Week 91| 50th Birthday Broadcast: 1997 Acoustic Celebration (2019)
October 15, 2021
This one was a pleasant surprise. What I was expecting to hear from this CD was a recording of Bowie’s 50th birthday concert, which took place in New York City in 1997 and featured Bowie as well as several guest artists. That’s not what this album is. Instead, it is an hour-long British radio broadcast featuring recordings Bowie made specifically for this show as well as an interview with Bowie, segments of which are interspersed between the songs. Bowie’s acoustic performances of the songs are noticeably different enough from other versions, and the mix of songs is unusual enough to keep it interesting. Most importantly, Bowie sounds like he’s near the top of his game here. His voice is clear, unhesitant and not drowned out by the instrumental accompaniment. There are no missed lines, no held-too-long notes, no off-key moments. The interview segments were actually interesting, featuring not just an interviewer, but musical guests asking Bowie a variety of questions. Especially since I was expecting something very different, this album was a pleasure to hear.
The liner notes suggest that the song selection was partially a reaction to Bowie’s choice of more contemporary songs for the actual concert (though this show was recorded beforehand). In any case, all of the songs here were already old by 1997. Oddly, of the ten songs on the album, two (two of the best) were from, “The Man Who Sold the World,” one of Bowie’s earliest albums. The two songs included the title track, featuring what sounds like a sitar rather than a guitar, and the seldom-performed, “The Supermen,” which might be the album’s highlight. Bowie says at one point that he was choosing some of his lesser-known songs, a comment he made specifically about, “Repetition,” off “Lodger.” Coincidently, the song also appears on, “Something in the Air,” one of the more recent live albums, however this acoustic version is unique. Also rare outside its album of origin is the Tin Machine song, “Shopping for Girls,” which sounds better here than on, “Tin Machine II.”
”Shopping for Girls” deserves special attention. The Tin Machine version is unspectacular. It isn’t exactly a bad song, but I either never paid attention to the lyrics, or, more likely, never really deciphered enough of them the way the song is performed on “Tin Machine II.” The lyrics are much clearer on the present album, and it turns out that the song is about someone who is literally shopping for girls. Tin Machine’s first album includes several very direct songs about societal ills, which I have often thought sounded preachy, especially coming from Bowie. “Under the God” is about racism or neo-nazis, “Crack City” is about crack cocaine, “Pretty Thing” is about some sort of sexual abuse. The band got away from this type of song on the second album, but “Shopping for Girls” turns out to be a throwback — it’s about child prostitution.
It goes without saying that the song is pretty disturbing. Why would Bowie— why would anyone— want to write a song about child prostitution? The song, of course, paints the man who is shopping for girls in a negative light. But despite the musicianship, this isn’t exactly an enjoyable song. Still, its a welcomed addition to this collection in no small part because it is the nearest thing to something totally new.
The only thing that mars this particular album in the long run is the inclusion of the interview segments, spaced out between songs. The interview is interesting. The whole thing works very well the first time I listened to it. But while the songs have replay value, the interview segments really don’t.
***
OK, I’ve been sitting on this commentary for quite a while since writing the above. I’ve observed before that in Bowie songs, space is a friend but time is an enemy. The songs on this album are not especially about time, but the album itself certainly is. The occasion was Bowie’s 50th birthday. As I write, I am 52. The interview and guest questions are about Bowie’s career which, at that point, had spanned a similar amount of time to what has passed since. At one point the interviewer asks Bowie what the 25-year old version of himself would think of the 50-year old version. Today, Bowie would be 74. What would the 50 year old version of Bowie think about the rest of his life?
I’m really not sure what to write about this, but I have been stuck on what my wife calls, my “time thing.” What would Bowie have done had he lived another 25 years? Did what we got from him since he turned 50 dependent on what we got from him during the 25 previous years? Meaning, would anyone have started listening to Bowie based on what he was putting out after 1997? What’s going to be my story over the next 25 years? Why does 1997 seem very recent?
I don’t know, and I don’t know what else to say on the matter. Anyway, I’ve been sitting on this commentary long enough, so that’s it for now…