Bowie In Berlin: A New Career In A New Town

And a great book, too. The book concentrates on Bowie's career from , beginning with I'm confused why this book is titled New Music Night and Day: The book concentrates on Bowie's career from , beginning with his cocaine-fueled, psychotic, paranoid, spiraling out of control days in Los Angeles when he recorded Station to Station and starred in The Man Who Fell to Earth. It then takes us to Europe, where Bowie mostly hung out in Berlin, trying to recover. During this period he made some of the most unique and best albums of his career, Low , "Heroes" , and the weaker, but still interesting Lodger.

Seabrook does a great job painting the process of creating these fascinating albums and explaining just how the innovative and unique sounds were achieved. You learn a lot about Bowie's creative method at this time and how it was for him to be working with Brian Eno and Tony Visconti, as well as the other regular contributors to those albums. Bowie and music fans will enjoy reading about the creative process and experimentation that shaped those albums.

Seabrook's song-by-song explanations of Low and "Heroes" are very interesting, effectively showing why these two albums were so significant and groundbreaking for Bowie and music at large. He also shows how Bowie helped revive Iggy Pop's career, while trying not to use Iggy Pop as just another personal project - something many critics at the time, much to Iggy's frustration, thought was the case. For me the book's minor weakness was how little attention Berlin got. Berlin during the 70s was a wild place to be, hence Bowie's interest in living there.

Seabrook does mention how Berlin influenced aspects of the albums, e. We don't learn much about what Bowie and Iggy were doing in Berlin. Perhaps Bowie hasn't told those stories. This weakness might be explained by noting that many critics want to make Bowie's three late 70s albums into a Berlin Trilogy, even though they kind of aren't; "Heroes" is the only album that was almost exclusively made in Berlin.

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Berlin was an inspiration, of course, but perhaps more importantly, Berlin was a place where Bowie could remove himself from his regular life, making him able to deal with and overcome his addictive, destructive behavior - these were Bowie's most personal albums at that point in his career. Finally, I like how Seabrook shows the impact these albums had on music, how they changed rock music, and how bands like Joy Division, Depeche Mode, and Radiohead are indebted to Bowie, using those albums as inspiration for their own work.

Plus, it's good to hear someone give Bowie's 1. Outside album strong praise, because I rarely hear that and find it deeply disappointing. But that's just me. If you dig Bowie, or dig those albums, you will really like this book. If you love Berlin as I do , you might be a touch let down. But if you know stuff about 70s Berlin, you might be able to fill in some of the gaps you think Seabrook's book might have.

It worked for me. But as the book's focus is, and I guess rightfully should, be more on the artist and his work, then it is a superbly researched and crafted book. Mar 17, Alex Storer rated it it was amazing Shelves: I really enjoyed Bowie In Berlin — in fact, this is the second time I've read the book since first buying it in It is well written and accurately researched.

It is common for this kind of music biography to end up as an obvious mish-mash of quotes from interviews and other biographies and articles, but you'd almost forget that this was the case here. Despite its title though, this book does not solely focus on David Bowie's so-called "Berlin era". It starts off in with Bowie having comp I really enjoyed Bowie In Berlin — in fact, this is the second time I've read the book since first buying it in It starts off in with Bowie having completed work on the Young Americans album, and w're soon taken into a world where we have a Bowie who is in an unhappy place - addicted to cocaine, falling out with management and lawsuits that followed and the start of a lengthy divorce and custody battle.

Bowie In Berlin charts the recording of Station to Station in addition to documenting its famous world tour. Essentially, it paves the way for Low but first goes into enlightening detail into Bowie's work on Iggy Pop's album, The Idiot and its tour, where Bowie was happy to take on keyboard duties.

Pop actually features heavily in the book, particularly since he lived in Berlin with Bowie, and it was the work on Pop's album which actually laid some of the groundwork for Low. Needless to say the main emphasis on the book is an in-depth breakdown of the Low and Heroes albums, before moving on to 's Lodger and Bowie's move into the new decade and instigation of the New Romantic movement. The closing chapters also look somewhat briefly at 's The Buddha of Suburbia , which sat comfortably alongside the Berlin trilogy, with its adventurous musical approach and ambient instrumentals, and 's 1.

Outside which saw Bowie reunite with Brian Eno. Even though, famously, only Heroes was entirely written and recorded in Berlin, this book looks beyond that, at what should really be described as a "Berlin" way of working and thinking, and the end result was David Bowie's most exciting and unconventional albums.

