Now?” from his
new album The Next Day on the computer today, what a way begin after ten years! A friend of mine
on twitter told me something quite interesting how this song and another song
from the movie The Ice Storm called “I Can’t Read” have a similar if not the
same mellow tone as “Where Are We Now?”
There are some intriguing references and similarities that I also
noticed. One being that the cover art of The Next Day was a subvert of Heroes
which was back in 1977, not only that it looks similar to Pet Shop Boys Elysium
cover art, the square in the middle of the portrait. “I Can’t Read” the video was directed by Tim
Pope and Soft Cell was one of the bands he directed and if I’m not mistaken Marc
Almond liked the new single as well, but was sad he didn’t see it sooner or
something. Two is that “I Can’t Read”
and “Where Are We Now?”, have Bowie’s face in an oval shaped facial expression
like a mask. Another thing is that both videos have to do with surrealism and
expressionism art and a vintage or desolate and abandon them. Which will bring
to my next similarity I’ve noticed Bowie mentioned about “walking the dead” and
how Pet Shop Boys “Leaving” is a theme about a subject about being “dead and fading
away” and I’ve read Clare McCreesh’s blog about the similarities between
Bowie’s new single and Pet Shop Boys’ Elysium about how the two videos had a
black and white footage of Berlin. And it could be a high possibility that
Bowie referenced The Pet Shop Boys, in fact if that’s the case, that would be
really cool and astounding because they did collaborated with them for “Hallo
Spaceboy” and he is one of their inspirations. Not only that but if it was like "Leaving" and the "Where Are We Now?" on the same album, then it would be like a continuation on a journey of some sort. There’s also a photo of David
Bowie on the official Pet Shop Boys site, it reminded me of the Pandemonium
where Neil and Chris with the cubes for heads. I find this quite amazing! I’m
glad David Bowie is back with music, also really cool to start the New Year and his birthday! I think there's a tiny reference of "I'm With Stupid" on "Where Are We Now?" because of the heads being on some dummies body.
