Wednesday, April 4, 2012

What Will the Beat Age Spawn Next? Bowie in 1973.


"It's a sign of our times that a man with a painted face and carefully adjusted lipstick should inspire adoration from an audience of girls aged between 14 and 20."

The comically disapproving and disdainful narration adds to the considerable charm of this snap-shot of Bowie on tour in 1973. When I was growing up in the eighties and nineties, Bowie (and Ziggy Stardust) had been firmly codified as cerebral, "high" popular art by a largely elitist male audience; it's interesting to note the working class girls (and even a couple of grannies!) who fawn over Ziggy as a pop idol in the video:



What will the Beat Age spawn next, the narrator wonders in part 2, when someone like David Bowie isn't even freakish enough to shock us any more?
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