A must-read for fans of these albums. Oct 14, Kira rated it liked it Recommends it for: This is pure self-indulgence on my part not a cheap book, but frivolous reading for sure. The four stars are for content, not style or originality, because I'm obsessed with Bowie's Berlin albums and his style during that period. And with both the German expressionist art Bowie loves, and with the kosmiche music groups he was listening to, and with the post-punk bands that modeled themselves on the sound of the Berlin trilogy albums that he and Brian Eno recorded from So ple This is pure self-indulgence on my part not a cheap book, but frivolous reading for sure.

So please forgive the gushing-character of the rating ; Oh, b. I was leafing through a book on Berlin in the history section of an enormous bookstore today. Went to the index and lo and behold, mention of Bowie. The author described him as a "crooner-punk" who came to Berlin with Iggy Pop looking for remnants of the loose and decadent Weimar era and then-current commie austerity across the Wall. He also notes Bowie's fascination with Germany's traces of fascist mostly architecture during the late '70s, which Seabrook's book brushes off-- Bowie lost interest in fascism as soon as he met some young men whose fathers had been S.

Who is exercising "spin" here I don't know, but I'm guessing the fascism interest was like Bowie's other obsessions-- Nietzsche, sci-fi, bisexuality and gender-play-- more an aesthetic fantasy than an ideology he espoused. Although with his financial endeavors of the s "Bowie Bonds" , you have to wonder about the Nietzsche part. Becoming-capitalist as will-to-power, haha! Nov 13, John rated it it was ok. This, from Simon Critchley, with regard to his new book on Bowie: I still don't think we have a language that gives the huge importance of pop culture its due, that describes and dignifies it in the right way.

Bowie In Berlin: A New Career In A New Town

For me, and for many many millions of others, the world first opened as a set of possibilities throu This, from Simon Critchley, with regard to his new book on Bowie: For me, and for many many millions of others, the world first opened as a set of possibilities through pop music, especially Bowie's music. Bowie is the most important artist tout court of the past six decades and someone just needs to say that and try and explain how his songs justify that claim. That's what I am trying to do in the book.

Unfortunately, it sounds like he had just come off reading this work when he offered his perspective on music writing. For those who were fortunate enough to see the V and A show on Bowie, they might have shared my sense that everything with regard to Bowie's work really deepened and became more complex when he decamped to Berlin.

Perhaps Critchley writes about this period in his new book, and that he avoids taking the kind of approach Seabrook took here. One can only hope. Apr 21, Jason Coleman rated it liked it Shelves: You're pushing your luck with a book-length study of this character—one senses Bowie is a rather closed-off workaholic, not to mention a rather crass curator of his franchise—but Seabrook concentrates on the heady days of , and it is a fairly grand story.

Bowie escapes from Bel Air, where he lived on a diet of cocaine and milkshakes, to a tax-exile's existence in Switzerland and France and, finally, to an apartment over a Berlin auto-parts store, and somehow creates not only Low and "Hero You're pushing your luck with a book-length study of this character—one senses Bowie is a rather closed-off workaholic, not to mention a rather crass curator of his franchise—but Seabrook concentrates on the heady days of , and it is a fairly grand story.

Bowie escapes from Bel Air, where he lived on a diet of cocaine and milkshakes, to a tax-exile's existence in Switzerland and France and, finally, to an apartment over a Berlin auto-parts store, and somehow creates not only Low and "Heroes," but co-writes and produces Iggy Pop's two best albums, stars in a Nick Roeg film, sues two managers, gets divorced, and effectively invents post-punk. The book shows Bowie taking huge gambles, ditching an enormously popular sound for a radically different one in which he blindly laid down rhythm tracks and improvised entire songs on top of them. There are artists I like more than Bowie, but the language he created 35 years ago is my version of roots.

This thing could have used another round of editing—it is repetitive, and the author occasionally falls into a trap of simply marking time—but it's no slapdash rock bio. Seabrook is a perceptive critic of the music and, on Bowie himself, neither a hagiographer nor a hatchet jobber. All I could ask is that he was a real person—Thomas Jerome Seabrook is almost as obvious a fake name as, well, David Bowie. Jun 20, Bill rated it really liked it Recommends it for: I first read about this book being in the pipeline months ago and as an avid Bowie fan of course I just had to have it!

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As Bowie books go it is pretty good. It covers the period from through to in the main. A time when Mr Bowie reached the height of his cocaine addiction and extreme paranoia. It also covers his time living in Berlin with Iggy Pop, both of them trying to clean themselves up. There is some intersting stuff about the making of the movie 'The Man Who Fell To Earth" But for m I first read about this book being in the pipeline months ago and as an avid Bowie fan of course I just had to have it! There is some intersting stuff about the making of the movie 'The Man Who Fell To Earth" But for me with Bowie it has always been about the music and for me this covers a time where he produced some of his greatest work with what became know as the Berlin trilogy, although only one was completely recorded in Berlin.

The three albums in the trilogy are Low, "Heroes" and The Lodger.

