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Tin Machine: David Bowie's Noisy (and Lousy) Mid-Life Crisis · Jon's WTF Music Moments

• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Welcome to John's WTF Music Moments, the show where music
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: history gets weird enough that you start thinking, wait, are
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: we sure this actually happened? And oh yes, it did.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: So today's question is, what happens when one of the
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: most important solo artists in music history, an absolute undeniable
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  Speaker 1: legend and rock god, wakes up one morning and decides, nah,
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  Speaker 1: I think I'd rather be in a garage band. Because
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: in 1988, that's exactly what happened. And the artist in
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: question was David Bowie. Yes, that David Bowie. The one
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  Speaker 1: who gave us Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, Major Tom, The
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  Speaker 1: Thin White Duke, and something like 47 other chameleon-like reinventions.
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  Speaker 1: But then came the late 1980s. When Bowie was running
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  Speaker 1: on fumes, it seemed. And Bowie did something that in
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  Speaker 1: hindsight feels like he was just trying to confuse record
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  Speaker 1: stores on purpose. David Bowie formed a band. Not a
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  Speaker 1: solo project with a backing band. Not a concept album.
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  Speaker 1: Not a supergroup. Not a multimedia performance art installation. A band.
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  Speaker 1: And he called it Tin Machine. Now, to understand Tin Machine,
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  Speaker 1: you have to understand where Bowie was commercially, and I
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  Speaker 1: suppose mentally, in the late 1980s. A darling of MTV
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  Speaker 1: at this point in his career, he had just come
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: off a string of albums that might have sold somewhat well,
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  Speaker 1: but were critically, well, shit on. Bowie achieved massive commercial
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  Speaker 1: success with the wildly successful album Let's Dance in 1983.
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  Speaker 1: But in just five short years, things had changed. If
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  Speaker 1: you can't recall any of the songs from 1984's Tonight
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  Speaker 1: or 1987's Never Let Me Down, well, there's a reason
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  Speaker 1: for that. You're not the only one. So, In 1988
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  Speaker 1: or so, Bowie, being Bowie, basically said, what if I
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  Speaker 1: stop being such a recognizable and occasionally avant-garde solo artist
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  Speaker 1: and global icon, and instead just become one of the
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  Speaker 1: members of a loud rock band? So he recruits a
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  Speaker 1: group of musicians, including guitarist Reeves Gabrels and the Sayles Brothers,
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  Speaker 1: who had previously played with Iggy Pop. Then he does
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  Speaker 1: the real shocking thing. He insists it's a band of equals,
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  Speaker 1: not David Bowie and backup band, not Bowie Presents, not
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  Speaker 1: Tin Machine featuring David Bowie, just Tin Machine, which, you know,
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: is adorable in the same way calling a lion just
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  Speaker 1: one of the cats is adorable. So what did Tin
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  Speaker 1: Machine sound like? Well, let's imagine. You have late 80s
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  Speaker 1: production mixed with kind of a punk aggression sprinkled with
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  Speaker 1: art rock trappings and just enough Bowie DNA to make
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  Speaker 1: everything feel more than slightly weird. It was loud. It
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  Speaker 1: was abrasive. It was intentionally unpolished. It was fucking weird.
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  Speaker 1: It sounded like Bowie. looked at MTV and gave them
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  Speaker 1: the middle finger and said, what if I become the
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  Speaker 1: opposite of everything you've helped me make these last few years, huh?
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  Speaker 1: And the debut album, Tin Machine, comes out and basically
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  Speaker 1: causes the music world to collectively pause and go, wait,
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  Speaker 1: this is a joke, right? Critics were confused. Fans were confused.
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  Speaker 1: 40-something yuppies were who rocked out to the Let's Dance
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  Speaker 1: album just a few years prior, were frightened for their well-being.
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  Speaker 1: Record executives were checking if they could return the album
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  Speaker 1: like a defective appliance. Because the biggest issue wasn't that
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  Speaker 1: it was bad, though it wasn't all that good either.
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  Speaker 1: The issue was that it was David Bowie refusing to
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  Speaker 1: be David Bowie. And then came the live shows. So
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  Speaker 1: this is where things get truly surreal. Tin Machine gets
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  Speaker 1: booked into small venues, thousand seat theaters, bars, where young
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  Speaker 1: up and coming bands play. And then you would go
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  Speaker 1: to a Tin Machine concert expecting maybe a few Bowie classics.
