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Today's ear X-tacy: David Bowie "Fashion"

Today's ear X-tacy features a classic track or deep-cut from the Alternative era every weekday at 10:10.


During his lifetime, David Bowie was not only a musical pioneer, but fashion icon as well. Ever since he rose to prominence in the late '60s, he set trends, if not redefining style. The artist was famous for his ever-changing personas, including the androgynous Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane and the dapper Thin White Duke. His style innovations influenced designers, musicians and fashionistas.

On October 24,1980 Bowie released the single, “Fashion.” It was the final song to be completed during the sessions for Bowie's fourteenth studio album, Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps).

Bowie said that he considered the song to be a sequel to The Kinks' 1966 send-up of the fashion scene, "Dedicated Follower Of Fashion."

While on one hand fascinated by it, Bowie blasted the shallow nature of the fashion industry, once stating: "When I first started going to discos in New York in the early '70s, there was a very high powered enthusiasm and the scene had a natural course about it. It seems now to be replaced by an insidious grim determination to be fashionable, as though it's actually a vocation. There's some kind of strange aura about it."

John is the mid-morning host on WFPK. Email John at jtimmons@lpm.org

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