Guy E wrote:In the end I don't feel the need to credit one artist with "doing for the 70s what the Fab Four did for the 60s." It's only been here on BCB that positioning Bowie in this cultural imperitive has entered my mind and it has the opposite of its intended effect; it makes me more critical of his actual accomplishments.
This is understandable, and lawd knows I have been about as critical of Bowie as anyone around here, but I'm still pretty impressed by how neatly he frames the 70s- his best stuff really does go from '70 to '79 (though I know Solarskope disagrees). That and the fact that he's basically a very talented pastiche artist with an ear to the "underground" repackaging others' ideas for the masses (at least to some degree, though it's unfair to suggest his appeal is this simplistic).
Perhaps that's how the 70s differ from the 60s- it's not people pushing each other in new directions, trying to come up with something new, it's more about trying to stay current in such a way that you appear ahead of the curve. Bowie was pretty good at seeming ahead of the curve, though obviously without the Velvets, Stooges, Kraftwerk, etc., all of whom were
really ahead of it...
But perhaps a subject for another thread. But point being, I understand being critical and all, but even with that said, who better represents what the 70s were about, for better or worse? Not James Brown, certainly. Elton John, maybe.
Or for that matter, who pointed so clearly some of the more experimental music of the 80s (a lesson that he taught others, but didn't learn himself)?
He certainly wore out his good will for me, but he also built up quite a lot in that ten year period.