"Art Decade" is an instrumental by English singer-songwriter

David Bowie David Robert Jones (8 January 194710 January 2016), known professionally as David Bowie ( ), was an English singer-songwriter and actor. A leading figure in the music industry, he is regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the ...

, released on his 1977 album '' Low''. The song is named for a street Bowie had encountered in

West Berlin West Berlin (german: Berlin (West) or , ) was a political enclave which comprised the western part of Berlin during the years of the Cold War. Although West Berlin was de jure not part of West Germany, lacked any sovereignty, and was under mi ...

, whose name was a pun on the

art deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

style. In fact, the song itself is, like the rest of the songs on the b-side of ''Low'', a portrait piece of a certain location, in this case, West Berlin. Recounting his impressions, Bowie later called West Berlin "a city cut off from its world, art and culture, dying with no hope of retribution." As a result, the song is slow and attempts a melancholy, depressing sound. The song features a quick introduction on percussion and vibraphone, using a caravan-like drum sound to continue throughout the piece. Bowie's melodic portion of the composition is layered over the synthetic soundscapes of

Brian Eno Brian Peter George St John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno (; born Brian Peter George Eno, 15 May 1948) is a British musician, composer, record producer and visual artist best known for his contributions to ambient music and work in rock, pop an ...

, whose

synthesizer A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...

effects are reminiscent to those of the '' No Pussyfooting'' album from 1973. The song is intentionally repetitive; half the song does not stray from an E major chord while a two note melody repeats over the sound of continuous effects. Despite Bowie being credited solely for the song,

has said he was responsible for saving the song from the out-take pile. The original piece was recorded on a piano, with both Eno and Bowie playing. " en we'd finished it he didn't like it very much and sort of forgot about it. But as it happened, during the two days he was gone I...dug that out to see if I could do anything with it. I put all those instruments on top of what we had and then he liked it and realised there was hope for it, and he worked on top of that adding more instruments."

Hansa Studios Hansa Tonstudio is a recording studio located in the Kreuzberg district of Berlin, Germany. The studio, famous for its Meistersaal recording hall, is situated approximately 150 metres from the former Berlin Wall, giving rise to its former nickna ...

engineer Eduard Meyer played the cellos on the recording.

Live versions

* Performances from the Isolar II Tour have been released on ''

Stage Stage or stages may refer to: Acting * Stage (theatre), a space for the performance of theatrical productions * Theatre, a branch of the performing arts, often referred to as "the stage" * ''The Stage'', a weekly British theatre newspaper * Sta ...

'' (1978) and '' Welcome to the Blackout'' (2018).

Personnel

: Guitar, Vibraphone, Piano, Chamberlin *

: Piano, Mini Moog, Chamberlin *Eduard Meyer: Cellos

Other releases

* The live versions from ''Stage'' was released as the B-side of the single " Breaking Glass" in 1978. * It was released as a picture disc in the

RCA The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse, AT&T Corporation and United Fruit Comp ...

''Life Time'' picture disc set.

Sources

*Greatorex, Johnathan. "Just a Mortal With Potential." Teenage Wildlife. November 1996. 6 March 200

*Griffin, R. "Low." Bowie Golden Years. January 2005. 6 March 200

References

{{authority control David Bowie songs 1977 songs Songs written by David Bowie Rock instrumentals Song recordings produced by David Bowie Song recordings produced by Tony Visconti 1970s instrumentals