#1's - The Eighties

[George]

#1's - The Eighties

IIRC The claims about Bowie's financial position came from a documentary made about 10-15 years ago. It claimed much of his money was lost during the cocaine years, with various leaches and hangers-ons being partially to blame. Looking round the internet I can't find anything to back any of this up.

[MsD]

#1's - The Eighties

We were out with Suzi Ronson this week and she told us there was no money in the mid 70s, Tony de Vries ripped them all off and then there was the coke thing. The thing about L D sales was from a Sony guy.

Bowie was an important artist in the 70s, and was my God, but he was not an international megastar until Let's Dance. He wasn't a "shrewd businessman" in the 70s, no way.

On Adam, my problem was in your referring to him in the singular. He has great talent as a singer, lyricist, conceptual artist and beautiful frontman but DED was a joint effort, performed by a band. And they broke into the charts and onto TOTP, because Adam teamed up with Marco. The old Ants would never have charted.

[MsD]

#1's - The Eighties

..In the same way that Deram era Bowie or David Jones and the Lower Third wouldn't have made it onto TOTP to bewitch us with his performance of Starman. The songs had to be there.

[Jah Womble]

#1's - The Eighties

I'm don't doubt that all your facts are spot-on regarding Adam & The Ants arriving at what they were by Kings of the Wild Frontier - but I can only go by the reaction to the group's first TOTP performance onward. The music (to me) sounded great and different, but Adam was undeniably the star in the making - and that's mainly what the punters responded to, not who wrote what.

Not sure regarding Bowie's seventies/eighties financial position - he was certainly off his face for much of that time, it's true.

[MsD]

#1's - The Eighties

Not sure? I've just told you.

On AATA - it sounded like you were saying the crucial difference betweeb obscurity (77-79) and stardom (80-82) was a great TOTP performance. I'm saying it was the songs and change of image.

[Jah Womble]

#1's - The Eighties

(You can tell me what you like, it doesn't make me 'sure'!)

Finally (please) re A&tA: if you revisit my original comment, I said that the debut TOTP performance of 'Dog Eat Dog' was what brought him/the group (sigh) to the greater attention of the punters - pushing the record into the Top 20/Top 5. No amount of prior 'restyling' etc would've made an ounce of difference without that exposure.

To emphasise this point, 'Kings of the Wild Frontier' (the single) hadn't troubled the Top 40 that summer, likely hindered by a TOTP strike at the time. (Of course, it became a huge hit some months later, when Adam and co were the biggest thing going.)

[Beatle Simon]

#1's - The Eighties

MsD wrote:

On Bowie, LD broke him through to being a major AOR star and thus lengthened his successful career. It's the first song many people can remember of his.

This is the first time I ever saw David Bowie, on the Kenny Everett Show (quite appropriate at the moment), on the last day of the 70s!
I was on holiday at my aunty & uncle's house, and it was just me and my 19 year old cousin watching this. Halfway through, my mum came in the room, and said "ohh, David Bowie, I like him", to which my cousin (who was in a punky/new wave band at the time)replied "I dunno about this, this is weird." I sat there transfixed - it was my "Starman" moment!
A month or so later, I heard the first Paul McCartney record I ever liked - "Coming Up" (also on the Kenny Everett Show!), which started a love-affair with The Beatles, and then not long after that I first heard "Strawberry Fields Forever" on Radio 1 one Sunday afternoon (I think it was The Buggles playing all their favourite records). That was pretty mindblowing as well.
This could be a cross thread with "References That Date You"!
10 was a fantastic age!
http://bowie.moonagewebdream.com/2006/03/10/space-oddity-kenny-everett-version

[Beatle Simon]

#1's - The Eighties

Jah Womble wrote:
'Dog Eat Dog' was credited to Adam & The Ants. What finally 'broke' them, however, was a very good debut performance of this on TOTP.

I had just started secondary school when this was on TOTP. The next morining, all the kids in the playground were talking about it, and starting a new school you meet a lot of new kids for the first time, so it was defenently a bonding moment, or as our American cousins would say, a water-cooler moment.
Certainly, a collective "Starman" moment.

