Maps of Music

Let's Dance (1983)

Where the lyrics of Let's Dance take you, and where it was really made.

The album that made Bowie a superstar is one he later said belonged more to producer Nile Rodgers than to him.

Key places

Where the album was recorded (1982)

Recording site Power Station Studio — Let's Dance was recorded in December 1982 at the Power Station in New York City. Bowie had also recorded Scary Monsters there. The sessions were completed in 17 days. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Album story

Overview

• Fifteenth studio album by English singer-songwriter David Bowie
• Released 14 April 1983 through EMI America Records
• Co-produced by Bowie and Nile Rodgers
• Recorded in December 1982 at the Power Station in New York City
• Blends post-disco, dance-rock, dance-pop and new wave elements
• Title track and three other singles all performed well commercially
• Remains Bowie's best-selling album, with worldwide sales reported at 10.7 million copies

Background

• Bowie left RCA Records, his label since Hunky Dory (1971), after Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) in 1980
• Signed with EMI America for an estimated $17 million
• After John Lennon's murder in December 1980, Bowie withdrew to his home in Switzerland while continuing to work
• Bowie wanted a new producer and a commercial sound, and chose Rodgers of the R&B band Chic
• Tony Visconti was originally scheduled to produce, but Bowie did not tell him about the change, which damaged their relationship
• Includes a cover of Iggy Pop's 'China Girl' and a cover of Metro's 'Criminal World'
• Includes a reworking of 'Cat People (Putting Out Fire)' from the 1982 film Cat People

Recording

• Sessions ran during the first three weeks of December 1982 and were completed in 17 days
• Engineer was Bob Clearmountain
• Bowie hired an entirely new set of musicians and did not play any instruments himself
• Bowie recorded all of his vocals in two days
• Saw Stevie Ray Vaughan play at the 1982 Montreux Jazz Festival and recruited him as lead guitarist

Cover

• Cover shows Bowie shadow-boxing against a city skyline
• Photograph by Greg Gorman
• Cover painting and package design credited to Derek Boshier and Mick Haggerty

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Tracklist

Sources: musicbrainz.org

Artist

Early life

• Born David Robert Jones on 8 January 1947 in Brixton, London.
• Studied art, music and design; took up saxophone in 1961.
• Adopted the stage name David Bowie in 1966 to avoid confusion with Davy Jones of the Monkees.

Career

• Breakthrough with "Space Oddity" in 1969, reaching the UK top five.
• Glam rock success in 1972 with the Ziggy Stardust persona and album.
• Berlin Trilogy (Low, "Heroes", Lodger) with Brian Eno and Tony Visconti in the late 1970s.
• Greatest commercial success with Let's Dance in 1983.
• Fronted the hard rock band Tin Machine from 1988 to 1992 before resuming a solo career.
• Final studio album Blackstar was released two days before his death in 2016.

Legacy

• Sold over 100 million records worldwide.
• Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996.
• Widely regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Reception

At release

• Musician magazine's David Fricke called it 'Bowie at his best'
• Time's Jay Cocks described it as 'unabashedly commercial, melodically alliterative and lyrically smart at the same time'
• Robert Christgau felt it had a 'perfunctory professional surface' and called it 'pleasantly pointless', apart from the 'interesting' 'Modern Love'
• Smash Hits' Steve Bush found it overall dull
• Carol Cooper of Record magazine called it 'the Young Americans of the '80s' and felt its tracks were 'rather modest'
• NME's Charles Shaar Murray gave unanimous praise, calling it 'some of the strongest, simplest and least complicated music that Bowie has ever made'
• Billboard deemed it 'Bowie's most accessible music in years'
• Cash Box hailed it as his 'most danceable album to date'

Reappraisal

• AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine felt the three hit singles were catchy, but the rest was 'unremarkable plastic soul'
• Dave Thompson's review of 'Modern Love' called it 'a high-energy, effervescent rocker'
• Pitchfork ranked it number 127 in its 2018 list of The 200 Best Albums of the 1980s
• Billboard's Joe Lynch argued it provided 'the template' for alternative dance music 'for the next 30 years'
• The Guardian's Jeremy Allen wrote that a reappraisal 'was all but inevitable'

Records

• Entered the UK Albums Chart at number one and stayed there for three weeks
• Remained on the UK chart for over a year
• Peaked at number four on the US Billboard Top LPs & Tape chart on 24 June 1983 and stayed 69 weeks
• EMI declared it their fastest-selling record since Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967)
• Nominated for Album of the Year at the 26th Annual Grammy Awards in 1984, lost to Michael Jackson's Thriller
• Ranked number 83 on Rolling Stone's 100 Best Albums of the Eighties (1989)
• Ranked number 296 in NME's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time (2013)
• Sold 10.7 million copies worldwide

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• For the first time ever, Bowie himself played no instruments on the album, and he later said he intended it as a singer's album.
• Bowie was originally scheduled to work with Tony Visconti, but learned that Rodgers had been chosen only through a call from an assistant in late 1982.
• Bowie later said in 1997 that the album had put him in a corner because it damaged his integrity.
• The album's sound drew on a 1950s and 1960s blues and R&B influence that Bowie developed while working on Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

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