Tuesday, January 08, 2013

First night... erm, morning: Where Are We Now?

So, yes: that new Bowie single.

Absolutely astonishing piece of work to get it released with hardly anybody knowing it was going to happen; and extraordinary for almost the entire world* to listen to a song for the first time, more-or-less simultaneously, and more-or-less without coming to it with a set of recommendations or disrecommendations ringing in their ears.

* - I'm using "the entire world" in the sense of "people who care about Western musicians of a certain age who were up at that time in the morning", of course.

It's possible to both admire the way the song has been put together - craftsmanlike, as you'd expect - and not really warm to it. But you don't care what I think, so let's take a quick look at some of the instant reaction.

The Guardian is surprised:

The glam-rock singer shot to fame in the late 60s with Space Oddity but has been largely silent in recent years, not performing live since 2006 and rarely appearing in public since then.
So surprised, they describe Bowie as "the glam-rock singer".

There's a difference of opinion between Ben Perreau and Jon Mundy:



Ah, you say "dirgey", I say "rootsy".

Still, a new single and a birthday. Joy to the world, eh?


But people who like it, like it very much indeed:






Perhaps the oddest report this morning comes from The Next Web:
Returning after 10 years away, David Bowie embraces digital with iTunes-exclusive single
Josh Ong, David Bowie won a lifetime achievement award from the Webbys in 2007, nearly a decade after he launched BowieNet. I think it's fairly safe to say he'd already embraced digital.


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

What on earth are these people on about? Don't they know that whether or not you like it is academic. The correct response to ALL new David Bowie releases is "X is the best thing since Scary Monsters" I'm pretty sure that's the law.

Robin Carmody said...

Oh, that Moran tweet. She really does have Murdoch deep in her gut, doesn't she?

Post a Comment

As a general rule, posts will only be deleted if they reek of spam.