<p>When David Bowie died in 2016 some people say the world went to hell in a handcart. It seems that while Bowie was alive his songs and their strange commentaries on modern life had some kind of deep significance that made sense of it all for many people. His music evokes something futuristic and prophetic to his fans. In this book, there is light shed on Bowie's songwriting in the early, most-lauded part of his career, his much-vaunted sense of alienation and his desperate search to make music that was art. Art-rock is an odd sort of genre to be associated with, but it fits David Bowie to a tee. Everything he did was infused with a kind of indescribable oddness, like his two mismatched eyes, the result of a teenage spat with a school friend over a girl. He had a lifelong interest in ideas about life on other worlds, and yet one of his many songs associated with this theme, 'Life On Mars', is more concerned with the failings of this planet. When he sang 'Starman' on Top Of The Pops in 1972, his arm draped around the shoulders of his talented lead guitarist and arranger, Mick Ronson, he lit up a million teenage hearts. This is a complete examination of all the songs from Bowie's golden years, which extends from his days as a mod saxophonist through to his astonishing 1980 hit album, Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps). His songs run the gamut from extraordinary to esoteric but were always written from the heart.</p>

David Bowie 1964 to 1982: every album, every song

Arts & Photography

Ewens, Carl

Music

Sonicbond Publishing

<p>Marc Bolan’s mind was unusual in the extreme and the sound of his music was equally unique and extraordinary.What was the inspiration behind the peculiar musical avenues Bolan explored with first his far-out hippy folk-duo Tyrannosaurus Rex, and later the irresistible boogie-machine known as T.Rex? What were the antecedents of Marc’s sound, and the arcane influences on his fantastical lyrics?This book explores the early beatnik attitudes of Marc’s first musical experiments, the increasing sound-palette with which he explored the eastern mystical worldview of his Tyrannosaurus Rex albums, and the motivations behind his rise to superstardom in the seventies, his ascension to the throne left vacant by the Beatles, and his eventual flirtation with fashion, drugs and alienation.Author Carl Ewens also attempts to re-evaluate the later T.Rex albums, especially 1974’s Zinc Alloy And The Hidden Riders Of Tomorrow, the point at which Bolan tried to reclaim the lost legacy of his early lyrical adventures. With his star waning and the critics out for his blood, Marc attempted to re-create T.Rex as first a soul-funk band, and eventually as mutant punk rock.No other British songwriter has ever been so original or so isolated in style, so simultaneously decried and worshipped. No other artist is so quintessentially English and yet so obviously obsessed with Americana. There is no doubt that Marc Bolan was truly born to boogie.</p>

Born To Boogie: The Songwriting of Marc Bolan

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

Aureus

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