Tag Archive: TOTP


MORRISSEY : A MAN OUT OF TIME

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February 12, 2013

It can’t be much fun being Morrissey these days. Not only does he have serious health problems (he’s just cancelled U.S. tour dates due to a bleeding ulcer) but now comes news that he has been snubbed by one of his former musical heroes.

A private 1982 photograph of him posing with David Bowie taken by Linder Sterling was to have adorned the reissue of the one of his weakest singles (The Last Of The Famous International Playboys) which precedes the forthcoming re-release of his worst solo album Kill Uncle.

Bowie had other ideas and has ordered EMI UK not to allow this artwork to go ahead. Mr. B is not one to go public with the reasons for such decisions so we can only speculate as to why he objected. Continue reading →

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BACKTRACKING #41 : DAVID BOWIE

Filed under: Gender, Music — Leave a comment
December 3, 2011

Part of an irregular series of bite-sized posts about 7″ singles I own – shameless nostalgia from the days of vinyl. (Search ‘Backtracking’ to collect the set!)

DAVID BOWIE – John, I’m Only Dancing b/w Hang On To Yourself (RCA, 1972).

This is the only Bowie single I own, probably because it’s one of the few tracks that didn’t appear on his albums (all of which I have).

There is some speculation that the ‘John’  of the title is Mr Lennon in response to jibes about cross-dressing which sounds a but unlikely to me.

By the time this record came out, it was widely known that , sexually, Bowie swung both ways and the song dispels any lingering doubts. “I’m only dancing” he tells his boyfriend but the fact that he  adds “She turns me on”  is hardly designed to be reassuring.

The openly ‘out’  bisexual message meant that the video directed by Mick Rock never got shown on Top Of The Pops and the single was not even released in the USA.

The B-side is from the Ziggy Stardust album and the video shows Bowie in full Ziggy mode with a hair style that many copied without looking as cool as he did. We see Lindsay Kemp’s mime troupe cavorting suggestively while the three man Spiders From Mars look less at ease in their Glam Rock gear.

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ROD IS 65

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January 10, 2010

Happy birthday to Rod Stewart who reached pensionable age today. The BBC put up a crappy compilation to mark the day but they only really needed to link to the 1971 performance of him at the top of his game with The Faces on Top Of The Pops. Look out for John Peel pretending to play mandolin and I love the fact that the band make no attempt to look as though they’re really playing live – even kicking a soccer ball around at one point.

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