Space Oddity

During today's monthly hair multi-coloring experiment, PURE ECSTASY rained down upon me as we listened to Bowie's entire Space Oddity album for the first time (for me) since high school. I am meant to be rinsing now, but I refuse until I finish writing this. tempers flare at my stubbornness. But WHY ELSE am "I"? If not for this? This glorious and magnificent work of art; in so many ways. Fuck my hair. Let it fall out. Fuck time tables and deadlines and schedules; in light of this feeling.
Tony Visconti and David created such a timeless cohesive & passionate epic w this one. Bowie is still channeling a lot of Dylan here. Only hints of Ziggy can be heard, but only w the hindsight we possess now. His voice is still high nasally free & full of heart hope & passion. The lyrics as well. More pot and LSD than booze and cocaine. It's intriguing how we are able to discern things such as that. I miss that voice of his. I long for it to return; though intuitively conjecture it most likely never will.
The arrangement & production of each song perfectly fit what they are, what they were meant to be. No cynicism yet, none audibly or viscerally overt at least. (Personally this is, for me as an artist, the thing I detest the most about contemporary popular rock music and the scene that surrounds and creates it. Think any local music scene U.S.A.; or MTV's annual VMA awards show... How are we even meant to breathe freely in such small minded shallow competitive and materialistic confinement? Let alone feel free enough to create heart based or soul revealing works of art?)
These are simple songs; but no less impactful; innocence is still apparent. A raw human naivety and vulnerability in the songwriting and vocal delivery. Bowie's and Visconti's harmony vocals, child-like fresh, clear, clean; chill evoking. A strong sense of excitement innovation & experimentation to the production. Psychedelic folk pop perhaps best describes the genre or style of the songwriting -- but filled with a high-art occasionally near operatic drama in the production; (someone is taking risks here, excited, ambitious, taking a stand, attempting to leave their mark...) It hints of what will come with their arguably best album to date, Diamond Dogs, (and to this listener one of THE greatest musical albums of all time in the canon of human history). Nothing like this remains in popular music today. Nothing even close. The confines of popular music won't allow it.
As a child I listened to this album every single night before falling asleep for a solid year or two during high school. No one my age understood or could relate. It was old. Dated. Classic rock. Ancient. Bowie had long since gone dance-pop and worse by the time I as a boy had discovered him. But I didn't care. I heard and felt the same thing in his music as I did in Dylan, Bolan, Iggy Pop, Lou Reed or the Beatles and Stones. It was visceral, emotionally moving, life changing. Something was missing in the music being created while I was growing up. It still is.
Perhaps that period of time in popular music -- '59 to '79 -- will forever be considered the only moment that music was allowed to rise to its full peak potential artistically. There are many variables responsible for it, many reasons one could cite for this possibility. Or perhaps it's just me and the few others who feel the same. After all, this is admittedly an entirely subjective thing. Impossible to prove. Worthless to debate. One is aware of that. And yet still feels compelled to defend the point to the death.
One of the most fascinating side effects of the experience was observing the reactions and listening to the comments made by others while we listened (even as casually as was necessary because of the inherent focus required for professional hair coloring... They could ONLY listen casually, matter of factly; and it was their first time ever hearing this album). Their surprise at how similar the songwriting and singing sounded to mine. I never thought about it before. It happened before I became self aware as an artist. The influence and inspiration. It must have seeped in. Soaked in. Taken root. And then slowly oozed out. Sometimes overtly. I can hear that now. But only as part of a much bigger-picture amalgamation comprised of so many artists. Never deliberately mimicked another artist. There were always too many. And too much going on inside my own head.
But it did get me to thinking. Perhaps the music we crush on the most as children becomes the foundation of who we are as artists ourselves. We have the time and energy and desire to afford to do nothing else but obsess over music (if that's your thing, which for me it was, more than any other one thing... (Sports and athletics with others? Or science and technology...?)) And for the rest of our lives out it pours. All based on those most formative years of ours as children. Definitely worthy of exploring further. Another post though.
For now the most important thing is to acknowledge how incredible this one simple glorious collection of songs is, to place this flag solidly in the moon and pierce its surface for all time. Music is more than music. More than the chords or the notes or the shapes we randomly assign them. It is indescribable. It is the highest form of art. Art the highest form of human expression. The most sincere representation of human feeling and emotion. Space Oddity, one of the greatest human works of art, reminded me of that today. And for whatever reason I am left unreasonably and irrationally moved to tears, overjoyed, grateful and inspired.
We may turn out to be nothing but human in the end. But through music we are able to transcend whatever limitations we attribute to this confounding mysterious possibility.
More later. Your thoughts as always welcomed.

- Posted by The Ambassador using Blogpress on an iPhone