Scholarly Journal Article

The scholarly journal article I chose was an article from the “European Journal of Cultural Studies”, and was basically a book review of the book entitled “David Bowie: Fame, Sound, and Vision”. The article was critiquing the take of David Bowie’s career and its cultural impacts by the author Nick Stevenson. Stevenson’s take (with which the article mainly agreed with) was that David Bowie was one artist that was culturally and musically important as an artist.

The article then went through Bowie’s career talking about how David Bowie was much more than just an artist. For example, in the 1960’s the article talked about how David Bowie was an iconic sex symbol in the time period, and was one of the driving forces in the time period that shook up a nation. The article then talks about David Bowie’s work in the 1970’s and how it tied in to the gay liberation movements. Using his skill at making an image for himself and breaking the bonds of conformity with his new idea of musical and cultural changes. The article goes on to talk about Bowie in the 80’s and how Bowie began to conform with everything and began to work just for money and profit, then leading back to his work in present day society.

The overall message of the article and the book that was about David Bowie was that, Bowie was much more than an artist. He was a cultural icon and someone who helped move people around the world with his work in movements like the gay liberation movement and with his music that began to break the norm.