David Bowie - The Best Of Bowie (DVD)

It goes without saying that David Bowie is undoubtedly one of the twentieth century’s most important, iconic and influential artists. Certainly, it is hard to imagine what modern music would be like without him, such is the impact he has had. Bowie certainly knows how to knock out a tune or two, but how well does he fare on DVD? To accompany his most recent Greatest Hits collection (about which I have written a review, as I am always ready to plug ...
...video, directed by Bowie and David Mallett, is absolutely superb, with extremely striking visuals. This is from an era when there was no MTV, we must remember, so Bowie’s pioneering genius in this aspect must be acknowledged. ‘Fashion’ is my personal favourite Bowie song, a song that heralds the ‘me, me, me’ generation of the 1980’s in fine form. The video is superb, again directed by Mallett (who directs a lot of the videos towards the end of Disc ... more

It goes without saying that David Bowie is undoubtedly one of the twentieth century’s most important, iconic and influential artists. Certainly, it is hard to imagine what modern music would be like without him, such is the impact he has had. Bowie certainly knows how to knock out a tune or two, but how well does he fare on DVD? To accompany his most recent Greatest Hits collection (about which I have written a review, as I am always ready to plug my own work whenever necessary), he has released a DVD of the best of his music videos. The collection spans almost thirty years of work, from 1972’s ‘Oh! You Pretty Things’ all the way up to 1999 and ‘Survive’. Does the material stand the test of time?

Unfortunately it is a bit of a mixed bag. You see, Bowie has had something of a varied career. You could certainly divide it into two halves. Up to and including 1983’s ‘Let’s Dance’, Bowie was on fine form, knocking out fine, acclaimed album after fine, acclaimed album, and then, all of a sudden, something magically happened that sapped all of the talent and energy out of Bowie and made him write some absolutely atrocious material for the next fifteen years. Thankfully, he seems to have made something of a recovery with his most recent album, the Mercury Award-nominated ‘Heathen’, but the vast majority of his work since 1983 is pretty bad stuff, and I don’t like to grossly generalise things together, but with Bowie that is actually the case. And as we do not simply watch a video in silence but see it accompanied to music (which is the general concept of the music video, may I add) the two are inescapably linked and when one reviews a music video, one must also bear in mind the quality of the song.

So, that said, this 2-DVD set can be neatly divided into two categories. DVD 1 takes us from the aforementioned ‘Oh! You Pretty Things’ (1972) up to Bowie’s duet with Mick Jagger, ‘Dancing In The Street’ (1985) (more on that later). It is a pretty good collection of songs and contains almost all of Bowie’s most memorable numbers. DVD 2 journeys from ‘Absolute Beginners’ (1986) up to 1999’s ‘Survive’, and for the most part if seriously bad stuff, some of it unwatchable (though perhaps unlistenable would be a more apt description, as generally it is not the videos themselves that are the problem).

Disc 1 inevitably contains the majority of Bowie’s best stuff. The disc opens with three songs taken from that old chestnut of a BBC show, ‘The Old Grey Whistle Test’, a launching pad for many an aspiring band/singers career. Bowie acquits himself well and comes across slightly demure, with a lack of make-up and ‘glam’. However, that has been remedied by the fourth track, ‘Starman’, taken from a 1972 performance on ‘Top Of The Pops’ (as a sidenote, I would love to have been around when ‘Top Of The Pops’ was actually good, have you seen it these days? Absolutely atrocious). Here, Bowie is on fine form with one of his best, and most memorable songs, with his glammy band, featuring ace guitarist Mick Ronson, backing him up.

‘The Jean Genie’ is another fine moment in the Bowie canon, featuring Steven Tyler of Aerosmith’s girlfriend Cyrinda Foxe, for those of you who like useless information which may someday come in hand in an exceptionally tricky pub quiz. Bear that one in mind. Bowie’s big hit ‘Space Oddity’ is also on Disc 1, as is his masterpiece ‘Life On Mars?’, which sees him in full elegant-glam gear, a turquoise suit, lipstick and electric blue eye-make up, along with that shock of ginger hair, which by the mid 80’s was bleached blonde and really icky. ‘Life On Mars?’ is such a beautiful song, so wonderful in its simplicity and is rightly recognised by critics for its importance.