[MsD]

#1's - The Eighties

Jah Womble wrote: (You can tell me what you like, it doesn't make me 'sure'!)

Well you are welcome to hang onto your mistaken beliefs despite my citing music business and Bowie colleague sources that bear out what I've said. :-)
and Serge citing Bowie himself saying the same thing.

There seems to be no support for your own beliefs, that he was "world famous" in 1972. Really? What is the basis for thinking him an astute businessman in the 70s?

[Jah Womble]

#1's - The Eighties

Like others on here, I have no real interest in your opinions or negligible connections. I was 'around' and - like millions - buying Bowie's records during the seventies (after 1972 - obviously). The guy was huge by the mid-seventies and scoring number one records here, in America and elsewhere. I totally agree that Let's Dance shifted him to another level, but to suggest that he 'wasn't' an international star before that is beyond fatuous and not worthy of further discussion.

As I've already stated (twice now, for the love of God), I'll buy that he was too off his head during the seventies - my doubts remain about the supposed dire nature of his financial position by 1981 (or whenever). But if that's so, then fine. It was merely a passing point brought up by someone else.

[Lucia Lanigan]

#1's - The Eighties

I also understood that Bowie was pretty much bankrupt around the time he rolled into Berlin. The enormous drug intake, the living like a major star in order to persuade the US he was one, increasingly grand plans (like that 1984 musical) etc. suggest he would have burned through a lot of cash up to that point. And it’s widely claimed that DeFries’ Mainman pocketed what money was left, in the old-school music biz style. I don’t know, most of Bowie’s contemporaries only seem to have become financially shrewd in the 80s, don’t they?

I also thought he'd done well in the UK but had nowt more than decent-sized cult status elsewhere. Having said that, ‘Fame’ was a US Number 1 in 1975 – I guess he was always the type to have freak hits (like ‘Space Oddity’ here in 1969) then blow it commercially by changing his style again.

[Jah Womble]

#1's - The Eighties

Sure, he was biggest in Britain, but the US was all over him at the time of Young Americans (1975) - 'Golden Years' was also a gold single and saw the guy become the first white solo artist on Soul Train.

[MsD]

#1's - The Eighties

Jah Womble wrote: Like others on here, I have no real interest in your opinions or negligible connections. I was 'around' and - like millions - buying Bowie's records during the seventies (after 1972 - obviously). The guy was huge by the mid-seventies and scoring number one records here, in America and elsewhere. I totally agree that Let's Dance shifted him to another level, but to suggest that he 'wasn't' an international star before that is beyond fatuous and not worthy of further discussion.

As I've already stated (twice now, for the love of God), I'll buy that he was too off his head during the seventies - my doubts remain about the supposed dire nature of his financial position by 1981 (or whenever). But if that's so, then fine. It was merely a passing point brought up by someone else.

Right, so you insult me, and dismiss my opinions, because you can't back up your own opinions, which are based on what? Your own impressions and assumptions?

I've talked to Ms Ronson this week regarding a film she's making about Ronno (I could call myself a "consultant" on it) and as a Bowie/Ronno fan, LSE grad and someone who works in banking as well as the music biz, and with a related project of my own, of course I would ask about the money. She is very intelligent and very clear about it all. Of course I've discussed it with other people in the music industry. My connections aren't "negligible" but I'm not being goaded into listing them so I can be accused of name-dropping.

But obviously, you know better than all of us.

I'd recommend Paul Trynka's biography of Bowie, Starman, for those who can only take their "facts" out of books, and not from women. There's an interesting account of Mainman's financial meltdown in there.

LL has it right. Important artist, but not a major international, platinum shifting star until the early 80s.

[Gangster Octopus]

#1's - The Eighties

MsD wrote: The old Ants would never have charted.

'Cept they did as Bow Wow Wow...

[MsD]

#1's - The Eighties

Former members of AATA later charted as a different band, Bow Wow Wow, with a different singer and managed by McLaren. So your point is?

Btw, Dave Barbarossa (drummer in AATA and BWW) is launching his book on Tuesday. It's good.

