Let's Dance - David Bowie (1983)
Bowie has always been about forward motion. It had been a process over the previous decade, though, to find collaborators he trusted enough to shape his sound the way he wanted. This transformed him from a rock n roller like his late-60s peers into a wildly creative pop auteur. Not limited just by what he could physically play, he had been learning to use the people and technologies around him.
In the wild flux of the early 80s, that meant trusting more of the instrumentation and arrangement to Chic’s Nile Rogers, who co-produced this record and helped shape the sound.
Rogers created the backdrop and the two turned in a canny record of funky dance pop that still sounded like signature Bowie.
More evidence of Bowie’s ear for talent was his recent discovery of rising psych-blues talent Stevie Ray Vaughn, who plays throughout and throws down a pair of fantastic solos on Let’s Dance and Cat People.
Always playing the pop chameleon, here we saw Bowie reinvent himself again for a new decade.
