Future Nostalgia: Performing David Bowie

by Shelton Waldrep

Overview

Although David Bowie has famously characterized himself as a "leper messiah," a more appropriate moniker might be "rock god": someone whose influence has crossed numerous sub-genres of popular and classical music and can at times seem ubiquitous. By looking at key moments in his career (1972, 1977-79, 1980-83, and 1995-97) through several lenses-theories of sub-culture, gender/sexuality studies, theories of sound, post-colonial theory, and performance studies Waldrep examines Bowie's work in terms not only of his auditory output but his many reinterpretations of it via music videos, concert tours, television appearances, and occasional movie roles. Future Nostalgia looks at all aspects of Bowie's career in an attempt to trace Bowie's contribution to the performative paradigms that constitute contemporary rock music.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781623569938
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	09/24/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	208
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Shelton Waldrep is Professor of English at the University of Southern Maine, USA, and currently the Trustee Professor of the University of Maine System.
Shelton Waldrep is Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Southern Maine, USA. He is the author of The Dissolution of Place: Architecture, Identity, and the Body (2013) and The Aesthetics of Self-Invention: Oscar Wilde to David Bowie (2004), the co-author of Inside the Mouse: Work and Play at Disney World (1995), and the editor of The Seventies: The Age of Glitter in Popular Culture (1999).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

List of Figures

Chapter One Introduction:The Pastiche of Gender

Chapter Two The Persistence of the Dandy:Subcultures and Resistance

Chapter Three Avatars of the Future:Structuring Music

Chapter Four The Grain of the Voice:Autobiography and Multiplicity

Chapter Five The Lost Decade:Reconsidering the 1980s

Chapter Six Music for Cyborgs:Fictions of Disability

General Bibliography

Index

Editorial Reviews

Future Nostalgia is a logical and rigorous exemplar for unpacking the performative palette of popular music's most complex and enduring star. The author has produced a work that critiques David Bowie's uniquely interdisciplinary performances by examining them through a carefully constructed and appropriately interdisciplinary lens. Simply, this is an essential text within the rapidly growing field of Bowie Studies.” —Ian Chapman, Senior Executant Lecturer in Contemporary Music, The University of Otago, New Zealand

“This important book is a Tour-De-Force. Thoroughly researched and beautifully written, Professor Waldrep's book is a major addition to the growing field of study which seeks to unpack one of the most complex, multilayered and learned icons within popular culture. Future Nostalgia: Performing David Bowie is a must for both Bowie scholars and Bowie fans alike.” —Eoin Devereux, Assistant Dean, Research AHSS Faculty, University of Limerick, Ireland & Adjunct Professor of Contemporary Culture, University of Jyvasklya, Finland

“Original, engaging, and well-researched, Future Nostalgia is a welcome contribution to both the field of popular music studies generally and to Bowie scholarship in particular. Combining an interdisciplinary approach—drawing on musicology, music criticism, cultural studies and cultural history, gender studies, and disability studies—with the author's comprehensive knowledge of Bowie's career and oeuvre, this book makes a compelling case for the importance of David Bowie as an artist, performer, and cultural icon.” —Alexander Carpenter, Associate Professor and Director of Music, University of Alberta, Augustana Campus, Canada

“Future Nostalgia emphasizes Bowie’s fascination with theatricality and artifice … Waldrep’s ability to interpret the chameleon twists in Bowie’s work is impressive. He unveils the autobiographical moments and presents a nuanced reading of his often-ambiguous lyrics … Future Nostalgia is the best critical assessment of the Bowie oeuvre that we have; it deftly provides shape and form to an amorphous body of work that often seems to defy interpretation.” -LA Review of Books

“If you have an interest or even a love for the significance of David Bowie and how he shaped our collective appreciation for all things that define the art world, this book should attract your attention…An essential study of one of recent history’s most remarkable renaissance men.” – SLUG Magazine

“Future Nostalgia contributes an expansive interdisciplinary examination of the cultural aesthetic influence of Bowie as he engaged in various performative practices … [Waldrep] drew me in and opened up new cultural and intellectual pathways.” - Cinema Jourbanal

From the Publisher

Original, engaging, and well-researched, Future Nostalgia is a welcome contribution to both the field of popular music studies generally and to Bowie scholarship in particular. Combining an interdisciplinary approach--drawing on musicology, music criticism, cultural studies and cultural history, gender studies, and disability studies--with the author's comprehensive knowledge of Bowie's career and oeuvre, this book makes a compelling case for the importance of David Bowie as an artist, performer, and cultural icon.

Alexander Carpenter

This important book is a Tour-De-Force. Thoroughly researched and beautifully written, Professor Waldrep's book is a major addition to the growing field of study which seeks to unpack one of the most complex, multilayered and learned icons within popular culture. Future Nostalgia: Performing David Bowie is a must for both Bowie scholars and Bowie fans alike.

Eoin Devereux

Future Nostalgia is a logical and rigorous exemplar for unpacking the performative palette of popular music's most complex and enduring star. The author has produced a work that critiques David Bowie's uniquely interdisciplinary performances by examining them through a carefully constructed and appropriately interdisciplinary lens. Simply, this is an essential text within the rapidly growing field of Bowie Studies.

Ian Chapman