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  Speaker 1: You're thinking, okay, they have one album of material. So
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  Speaker 1: they'll play that in its entirety. And then I'll hear
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  Speaker 1: Ziggy Stardust and Rebel Rebel for the encore. But instead,
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  Speaker 1: you get aggressive hard rock, extended jams, strange covers of
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  Speaker 1: obscure songs by Neil Young, Roxy Music, the Moody Blues,
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  Speaker 1: minimal stage theatrics, and Bowie actively trying not to be
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  Speaker 1: the center of of attention. So this is like hiring
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  Speaker 1: Don Rickles to do shtick at a family wedding in
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  Speaker 1: 1978 and asking him to be sure not to roast
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  Speaker 1: or offend any of the bridesmaids. There were reports of audiences,
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  Speaker 1: the ones who hadn't gotten up and left, not knowing
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  Speaker 1: how to emotionally process it all. Sure, some people loved it,
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  Speaker 1: but some people looked like they had just seen their
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  Speaker 1: beloved pet run over by a Chrysler LeBaron. Here's the thing, though.
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  Speaker 1: Tin Machine wasn't just a weird phase. It was Bowie
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  Speaker 1: testing something. He was reacting against fame itself, against expectation,
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  Speaker 1: against the idea that he had to keep delivering Bowie products.
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  Speaker 1: In that sense, Tin Machine is actually, ironically, very on-brand
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  Speaker 1: for him. Because Bowie's real talent was never just music.
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  Speaker 1: It was reinvention as a survival mechanism. Even when the
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  Speaker 1: reinvention made absolutely no commercial sense. So, as if one
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  Speaker 1: Tin Machine album wasn't enough, two years later came Tin
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  Speaker 1: Machine 2, which did not exactly fix everyone's confusion. It
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  Speaker 1: didn't exactly sell all that well either. And then, just
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  Speaker 1: when you thought the world had enough of Tin Machine,
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  Speaker 1: or perhaps Bowie should have realized that the world had
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  Speaker 1: enough of Tin Machine, well, then came the live Tin
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  Speaker 1: Machine album called Oy Vey Baby. Because apparently at some point,
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  Speaker 1: Bowie and the fellas thought, you know what the world
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  Speaker 1: needs right now? Yeah, a live Tin Machine album. to
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  Speaker 1: which the record company and record buyers collectively must have sighed,
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  Speaker 1: Oy vey. And when nobody bought that album either, and
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  Speaker 1: it flooded bargain bins everywhere next to the latest Tesla
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  Speaker 1: and Bananarama CDs, Tin Machine quietly dissolved. No dramatic breakup tour,
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  Speaker 1: no scandal, no drummer deciding to leave the band because
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  Speaker 1: he didn't like the musical direction the band was going in,
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  Speaker 1: No final, we hate each other now interviews. No VH1
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  Speaker 1: behind the music episode. Thank Christ. Just fade out. Like
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  Speaker 1: a band that collectively agreed, yeah, this experiment ran its course.
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  Speaker 1: Maybe it wasn't such a good idea in the first place.
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  Speaker 1: It may be more like that season of Dallas where
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  Speaker 1: everyone thought Bobby was dead, but it was actually just
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  Speaker 1: a bad dream. Remember that one? So what happens after this?
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  Speaker 1: Bowie went right back to solo work, eventually returning to
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  Speaker 1: massive success in the mid-90s. He even brought along a
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  Speaker 1: Tin Machine-era souvenir with him on the next few solo tours.
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  Speaker 1: Guitarist Reeves Gabrels would play with Bowie throughout the remainder
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  Speaker 1: of the 1990s before joining The Cure. Not so bad, Reeves. So,
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  Speaker 1: 30-plus years later, What do we do with Tin Machine?
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  Speaker 1: Do we call it a failure, a detour, a midlife
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  Speaker 1: rock crisis? Maybe. But it's also something rare in music history.
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  Speaker 1: A global superstar willingly stepping off the pedestal just to
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  Speaker 1: see what happens when nobody is watching him be legendary.
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  Speaker 1: And the answer was a loud, messy, fascinating band that
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  Speaker 1: confused everyone. including occasionally itself. So the next time you
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  Speaker 1: reinvent yourself in a way absolutely no one asked for,
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  Speaker 1: just remember Tin Machine. and ask yourself, am I evolving
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  Speaker 1: for the better or just for the sake of evolving?
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  Speaker 1: Oy vey. Thanks for listening to John's WTF Music Moments.
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  Speaker 1: See you next time when we ask another deeply unnecessary
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  Speaker 1: question about music history that absolutely nobody requested.