Exclusive Interview: Glenn Hendler– the Man Who Wrote the Book on Diamond Dogs!

In this interview, I speak with Glenn Hendler, author of the Diamond Dogs volume of the 33 1/3 series and professor of English and American Studies at Fordham University. We explore how David Bowie constructed a dystopian world on Diamond Dogs and blurred the line between performance and reality, creating a relationship with his audience that reflected the psychological structure of fascism. As Glenn puts it, “Bowie deeply believed that his ability to affect his audience—to change us—was continuous with an authoritarian leader’s ability to manipulate a crowd.”

Glenn explains that Bowie’s method was not just lyrical but musical and performative. Bowie inserted fake crowd noise into the opening of Diamond Dogs to manufacture a feeling of mass adulation, leading into the chilling announcement, “This ain’t rock and roll, this is genocide!” Hendler notes that Bowie’s use of techniques like the cut-up method was not to lose control but to manipulate imagery and meaning: “He used the cut-up method to get at things about himself, but he never completely gave himself over to it.”

We also discuss how Bowie’s shifting use of “I” and “you” throughout the album draws the listener into an unstable relationship, what Glenn describes as “constantly shifting the I and the you throughout the album in really complicated and interesting ways.” Bowie was fascinated with the capacity of rock stardom to create a dangerous collective “we,” mass-producing intimacy but also encouraging dangerous submission to charismatic authority.

Our conversation ranges from how Bowie’s album mirrors themes in George Orwell’s 1984, to how Bowie’s performance tactics connect to broader traditions of audience manipulation in politics and popular culture. Glenn draws parallels to Bowie’s awareness of his power, saying Bowie “talked about doing things to his audience,” acknowledging that the performance was about more than entertainment—it was a test of emotional and psychological influence.

We also touch on Bowie’s fascination with subcultures, language, and coded references, including his use of Polari and Nadsat. As Glenn observes, “At the time of Diamond Dogs, he’s really exploring the dangers of idolization and warning it off.”

In short, the interview examines how Bowie’s art was not just about creating characters or moods—it was about destabilizing the boundary between reality and performance, making the audience complicit in the illusion, and hinting at the very real dangers of that complicity.