David Bowie first caught my attention in November of 1977 when he appeared on the now legendary final Bing Crosby Christmas special, recorded only weeks before Crosby's passing. Along with singing counterpoint with Bing on Peace On Earth/Little Drummer Boy, the special also aired the newly released video for Bowie's single, Heroes, from the album of the same name. To say the inclusion of this video in a Christmas special was incongruous and anachronistic would be an understatement. That didn't hurt its appeal to me, however. It only made me pay closer attention and I immediately fell in love with the song.
One would think that would have been all I needed to grab the album, and indeed, I picked it up and pondered it in the record shops over and over, but it wasn't until well over a year later that I finally took the plunge into the world of Bowie with the release of the album, Lodger, in the spring of 1979. While I was just starting to get curious about "new" music in 1977, by 1979 I was fully engulfed in anything that was on the cutting edge and everything about Lodger seemed sharp and ready to slice.
While Bowie's Berlin triptych of Low / "Heroes" / Lodger is now frequently looked upon as the apex period of his career, creatively if not commercially, I find that Lodger is often overlooked among these three and not really given the kind of acknowledgement I believe it deserves. Perhaps this is due to the perversely obtuse sense of violence that underpins so much of the album, from the shocking cover image, where Bowie looks like he's been smashed up against a wall like a squashed bug, to the admonition to "Johnny" in Repetition, "Don't hit her". The album flirts with these kinds of themes throughout.
One of the things that sold me on it was the two videos which were produced for DJ and Boys Keep Swinging, both of which were aired on the NBC late night music program, The Midnight Special. The latter video, in particular, offered up a pretty disturbing yet humorous sort of drag fashion show, decades before drag culture would be embraced by the masses thanks to the likes of RuPaul. In Bowie's hands, the implied violence appears again as each of his three characterizations ends the video by ripping off their wig and smearing their lipstick. It's this sort of edge that pervades the entire album.
But song by song, the album is built out of stones of perfect proportion and purpose without a weak track among them. From start to finish, it races forward with an urgency that leaves you feeling a bit outpaced as it rushes ahead of you. It's music that doesn't wait for the listener to catch up with it and perhaps that's why it's a bit alienating. Regardless of that, it has remained my favorite Bowie album from the day I brought it home and only surprises me all over again every time I listen to it.
