Let's Prance! (Let's Dance - David Bowie)

Member Name: DanielKemp

Product:	Let's Dance - David Bowie
Date:	08/04/09 (68 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great Disco theme, good vocals throughout

Disadvantages: VERY cheesy in places, the start of an uphill struggle for Bowie artistically

In the year of 1983 all eyes were on David Bowie and what he would do next. He had taken an unprecedented three years away from releasing a new studio album; prior to this an album a year was to be expected from The Thin White Duke.

However, Bowie had been developing a get rich quick scheme that would be certain to reap rewards. To assist him in this he got on board Chic mastermind Nile Rodgers to produce and aid him in the album's creation.

In contrast to the critically adored Berlin Trilogy that he had brought to a close less than half a decade ago, the end results were really something quite different and I'm sure that more than a few from his hardcore fan base felt a little disappointed. While Bowie writes seven of the eight songs from Let's Dance he doesn't play a single note on the entire album - he only lends his voice to the final cut. This is often seen as Bowie's fading interest in music as an art and his disconnecting from taking a more hands on approach.

Having said this Let's Dance did wonders for Bowie. No longer were his fans part of a select niche of the music scene; suddenly everyone loved Bowie. It also sparked huge interest in his back catalogue - if you look up album sales for 1983 it's rather exceptional what percentage of overall record sales were credited to David Bowie alone. All of a sudden he was loved on a worldwide scale, no longer was he ours and just for us Brits, he had gone universal! While listening to Let's Dance one must keep in mind that he achieved exactly what he had set out to - to make himself a superstar. Let's dance wasn't trying to be the next best thing since Low or "Heroes", so when being critical of the LP we shouldn't count this against him. If it had tried and failed that would have been a very different matter but this album is on an entirely different playing field.

So what about the songs? They are impeccably produced, if slightly shallow reminders of the 1980's dance scene. Every song has been tweaked to be made as commercial as possible, the focus always being primarily directed onto Bowie's voice.

The three opening songs were the three single releases from the LP; China Girl being truly some of the best cheesy stilton I have ever heard! I rate it as one of those brilliant moments in popular music in which an artist just lets themselves go and have fun with a song. Everyone is allowed a guilty pleasure and I have no difficulty in admitting my love for this cracker of a tune. Also worth noting is that China Girl was a co-write with Iggy Pop and had originally appeared on Iggy's The idiot album a few years earlier. As expected, it has little in common with the original.

The title track is definitely the best single taken from the album and with guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan at hand how could it possibly fail! It's exceedingly funky! The version here is also a must hear as it's twice the length of the single release (saxophones included)!

Without You is one of the most sugary songs Bowie has ever written but I find that the lyrics really appeal to me. When he croons "Without you, what would I do?" along with cheesy backing "ooo-ooo's", it's hard not to be sucked into this wonderful piece of drama.

Ricochet is Bowie's attempts to be arty on a commercial album and as one would expect, it's only marginally successful. It has an almost SKA feel to it and it waddles in an uninspiring fashion all the way to the end of its running time.

I'm going to go as far as to say that Criminal World, which is the only cover song in the set, is actually the best song on the entire LP. It has an incredibly spidery guitar line, backed up by high in the mix bass, while Bowie gives one of the stand-out vocal performances of his career. His singing is restrained, rehearsed to perfection and deeply resonant.

My final word is, do not go in expecting the next installment of the Berlin Trilogy, as you certainly won't get it. What you will get though is an incredibly fun if somewhat superfluous release. If you have found it hard getting into Bowie in the past, this may be the LP for you.

7/10

Daniel Kemp

Read more of my reviews at www.danielkemp.webs.com

Summary: Try it if you haven't liked Bowie in the past, you may be surprised.