PS I managed his band last year and he's a close mate, but feel free to instruct me further about BWW/AATA.

[Jah Womble]

#1's - The Eighties

Right, so you insult me, and dismiss my opinions, because you can't back up your own opinions, which are based on what? Your own impressions and assumptions?

I'm not insulting you - I've no idea who you are, nor do I know anything of your 'connections', so why should I care about them here?

Oh, and by the way - most people's opinions are based on their own 'impressions and assumptions' - for human beings, that's kind of how it works. (Mine, however, are based on facts in this case.)

I've talked to Ms Ronson this week regarding a film she's making about Ronno (I could call myself a "consultant" on it) and as a Bowie/Ronno fan, LSE grad and someone who works in banking as well as the music biz, and with a related project of my own, of course I would ask about the money. She is very intelligent and very clear about it all. Of course I've discussed it with other people in the music industry. My connections aren't "negligible" but I'm not being goaded into listing them so I can be accused of name-dropping.

See above. Why do you pre-suppose any of this matters to anyone other than yourself?

But obviously, you know better than all of us.

Very mature. It doesn't take a genius to work out that Bowie was a major artist before Let's Dance - which (as I've stated on at least three occasions) I agree shifted him to another plateau (but was not a 'breakthrough' in the accepted sense). Bowie embarked on several major world tours during the seventies - if he were still the marginal artist you suggest, I suspect they'd have stopped after the first one. It just isn't arguable.

There's an interesting account of Mainman's financial meltdown in there.

Sheesh. Fine, no issue here whatsoever. Someone else brought up Bowie's financial situation, not me - my comment about Bowie's 'business acumen' was semi-facetious and based on his later reputation as a shrewd operator: I'm happy to buy the comment that most of his earnings went up his nose or into his veins at that time, whoever said it. That's well-documented. I don't know (nor especially care) what state his finances were in at the turn of the eighties, I just expressed surprise at the suggestion that, after yet another platinum album (SM&SC), they'd be in such disarray. If that was the case, then, fine, big deal.

LL has it right. Important artist, but not a major international, platinum shifting star until the early 80s.

If you're denying that Bowie went platinum before LD, that's just nonsense, frankly. For example, 'Fame' - as mentioned upthread - was a million-selling single in the US, and that's aside from all of his other British and elsewhere successes.

...those who can only take their "facts" out of books, and not from women.

If you wish to turn this into some paranoid, anti-female argument then please take it somewhere else.

[Calvert]

#1's - The Eighties

Not sure? I've just told you.

Hahaha!
Potential t-shirt, there. Love that.

I also love the Deram era Bowie, some of those wee songs were fucking brilliant.
Little Bombardier, Let Me Sleep Beside You, In The Heat Of The Morning, Uncle Arthur.

Sorry, all.
As you were.

[MsD]

#1's - The Eighties

Some opinions are backed up by knowledge, and some aren't. I tend to only post about what I know, and usually, on here, I've been correct, in matters of fact and record.

Suzi Ronson is a very credible and important source, having worked closely with Bowie and Defries and having been married to Mick Ronson, FFS, and having not been off her face during the 70s. She had her own and Mick's future to consider, of course she would know about the financial situation.

I've studied economics and worked in banking as well as being involved in royalties etc., so I know something about the financial side of the business.

I'm not paranoid, I'm not the only one to notice that I get taken to task on here for writing things that are accepted without question (and often with matey backslapping) from other contributors, especially those with any music business connections, however tenuous or low-level.

[Jah Womble]

#1's - The Eighties

I don’t mean to offend you, but all this gubbins about whether your sources are 'credible', or what you claim to have studied or done here, there and everywhere - none of this matters to me or anyone else in the way that it so clearly does to you.

Nor, for that matter, do Bowie's late-seventies finances - which for some insane reason now seem to have become the central thrust of the topic. My original point – what seems like lightyears ago now - was that Let's Dance was not a ‘breakthrough’ record as such and that Bowie was already internationally established, neither of which are arguable points. (I read something recently [Hell no! The written word!] suggesting that Bowie’s 1980-89 period took him 'from superstardom to megastardom’: while I don’t much care for those particular terms, that pretty much nails it for me as far as his global profile was concerned.)

