After his breakthrough withZiggy Stardustand before his U.S. pop hits Fame and Golden Years David Bowie produced a dark and difficult concept album set in a post-apocalyptic Hunger City populated by post-human mutants. Diamond Dogsincludes the great glam anthem Rebel Rebel and utterly unique songs that combine lush romantic piano and nearly operatic singing with scratching, grungy guitars, creepy, insidious noises, and dark, pessimistic lyrics that reflect the album's origins in a projected Broadway musical version of Orwell's1984and Bowie's formative encounter with William S. Burroughs.
In this book Glenn Hendler shows that each song onDiamond Dogsshifts the ground under you as you listen, not just by changing in musical style, but by being sung by a different I who directly addresses a different you. Diamond Dogsis the product of a performer at the peak of his powers but uncomfortable with the rock star role he had constructed. All of the album's influences looked to Bowie like ways of escaping not just the Ziggy role, but also the constraints of race, gender, sexuality, and nationality. These are just some of the reasons many Bowie fans rateDiamond Dogshis richest and most important album of the 1970s.
Glenn Hendleris Professor of English and American Studies at Fordham University, USA. He writes on popular and unpopular literature in the 19th century, film, television, and contemporary cultural politics. He is author or editor of several books, including
Public Sentiments: Structures of Feeling in Nineteenth-Century American Literature(2001) and
Keywords for American Cultural Studies(2007)
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