Bowie puts the Ziggy Stardust persona well behind him, moving here into an exploration of R&B and soul. If the Beatles referred to themselves as “rubber soul”, Bowie acknowledges his lack of background authenticity by referring to this as “plastic soul”, but he enlists an as-yet unknown Luther Vandross for backing vocals, so I guess we can’t consider the whole endeavour to be inauthentic.
Speaking of the Beatles, Bowie covers Across The Universe, nods towards them by including the lyric “I read the news today, oh boy” in the backing vocals for the title track, and the other well-known track from this album, Fame, is a collaboration with John Lennon – another in a long line of songs by famous musicians about how crappy it is being a famous musician. Given that Bowie was largely fuelled by cocaine for the creation of this album, it does seem to be (have been) quite a destructive industry despite the vast amounts of money available to those who are successful.
Bowie wanders across the funk and soul landscape with this album. Win is slow Marvin Gaye type soul, while Fascination is upbeat funk with a great bassline from Willie Weeks. It’s spring-boarded from a track originally written by Luther Vandross. Fame is slow and steady funk, and Can You Hear Me is very delicate soul. Throughout, Dave Sanborn on sax, Carlos Alomar on guitar, and Mike Garson on keyboards provide all the necessary grooves.
Comparing it to the other Seventies funk and soul that we’ve met along the way, I think it holds its own very well. Clearly it’s as deliberate a step away from the glam-era Ziggy Stardust as possible, but within the space of two albums Bowie shows his credentials as the chameleon of rock. I don’t think he ever swims so directly in the soul pool again, but he will carry forwards the elements that he’s learned here.
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