David Bowie - Station to Station (1976)

I went across the street during my break to a coffee shop and heard Golden Years throughout the store. I started making my way out but felt compelled to hear as much of the song as I could.

I walked back inside and stayed there until Neil Young’s Southern Man followed. By the time I returned to my desk, I was convinced it was Montreal’s classic rock station responsible for the Golden Years and not an employee iPod.

Golden Years got the remix treatment on the college radio circuit. 

David Bowie - Let's Dance (1983)

Like many of my generation, my introduction to David Bowie was in the summer of 1983 with the Let’s Dance album. 



That album is simply iconic 80s. What more can be said about the album on which China Girl, Modern Love and the title track can be found on the same side? 

It would take years for me to realize an edited Cat People (Putting Out Fire) is on the second side of the vinyl.

During one of my recent trips to New York for CMJ, I went crate digging in a few Lower East Side record stores and purchased another copy of Let’s Dance to replace the one I gave away.

David Bowie - The Dick Cavett Show

I saw a Dick Cavett Show DVD with vintage Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and David Bowie footage.

His performance and look was even more ahead of its time for 1974 than the 1984 song he sang.

I then understood how and why Let’s Dance came to be.

It was just another milestone in the career of one of rock’s most creative innovators.