Let's Dance

About

Following 1980’s <i>Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)</i>, it would take David Bowie three years to release another album—the longest gap in his career up to that point. But between hit-single collaborations with Queen (1981’s “Under Pressure”) and Giorgio Moroder (the theme song to the 1982 horror flick <i>Cat People</i>), not to mention a starring role in a Broadway production of <i>The Elephant Man</i>, he was never far from the spotlight. And all those extracurricular activities were effectively warming us up for his pop-cultural takeover in 1983: On top of appearing in three major films that year, Bowie dropped <i>Let’s Dance</i>, the album that signified his transformation from the world’s strangest rock star into its most dashing A-list celebrity. There’s a good reason why a buff and blonde Bowie appears on the cover with boxing gloves—this album delivers hit after hit after hit after hit. From a musical standpoint, <i>Let’s Dance</i> is a testament to Bowie’s unique status as both a classic-rock icon and post-punk pioneer that could bridge genre and generational divide. With “Modern Love,” he updates Motown motion with New Wave moxie and comes up with an eternal wedding dance-floor-filler in the proce. For the truth-in-advertising funk of the title track, he fuses the mirror-ball-twirling sensibility of producer Nile Rodgers with the virtuoso blues licks of a then-unknown Stevie Ray Vaughan, as if to single-handely peace-broker the rockers-v.-disco war once and for all. Ironically, the greatest measure of the album’s pop-savvy is the one track that dates back to Bowie’s left-field late-1970s Euro phase: originally a strung-out dirge that appeared on Iggy Pop’s 1977 solo debut <i>The Idiot</i>, “China Girl” is reborn as a peppy sing-along thanks to the addition of a swooning chorus hook and enchanting Asian instrumental motif. .

via Apple Music

The Clerk says

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