Rewind: David Bowie Hunky Dory

Latching on to an album when you're in your twenties or thirties isn't the same as discovering it your teens when your young and impressionable and everything, if just for a moment, is the most important thing in the world. Lacking cool older siblings whose record collections I could raid, I muddled along, pouring over the All Music Guide when it actually existed in book form, I promised myself I'd listen to all the BIG IMPORTANT ALBUMS critics praised.

I have no idea when I first became aware of Bowie. Coming of age in the 80s, I know I should say Labyrinth, but I'm pretty sure it was when he and Mick Jagger covered "Dancing in the Streets."

The 80s ruin everything. There. I said it.

I had the same discussion about Bruce Springsteen with a friend. It took a lot of deprogramming (and one rainy afternoon with Nebraska) to disassociate Bruce Springsteen, the songwriter, with Bruce Springsteen, the fist-pumping, Born-in-the-USA, arena-rock star I'd seen on MTV as a kid. Thankfully, the cheesy image of Bowie, dancing woodenly and singing along to an old Martha and the Vandellas song was transient and easily replaced with the image of Bowie, a icon in the glam rock world who was self-aware enough to shrug off covering a 60s pop song. (Which, in retrospect, is pretty cool.)

I go back to Hunky Dory more than any other Bowie album. It sounds like what I envision the early-70s to be under the best circumstances: glamourous, androgynous, campy, with a dash of self-conscious cool. Okay, so maybe that's not so far removed from the 80s Bowie I scorned.