Bowie’s darker period in the later half of the 1970’s, an era where he buried himself in the darker side of Berlin, is well documented, with the likes of ‘Heroes’, ‘Boys Keep Swinging’ and ‘DJ’ appearing. To tell the truth, I hadn’t heard of ‘DJ’ until I bought this DVD and must say that it is definitely one of Bowie’s best moments, a dark, nasty, swaggering song submerged beneath a disco beat. ‘Boys Keep Swinging’ is another fine Bowie moment, the video featuring him in drag as three separate women. It really must be seen to be believed. Up to 1980 and ‘Ashes To Ashes’ and ‘Fashion’ represent his wonderful ‘Scary Monsters’ album from that year. The ‘Ashes To Ashes’ song is a sequel of sorts to ‘Space Oddity’, where Bowie kills off his Major Tom character, ‘struck out on Heaven’s high, hitting an all-time low…’. The video, directed by Bowie and David Mallett, is absolutely superb, with extremely striking visuals. This is from an era when there was no MTV, we must remember, so Bowie’s pioneering genius in this aspect must be acknowledged. ‘Fashion’ is my personal favourite Bowie song, a song that heralds the ‘me, me, me’ generation of the 1980’s in fine form. The video is superb, again directed by Mallett (who directs a lot of the videos towards the end of Disc 1, which are among the best in Bowie’s whole career), chaotic and ironic, a real delight.

‘Let’s Dance’, ‘China Girl’ and ‘Modern Love’ are on offer from Bowie’s much-maligned ‘Let’s Dance’ album of 1983, but all three are fine songs. The first two have excellent videos (again, directed by the wonderful Mallett), while ‘Modern Love’ sees Bowie live in concert, and the change is apparent. Gone is the weirdness, the menace and the make-up box, in comes a smart suit, bleached blonde hair, sparkling teeth and a clean-cut backing band dressed as barbershop singers.

Aside from the sheer entertainment of ‘Dancing In The Street’, there is precious little else that really stands out. ‘Loving The Alien’ has an interesting video but the song is so weak that is doesn’t merit repeated viewings. Disc 2 is a pretty poor effort all round and the dip in quality is quite astonishing.

The majority of the crap stuff is on disc 2, which really does plumb the depths on times. However, disc 1’s close does not do justice to the rest of the material contained on it, with the forgettable ‘Cat People’ starting a downturn in quality. ‘Blue Jean’ is completely hideous, in terms of both song and video (directed by Julien Temple, who directed the ill-fated Sex Pistols feature, ‘The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle’). ‘Loving The Alien’, as mentioned, is such an absurdly weak song that it spoils the watchable video, and it makes you wonder what on earth must have been going through Bowie’s mind during these years.

The disc closes with the magnificent ‘Dancing In The Street’, which is magnificent for all the wrong reasons. Quite simply the worst song and video of all time, I kid you not. Mick Jagger joins Bowie for a trampling of Martha Reeves’ classic, and the pair manage to beat any sense of fun, any sense of even a tune, out of the original. The video is awful, with Bowie and Jagger, two of the most important cultural icons of the twentieth century, reduced to dancing like men half their age and acting like complete fools. Completely awful, yet strangely compelling.

Disc 2 continues Bowie’s exodus into mediocrity, as awful song follows awful song, awful video following awful video. It begs the question – just what was David Bowie thinking of in the 80’s and 90’s? One of Bowie’s biggest hits from this period, ‘Absolute Beginners’ is a bit of a dirge, while the pointless remix of ‘Fame’ from 1990 snatches away any of the life of the original. True, not every artist can stay angry, and will have to mature in some way, and it is probably only natural that Bowie, along with many other artists who start off as anti-establishment, must move further and further towards establishment acceptance as they grow older in years. The same thing has become of the Manic Street Preachers, for example. However, Bowie’s move towards acceptance was accompanied by a move towards mediocrity.

But don’t let that put you off. There are still enough songs on here to merit a purchase, and the rating of four stars that I have given this DVD is a reflection of the sheer strength of the Bowie material right the way up until the ‘Let’s Dance’ album. It’s also an interesting case study in the evolution of an artist who is perhaps one of the most important and influential artists of the twentieth century. In any case, you can watch Disc 1 while sipping from a nice cup of tea/glass of wine/pint of beer using Disc 2 as a coaster. 

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