David Bowie and the Art of Music Video - (New Approaches to Sound, Music, and Media) by Lisa Perrott (Hardcover)

About the Book

"This book tells the story of David Bowie becoming a medium for and an instigator of music videos, and how this shaped almost five decades of music videos to come"--

Book Synopsis

The first in-depth study of David Bowie's music videos across a sustained period takes on interweaving storyworlds of an iconic career. Remarkable for their capacity to conjure elaborate imagery, Bowie's videos provide fascinating exemplars of the artistry and remediation of music video. When their construction is examined across several years, they appear as time-travelling vessels, transporting kooky characters and strange story-world components across time and space.

By charting Bowie's creative and collaborative process across five distinct phases, David Bowie and the Art of Music Video shows how he played a vital role in establishing music video as an artform. Filling a gap in the existing literature, this book shines a light on the significant contributions of directors such as Mick Rock, Stanley Dorfman and David Mallet, each of whom taught Bowie much about how to use the form. By examining Bowie's collaborative process, his use of surrealist strategies and his integration of avant-garde art with popular music and media, the book provides a history of music video in relation to the broader fields of audiovisual media, visual music and art.

Review Quotes

"In this wonderful book, Lisa enables us to see and hear the remarkable assemblages that we find in David Bowie's time-travelling audio-visual work. Art and culture, the aesthetics of fashion and performance, and the politics of race and otherness, are the inter-planetary orbits that are deftly explored through close examination of Bowie's television, promotional and music video performances. Bowie emerges as a figure who remade himself and recast the artforms that he visited - always alien-like, in flux, thirsting for water that would replenish him and us. A must-read addition to the literature on the Starman who killed and saved the world." --Sean Redmond, Professor of Film and Television, Deakin University, Australia

"In David Bowie and the Art of Music Video Lisa Perrott takes us on an entertaining yet scholarly journey through David Bowie's early music videos, from the pre-fame promos of Love You 'Till Tuesday in 1969, all the way up to 1983's global smash Let's Dance. With thoughtful and satisfying analysis, she drills down through layers of representation and reference, revealing new insights into Bowie's creative practice.

Perrott's book looks at Bowie's work with music video as the interconnected, interdisciplinary, richly nuanced body of work that it is. She makes a compelling case for the cultural and scholarly significance of music video as a collaborative, transmedial artform, worthy of deep study." --Leah Kardos, Senior Lecturer in Music, Kingston University, UK, and author of Blackstar Theory (Bloomsbury, 2022)

"It's been a long time coming, but the wait is over! Finally, a book-length study about the music videos of David Bowie. Lisa Perrott has written a comprehensive and thought-provoking study of the music videos of Bowie from the 1969-83 (the sequel, dealing with the later videos is being published this year). This is a significant work that examines the role Bowie played as an avant-garde creator and collaborator who transformed (and helped create) the music video into an art form that generated a dialogue with music, theatre, film, dance, and other artistic forms. The writing is engaging and accessible and Perrott takes the reader on a journey through the cultural, social, and artistic processes that fuelled the mind of this larger-than-life figure and his various personas. It was an utter pleasure diving into the deep analysis of classics such as Space Oddity, Jean Genie, and Ashes to Ashes, while also reading about the intertextual threads that ran across many of the videos across time. This is a must read." --Angela Ndalianis, Professor of Screen and Entertainment Media, Swinburne University of Technology, Australia

About the Author

Lisa Perrott is Senior Lecturer and Researcher in Screen and Media Studies at the University of Waikato, New Zealand. She is co-editor, with Holly Rogers and Carol Vernallis, of the Bloomsbury book series New Approaches to Sound, Music and Media, and the collected volume Transmedia Directors: Artistry, Industry and New Audiovisual Aesthetics. Lisa is also co-editor, with Ana Cristina Mendes, of David Bowie and Transmedia Stardom. Her interests include music video, animation, documentary and transmedia, with an emphasis on the relations between sound, music and visual media. Lisa is currently completing her second Bloomsbury monograph David Bowie and the Transformation of Music Video (1984-2016 and Beyond).