Bowie In Berlin A New Career In A New Town [Paperback]

Thomas Jerome Seabrook (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 2008

ÊBowie in BerlinÊ tells the fascinating story of the three years David Bowie spent in Germany in the mid-1970s making the most extraordinary music of his career. Driven to the brink of madness by cocaine overwork marital strife and a paranoid obsession with the occult Bowie fled Los Angeles in 1975 and ended up in Berlin the divided city on the frontline between communist East and capitalist West. There he sought anonymity taking an apartment in a run-down district with his sometime collaborator Iggy Pop another refugee from drugs and debauchery while they explored the city and its notorious nightlife.ÞIn this intensely creative period Bowie put together three classic albums ä ÊLow Heroes Ê and ÊLodgerÊ ä with collaborators who included Brian Eno Robert Fripp and Tony Visconti. He also found time to produce two albums for Iggy Pop ä ÊThe IdiotÊ and ÊLust for LifeÊ ä and to take a leading role in a movie the ill-starred ÊJust a GigoloÊ. ÊBowie in BerlinÊ tells the story of that period and those records exploring Bowie's fascination with the city unearthing his sources of inspiration detailing his working methods and teasing out the elusive meanings of the songs. Painstakingly researched and vividly written the book casts a new light on the most creative and influential era in David Bowie's career.

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Jawbone Press (February 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1906002088
• ISBN-13: 978-1906002084
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #511,135 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Bowie the Fragile Genius, March 27, 2008

By 

Brian J. Greene "djbrian" (Durham, NC) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bowie In Berlin A New Career In A New Town (Paperback)

David Bowie's albums Low, "Heroes," and Lodger are some of the most seminal pieces of popular music released in the 1970s. Two albums in the same ranks are Iggy Pop's The Idiot and Lust for Life, both of which Bowie had a large hand in creating. The years the two spent together in Berlin, each recovering from substance abuse and general mental deterioration, were a fascinating time that will interest any fan of either; and this book does an excellent job of detailing those heady days. Bowie is seen here as a fragile genius (if an opportunistic one) rather than the chameleon-like fashion plate he can be accused of being. My only quibbles are that the author sometimes gets lost in off-topic tangents that become boring history lessons - Christopher Isherwood may have played a role in Bowie's Berlin years, but we didn't need a multi-paragraph rundown on Isherwood and W.H. Auden's story (already told so many damn times!). Likewise, while the film The Man Who Fell To Earth (Bowie played the lead role) certainly had much to do with what became of Bowie in the years after its making, we didn't need a play-by-play, multi-page synopsis of the film. But once you get past those moments of excess, everything else in the book is well done, thoughtful, engaging . . . If you are interested in David Bowie in general, and particularly if you are a fan of his experimental late 70s work, or if you care to read about the friendship and working relationship between Bowie and Iggy (also Bowie and Eno, as well as Bowie and Tony Visconti), you will enjoy this book.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A book that adds nothing new, January 25, 2011

By 

Flews - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bowie In Berlin A New Career In A New Town (Paperback)

Bowie in Berlin adds absolutely no new insights or new factual information.

The factual information seems to be lifted right off The Complete David Bowie and while the author offers his opinion on certain songs, he doesn't back up his claims by argument,so why should we care?

For instance he says of 'TVC15' that 'it's not the greatest thing Bowie ever recorded, but not as bad as some might suggest either', which is a typical pointless and trivial statement that could have been uttered by anyone with no particular knowledge of Bowie or music as such over a pint.

The author lacks a vocabulary for discussing music, so he is best off sticking to facts. Unfortunately the facts he delivers are well-known and well-documented.

Why bother writing a book that adds nothing new to the story and offers no interesting points of view? Why bother reading it?

Well, you may bother if you are new to Bowie's work in which case this unoriginal book does make for a fluent read faithfully recounting some well-loved anecdotes of this periode of Bowie's career.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Bowie Book!, March 17, 2009

By 

Mark L. Ayala "HiroyukiSakaiFan69" (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bowie In Berlin A New Career In A New Town (Paperback)

I was motivated to write a review for this when I saw an other customer complain that the book is "written by a fan for other fans". Well, obviously! If you're writer that's motivated enough by non-fiction, you want to share all of your knowledge to others. That's exactly what the writer does.

Very quick and simple read about the happenings of Bowie, Iggy Pop, Brian Eno, and the underrated Tony Visconti during the Berlin Triad. If goes into very nice detail about Bowie's cocaine psychosis in Los Angeles to the creation of the Iggy Pop albums. He gives lots of credit to Tony Visconti on making the Berlin albums as amazing as they are and giving them that signature sound.

My only complaint, as mentioned in an other review, is that he goes into too much detail about "The Man Who Fell to Earth". I've seen the movie several times and read the book. I know already how it goes. Besides that, it's an excellent book on an important moment in popular music that avoids because a piece of fanboy dribble.