Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #44035 in Books
• Published on: 2008-03-17
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781906002084
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Customer Reviews

Bowie the Fragile Genius
David Bowie's albums Low, "Heroes," and Lodger are some of the most seminal pieces of popular music released in the 1970s. Two albums in the same ranks are Iggy Pop's The Idiot and Lust for Life, both of which Bowie had a large hand in creating. The years the two spent together in Berlin, each recovering from substance abuse and general mental deterioration, were a fascinating time that will interest any fan of either; and this book does an excellent job of detailing those heady days. Bowie is seen here as a fragile genius (if an opportunistic one) rather than the chameleon-like fashion plate he can be accused of being. My only quibbles are that the author sometimes gets lost in off-topic tangents that become boring history lessons - Christopher Isherwood may have played a role in Bowie's Berlin years, but we didn't need a multi-paragraph rundown on Isherwood and W.H. Auden's story (already told so many damn times!). Likewise, while the film The Man Who Fell To Earth (Bowie played the lead role) certainly had much to do with what became of Bowie in the years after its making, we didn't need a play-by-play, multi-page synopsis of the film. But once you get past those moments of excess, everything else in the book is well done, thoughtful, engaging . . . If you are interested in David Bowie in general, and particularly if you are a fan of his experimental late 70s work, or if you care to read about the friendship and working relationship between Bowie and Iggy (also Bowie and Eno, as well as Bowie and Tony Visconti), you will enjoy this book.

Excellent Bowie Book!
I was motivated to write a review for this when I saw an other customer complain that the book is "written by a fan for other fans". Well, obviously! If you're writer that's motivated enough by non-fiction, you want to share all of your knowledge to others. That's exactly what the writer does.

Very quick and simple read about the happenings of Bowie, Iggy Pop, Brian Eno, and the underrated Tony Visconti during the Berlin Triad. If goes into very nice detail about Bowie's cocaine psychosis in Los Angeles to the creation of the Iggy Pop albums. He gives lots of credit to Tony Visconti on making the Berlin albums as amazing as they are and giving them that signature sound.

My only complaint, as mentioned in an other review, is that he goes into too much detail about "The Man Who Fell to Earth". I've seen the movie several times and read the book. I know already how it goes. Besides that, it's an excellent book on an important moment in popular music that avoids because a piece of fanboy dribble.

A fabulous book
At the time of publication of Bowie's Berlin production, I was involved with music myself and can attest on the significance/impact/impulse generated by the 3 and a half masterpieces of the epoch (Lust For Life being half a chef d'oeuvre, Lodger none at all).
The reading of this book however is my first investment into getting to know the story behind the Berlin adventure. Compared to most literature on music, this book is extremely well written and a pleasure to read. Unlike my fellow reviewer, I also enjoyed the detours into side-stories and parallel personalities. The only character that finds it hard to come off the page is Iggy. But then the book is not about him...
Thoroughly enjoyable!

P.D.: Warsaw is not the Czech capital, it is Poland's.