Fashion (song)

Infobox Single
Name = Fashion


Artist = David Bowie
from Album = Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)
B-side = "Scream Like a Baby"
Released = 24 October 1980
Format = 7" single
Recorded = Power Station, New York
Good Earth, London
February-April 1980
Genre = Rock, New Wave
Length = 3:23 (7" single edit)
4:46 (Full-length album version)
Label = RCA Records
BOW 7
Writer =
Producer = David Bowie, Tony Visconti
Certification =
Chart position =
* #5 (UK)
* #7 (Sweden)
* #70 (USA)
Last single = "Ashes to Ashes"
(1980)
This single = "Fashion"
(1980)
Next single = "Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)"
(1981)
Misc = Extra tracklisting
Type = Studio
Album = Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)
prev_track = "Ashes to Ashes"
prev_no = 4
this_track = "Fashion"
track_no = 5
next_track = "Teenage Wildlife"
next_no = 6

"Fashion" is a track from David Bowie's 1980 album "Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)". It was released as the second single from the album and was accompanied, like its predecessor "Ashes to Ashes", by a highly-regarded music video.Roy Carr & Charles Shaar Murray (1981). "Bowie: An Illustrated Record": pp.113-114] Nicholas Pegg (2000). "The Complete David Bowie": pp.75-76]

Music and lyrics

According to co-producer Tony Visconti, "Fashion" was the last song completed in the "Scary Monsters" sessions, its bassline and some of the melody taking inspiration from Bowie's 1975 hit "Golden Years". Guest guitarist Robert Fripp contributed a series of harsh, mechanical riffs to complement the band's funk/reggae arrangement.

The track was notable for its emotionally vacant choir effect, and the recurring onomatopoeia "beep beep" that Bowie had first used in an unreleased 1970 song called "Rupert the Riley". Another phrase Bowie borrowed from his past was "People from Bad Homes", the title track of a 1973 album he recorded with his proteges, The Astronettes, that went unreleased until 1995. [David Buckley (1999). Ibid: p.207]

References to a "goon squad" coming to town provoked theories that the song actually concerns fascism ("the National Front invade the discos", inferred "NME" critics Roy Carr and Charles Shaar Murray). However Bowie played down this interpretation in an interview shortly before the release of "Scary Monsters", saying that what he was trying to do was "move on a little from that Ray Davies concept of fashion, to suggest more of a gritted teeth determination and an unsuredness about why one's doing it". [Angus MacKinnon (1980). "The Future Isn't What It Used to Be". "NME (13 September1980)": p.37] Biographer David Buckley believed the song "poked fun at the banality of the dance-floor and the style fascists" of the New Romantic movement.David Buckley (1999). "Strange Fascination - David Bowie: The Definitive Story": pp.372-374]

Video

David Mallet shot a promotional clip for the single in Manhattan utilising one of the sets from the film "Christiane F.", featuring Bowie performing while a group of emotionless fans robotically re-enact his every move. Amid a series of facial contortions and other gestures, Bowie made use of a move he had employed in the "Ashes to Ashes" video: slowly crouching and bringing his arm down to the ground in a slow vertical arc. "Record Mirror" readers voted "Fashion" and "Ashes to Ashes" the best music videos of 1980.

Release and aftermath

"Fashion" was the second single from "Scary Monsters" and the first issued after the album's September 1980 release. The edited 7" cut reached #5 in the UK, and by hitting #70 in America gave Bowie his first chart single there for four years. The UK sleeve design was adapted for the cover art on the 1980 compilation "Best of Bowie". The song has since been performed on several tours.

Track listing

# "Fashion" (Bowie) – 3:23
# "Scream Like a Baby" (Bowie) – 3:35

The Japan release of the single had "It's No Game (No. 1)" as the B-side.

Production credits

* Producers:
** Tony Visconti
** David Bowie

* Musicians:
** David Bowie: Vocals, Keyboards
** Robert Fripp: Guitar
** George Murray: Bass
** Dennis Davis: Drums
** Andy Clark: Synthesizer

Other releases

* It appeared on the following compilations:
** "ChangesTwoBowie" (single edit) (1981)
** "Golden Years" (1983)
** "Fame and Fashion" (1984)
** "ChangesBowie" (1990)
** "The Singles Collection" (1993)

Cover versions

* Frank Black - Live recording with Bowie in January 1997
* Dandy Warhols - Sampled the song in "I Am a Scientist" on the album "Welcome to the Monkey House"
* Die Lady Di - "Ashes to Ashes: A Tribute to David Bowie" (1998)
* Glamma Kid - Single release as "Fashion '98" (1998)
* High Blue Star - ".2 Contamination: A Tribute to David Bowie" (2006)
* Botox - "BowieMania: Mania, une collection obsessionelle de Beatrice Ardisson" (2007)
* The Sunburst Band - "Moving with the Shakers" (2008)

Notes

References

Pegg, Nicholas, "The Complete David Bowie", Reynolds & Hearn Ltd, 2000, ISBN 1-903111-14-5