And if you aren’t paranoid, then it might help not to drag gender differences into the debate. Even if we are talking about Bowie.

[MsD]

#1's - The Eighties

It matters insofaras I can back up my statements with knowledge, from sources close to Bowie and Sony/EMI, and can supply sales figures if wanted, and yours are based on mere (incorrect) hunches. But as you're the only one refusing to accept that Bowie only became a major international artist with LD it doesn't really matter, you've made yourself look a fool.

[MsD]

#1's - The Eighties

Btw (fact fans), it's also interesting that although Low and Heroes were artistically brilliant, they didn't sell that well, epecially in the US, and Bowie had to fight to keep his deal. So that, after the Mainman business and the coke/coke related problems did bring him to a bad point financially.

[Jah Womble]

#1's - The Eighties

It matters insofaras I can back up my statements with knowledge, from sources close to Bowie and Sony/EMI, and can supply sales figures if wanted, and yours are based on mere (incorrect) hunches. But as you're the only one refusing to accept that Bowie only became a major international artist with LD it doesn't really matter, you've made yourself look a fool.

If it makes you feel better to reduce this to some juvenile game of one-upmanship, go ahead – it’s of little interest or value to anyone bar yourself.

I was in the US during 1975-76: you couldn’t move for Bowie. He was on the cover of Rolling Stone ('Ready to rule the world' was, I think, the strapline), top of the singles charts and on Soul Train. If it was a purple patch, it was a bloody potent one - so to say he wasn't an international star at any time before Let’s Dance is just hopelessly wrong, regardless of who's saying it. He’d been biggest (and most consistent) in Britain, of course, but his albums had charted internationally (befitting of someone who had toured the world numerous times): SM&SC, for example, charted Top 5 across Europe and topped the charts in both NZ and Aus, not huge markets, but nonetheless 'international'. (Similarly, Ashes to Ashes and Under Pressure were major hits across the world before LD.) I’ll grant you he was never anywhere near the level of Elton or Rod Stewart, but who was?

While I don’t accept the word ‘breakthrough’ for an established artist like Bowie, I’ve agreed with you several times that LD shifted him up a serious level – with what part of this statement are you still struggling?

Actually don’t bother answering. I don’t think we speak the same language.

[MsD]

#1's - The Eighties

You've backtracked considerably, but I made a reasonable and cordial first post on the subject, which other people have concurred with (as it was spot on), you're the one going on about it, and the one who made it personal, and the one without evidence.

Your subjective impressions / anecdotal evidence simply don't stack up with the figures and confirmation from Bowie-related music industry sources. As Serge wrote, Bowie himself said it.

I was right and you were wrong, in this instance, why not be a man about it?

Not being anywhere near the level of Elton John (or Michael Jackson, Madonna ...) is of course what I meant by not being a major artist. He wouldn't have got near Live Aid (not the evening slots, anyway) were it not for Let's Dance.

That's the difference.

Btw, implying I have a problem with the "printed word" is just ridiculous. I just don't automatically assume something is correct because it is in a book.

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

#1's - The Eighties

This is the venue listing for Bowie's 1978 tour, it's the one listed in the sleeve notes for the Stage live album. The provincial UK venues look out of place compared to the big open air venues in Australia and major arenas in North America and Europe, but obviously was before the arrival of the NEC, SECC etc.
Here

[laverte]

#1's - The Eighties

Someone upthread voted for Paul Hardcastle's 19 as the best chart-topper of 1985. I don't know about the best, but it gets my vote for the strangest — of that year or any other. Were there really, in 1985, people on dancefloors boogying to a newsreel-style monologue about the atrocious human cost of the Vietnam war, interspersed with a girl group chirpily singing "Destruction! Of man in his prime!", over a loungey melody and space invaders bassline? Did the DJ mute the sound after "Vietnam" so that everyone in the club could shout back in unison "S-S-Saigon!!!"? And how did Paul Hardcastle sell such a concept to his record company? Peculiar.