David Bowie Approach

I was listening to the radio a few days and a guitarist was talking about how thrilled he was to work with David Bowie on 'Fame' however he said 'these guys would turn up with a few scraps of paper and notes and come into the studio and start creating an album. I'd never worked like this before'. I think David Bowie is a creative legend a sort of collage artist who took RnB and added his own twists on it. After more thought I realised I disagreed with the guitarist - when they turned up in the studio they also turned up with talent, creativity and an open attitude to see what the results were. As they didn't know what the outputs would be in advance there was a possibililty they would uncover something interesting. It was a risk they took. A different approach would be to go into the studio with the songs already written and quite developed and then to complete them and then enhance them. A lot easier and less discussion required. Of the two approaches I think the second approach will turn a great band into a tribute band of themselves and make them unlikely to explore new directions and influences. I see this in management consultancy where I am bombarded by Powerpoint presentations and governance that all seem vaguely familiar and similar but I bet the originals were really good and no matter how committed the presenters are it means their enthusiasm is filtered and sterilised as it hits the audience. The Big 4 are the new tribute bands and I wait for the punk movement to blow them away.