seemed to confirm the rumours of his cocaine abuse, featuring a pasty and emaciated Bowie nervously sniffing in the backseat of a car and claiming that there was a fly in his milk. Bowie commented that the resulting live album, David Live, ought to have been called "David Bowie Is Alive and Well and Living Only In Theory," presumably in reference to his addled and frenetic psychological state during this period. Nevertheless the album solidified his status as a superstar. It also spawned a UK number ten hit in a cover of "Knock on Wood".








For Ziggy Stardust fans who had not discerned the soul and funk strains already apparent in Bowie's recent work, the "new" sound was considered a sudden and jolting step. 1975's Young Americans was Bowie's definitive exploration of Philly soul—though he himself referred to the sound ironically as "plastic soul." He got his first number one hit "Fame", co-written with Carlos Alomar and John Lennon. Despite Bowie's unashamed recognition of the shallowness of his "plastic soul," he did earn the bona fide distinction of being one of the few white artists to be invited to appear on the popular "Soul Train." Another violently paranoid appearance on ABC's The Dick Cavett Show,1974 again confirming his heavy cocaine addiction. Young Americans was the album that cemented Bowie's stardom in the US. This album to me does seem very American with the soften picture tone, the style of writing and the portait photo idea. He looks more normal in this photo which probable has something to do with the music style.





Station to Station, 1976 featured a darker version of this soul persona, called "The Thin White Duke". Visually the figure was an extension of Thomas Jerome Newton, the character Bowie portrayed in The Man Who Fell to Earth. Station to Station was a transitional album, prefiguring the Krautrock and synthesiser music of his next releases, while further developing the funk and soul music of Young Americans. By this time, Bowie had become heavily dependent on drugs, particularly cocaine, he overdosed several times during the year. Additionally, Bowie was withering physically after having lost an alarming amount of weight.

The album cover for Station to Station was completly stripped down, to mono black and white.





The Isolar Tour, 1976, starkly lit set and highlighted new songs such as the dramatic and lengthy title track. Although there was some political controversy, Bowie was quoted in saying; "Britain could benefit from a Fascist leader", and detained by customs in Eastern Europe for possessing Nazi paraphernal. Then there was the 'Victoria Station incident', when Bowie, arriving in an open-top Mercedes convertible, waved to the crowd in a gesture that some alleged was a Nazi salute, which was captured on camera and published in NME.

Bowie's interest in the growing German music scene, as well as his drug addiction, prompted him to move to West Berlin to dry out and rejuvenate his career. Sharing an apartment in Schöneberg with his friend Iggy Pop, he co-produced three more of his own classic albums. With Bowie as a co-writer and musician, Pop completed his first two solo albums, The Idiot and Lust for Life. Bowie joined Pop's touring band in the spring, simply playing keyboard and singing backing vocals. The group performed in the UK, Europe, and the US from March to April 1977.

The brittle sound of Station to Station proved a precursor to Low, the first of three albums that became known as the "Berlin Trilogy." The album was produced in 1976 and released in early 1977. The picture for the song below is the cover.



"Heroes", 1977 was similar in sound to Low, though slightly more accessible. The mood of these records fitted the Cold War, symbolised by the divided city that provided its inspiration. The title track, a story of two lovers who met at the Berlin Wall, is one of Bowie's most-covered songs. The album cover is taken from the German Impressionist Egon Schiele. Iggy Pop's first album The Idoit was also to this Schiele theme;












In 1978 Bowie embarked on a world tour, playing in Austreilla and New Zealand for the first time, and then in 1979 produced the final album of the "Berlin Trilogy", or "triptych" as Bowie calls it.

Lodger 1978, featured singles "Boys Keep Swinging", "DJ" and "Look Back in Anger" and, unlike the two previous LPs, did not contain any instrumentals. The style was a mix of New Wave and world music, which included pieces such as "African Night Flight" and "Yassassin". A number of tracks were composed using the non-traditional Bowie/Eno composition techniques: "Boys Keep Swinging" was developed with the band members swapping their instruments while "Move On" contains the chords for an early Bowie composition, "All The Young Dudes", played backwards; the song "Red Money" took backing tracks from the Iggy Pop/David Bowie composition "Sister Midnight" from Pop's album The Idiot.









David Bowie is a perfect example of a post modern artist, his music and fashion was constanlty changing and each album brought something new and usual.

This is the presentation I have created to show my class explaining why David Bowie is post modern.

David Bowie The 70s Presentation

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