Wench, thanx for that review. It is showing for a week at my local big screen with great sound. I was thinking it would be 'boring' since it was a documentary.
But maybe I will find it interesting with the 'inside Bowie's head' style.
I wonder how much of his music he actually wrote. I got the impression he was more like a producer than a musician, and used a lot of other talented people to create his music. Not sure.
Whoever created it, it was great stuff, imo.
He wrote nearly all of his own material, which is voluminous (at least 400 songs). Some notable famous songs were co-written (e.g., China Girl was originally co written with and for Iggy Pop, Fame was co-written with John Lennon, Under Pressure was co-written with Queen), and he credits other musicians as co-writers on many tracks, but behold:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_songs_recorded_by_David_BowieI personally think his particular genius was his excellent ability to find collaborators that improved him and challenged him and scared him and brought additional material to the table. There's innumerable examples of this, but most notably:
Mick Ronson and Mike Garson (starting in the Ziggy era, but Garson worked on a bunch of his stuff post 1980s as well, and brought that avant-garde jazz influenced piano).
Brian Eno, impressive credentials on his own and a crucial collaborator from the late 70s on to the mid 90s.
Stevie Ray Vaughan, whom Bowie essentially broke into the big-time by picking him from obscurity for the lead guitar on the Let's Dance album.
Nile Rodgers (legend in his own right)
Luther Vandross (same)
Robert Fripp, bringing that crazy guitar sound to the Heroes album, etc
He also tended to give away (or try to give away) songs to other people to support their careers, or try to boost young stars by covering them. E.g., lots of material given to Iggy (often cowritten), attempted to give
Golden Years to Elvis (who foolishly did not take it, his loss), he was an early admirer of Springsteen and attempted to boost him, gave
All the Young Dudes away to Mott the Hoople etc.
He was a big 'cross-pollinator' for sure.
None of that is covered in this doc, though. There are plenty of docs out there about the dates, names, places and so on though. Recently, the
Five Years and
Last Five Years docs covered his rise to superstardom and his OG gangster exit leading up to his death.
ETA: Forgot to mention I always think it's strange that his great gifts as a singer aren't more discussed. Four octave range, one of the biggest in pop music. I have always wondered if the reason it isn't noted more is b/c his biggest hits often were sung in his rather pinched high chest tenor, rather than his natural baritone.