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He also played a big part in the writing and producing of two of Iggy Pops best albums in that same period too; The Idiot and Lust For Life. I also saw Bowie play live twice during the period the book largely covers, in and again in I have since seen him play a further six times Anyway enough hero worship.

This is an excellent book for a committed and many say I should be Bowie fan. It probably won't do much for the non fans though Feb 25, JC rated it really liked it. This one almost got three stars, the descriptions of the music were a bit much. The production was certainly groundbreaking at the time but the descriptions of the music were so over the top I had to come listen to the berlin era bowie mid-read and make sure there wasn't something I missed.

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Apparently putting an eventide harmonizer on a snare drum was a revolutionary idea and it made the snare sound huge, by standards. But the book redeemed itself with giving up the references and the work This one almost got three stars, the descriptions of the music were a bit much. But the book redeemed itself with giving up the references and the work styles they used to make the three bowie and two iggy berlin albums.

Eno's deck of cards will "oblique strategies" that they would draw when stuck and bowie ripping off die brucker right and left for album covers - getting that info made the book totally worthwhile. Also it was a cool reminder of how that in Bowie songs sound like quaint classic rock, at the time the music was groundbreaking and he was a genuinely scary person to the public, and was truly a scary person for real when he went through his living in LA, snorting coke and sitting in a blacked out room drawing occult symbols to "ward of evil forces".

The old cocaine psychosis, nice! Jan 19, Allan Heron rated it really liked it. I'm an avid reader of music related books and whilst biographies have their place they often strike an uneasy balance between describing the life and the art. As such, books which focus on one either in whole or in part can be of greater value. This is one such book which describes the path to Bowie's Berlin Trilogy of albums Low, "Heroes" and Lodger which have been, and remain, immensely influential both for the music itself and the way it was constructed.

It also includes Iggy Pop's albums Th I'm an avid reader of music related books and whilst biographies have their place they often strike an uneasy balance between describing the life and the art. This is not a book for the casual fan and certainly not one for those whose appreciation of Bowie starts and stops with the Ziggy period. But it's a terrific read for those who love their Bowie a bit left-field and who want to find out more about the music was created. And I'm betting Thomas Jerome Seabrook isn't the author's name on his birth certificate Apr 24, Dave Versace rated it really liked it.

An interesting and informative accounting of David Bowie's time in the mid's recording albums with Iggy Pop and Brian Eno, in particular the groundbreaking and weird-as-hell Low The book starts with a drunken car crash, an incident which was shortly thereafter plundered for song lyrics. That pretty much sets the tone for the rest of the volume. This is a fascinating biographical sliver covering a few years of Bowie's career basically from the completion of Station to Station in '76 An interesting and informative accounting of David Bowie's time in the mid's recording albums with Iggy Pop and Brian Eno, in particular the groundbreaking and weird-as-hell Low This is a fascinating biographical sliver covering a few years of Bowie's career basically from the completion of Station to Station in '76 to Lodger in '79 which explores in minute detail his artistic collaborations and processes as well as his copious drug intake and his sometimes fractured personal relationships, reflected in five significant albums of music well, three significant Bowie albums and two of Iggy Pop's as well.

Good stuff if that's the sort of thing you like to read. Not much in it for non-fans, I wouldn't think. Feb 28, Brittany rated it really liked it. Having already read a full bio on Mr. Bowie's life I wanted to explore the Berlin era in particular. This book was very informative on how several albums during the period of came about and what the influences were on several songs. Sometimes the narrative is a little technical with presenting facts but it is also a bio so I'll give it some credit for not having Susanna Clarke style prose.

I really liked the breakdown of each song from the era. Reading the book made me want to check ou Having already read a full bio on Mr. Having gone to Berlin recently I kind of hoped that the book would touch a bit on the sites that Bowie would frequent because it mentioned several places but only in passing the exception being Hansa Studios.

Nov 19, Retrovold rated it really liked it Shelves: There is something that I have to make very clear about this book, it's for big fans of David Bowie. This particular book takes you to the time when David was heavily using drugs, just before he recorded Station To Station and took part in film Man Who Fell To the Earth. Retrieved 12 October Retrieved 6 October Retrieved 7 October Retrieved 10 October Discography Songs Awards and nominations Filmography Tours.

David Live Stage Ziggy Stardust: The Nomad Soul Symphony No. Part One Part Two Category. Retrieved from " https: David Bowie compilation albums compilation albums Parlophone compilation albums. Views Read Edit View history. This page was last edited on 29 September , at By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

David Bowie Tony Visconti exc. Cracked Actor Live Los Angeles '74 A New Career in a New Town — Welcome to the Blackout Live London '78 Bowie, Dennis Davis , George Murray.