The "Ideal" Bowie lyric

[ponyman13]

Nope.jpg

[ferdinandsouz]

He forgot to say that all the concept around Ziggy Stardust was not optimistic: the end of the world and all that whole thing...

[Joonizzz]

Wow, its nice to see that Bowie makes people study their fields through him or bring Bowie to their daily work/ life. I did that too in high school.. Now i get the feeling that Im not alone!!

[BoysKeepSwingin2]

Well, funny idea for an approach to make a song. It's not un-Bowie-ish to make lyrics that don't make sense in their combination, because Bowie used many time Kerouacs method to make sentences, then cut it up with a scissors en rearrange the parts at random. Many Bowiesongs were made that way, especially in the seventies.

However we will never know until Bowie Himself would sing this song, for your voice does not have any similarity to Bowie. Thats why it gives the songs a country-like sound

[borrow123]

Interesting remarks.

However, I need to "neutralize" the effect, that this performance had on me with some real music :)

(Hope "Fascination" will do.)

Greetings,

Bowie fan from Poland

[reecegeorge]

UNBELIEVABLY THIS GUY SAYS HE LOVES BOWIE.THIS GUY PROBABLY NEVER HEARD A BOWIE ALBUM IN HIS LIFE!!!HE KNOWS BOWIE IS POPULAR[i have more peace thinking this guy is a clever marketeer than ever believing any bowie fan could ever entertain the idea[THE AUDACITYTO THINK THEY CAN DETERMINE THE X FACTOR-.I wanted to say in my last post that i really read with interest,i love poetry "DRS' lyrics in the first line[,but i continued reading with hopeful humour],wondering where his talent lies.Meg George

[reecegeorge]

Perhapsyourship with Bowie is not so healthy,when bowie,the clash anyone earnest gave i truly remember most of society despising and being nowhere near even wanting to understand or get into it. That said' so properly spoken but so dismally misunderstanding the essence of the man',you should be ashamed,who paid for your education!!!This!!! is what you have chosen to ride the back of and bastardise!Bowie Rocks, fave since the 70'sWho paid for your ed,love lyrics,read,stupid uglysong grMeighan

[annial1]

I can easily imagine that David would sing this, just for fun of course :)

Team meet girls.... girls meet team :)

[Kyotihorse13]

Interesting work, I can see where you're coming from, I have a problem with Bowie writing a song about footballers WAG's. This is the image the song conjured in my head, seemed like a sarcastic song, maybe that's my problem, it must have been an interesting project for you though.

[notnotharrison]

taken with a grain of salt (as in recognizing that he's not trying to claim creation of the perfect bowie song, merely exploring his research on bowie songs further through application) this is really cool

[Jitpring]

This is pure vampirism. As such it would no doubt nauseate Bowie.

[academyofrock]

Hi Nick, I think you will enjoy this video I have sent re Ziggy Stardust!

[barakobama]

I understand, and agree, with your approach. I think that you have hit upon a really far reaching cog here. And the song is not bad either...

Now, were the lyrics constructed through randomness (based on the initial data impute)?

The unexamined.....

[CatDesigner]

Semi-random I suppose ... in the same way that a lot of people use cut-ups. I randomised the words but then picked out pairs or trios of words that seemed to go together and then linked these with other pairs/trios to build up a lyric. Though certainly impresionistic I think the lyric does make some sort of sense (in spite of what some people are saying).

[barakobama]

I really think that if one were to detail the tags on the data, with enough runs (increase the N)...things are seen.

Cool stuff....

[STIXtwentythree]

With a bit of proper Bowie input and bowie's voice.

the song wouldn't sound out of place on the hunky dory album

[waldderi]

The words don't make any sense. They're just pure BS... Very un-bowie song.

[CatDesigner]

Hello? Were you actually paying attention to the explanation?

[Redsrevenge]

Have YOU listened to actual Bowie songs? A lot of the time they make absolutely no sense. Bowie himself has claimed he doesn't know what his songs mean because he was strung out on coke when he wrote them.

[sazerac1]

So I ask, what is the most typical Bowie song? Pick one song that exemplifies him best. I'll say Always Crashing in the Same Car. The impossible guitar work is typical. The strangeness is typical.Untypically Bowie.

Just wonderful, Dr. Troop! I love it!

[CatDesigner]

Always Crashing in the Same Car is absolutely one of my favourite Bowie tracks. And Quicksand. And Rock'n'Roll Suicide. And ... etc. But is there a typical Bowie song?

[sharpforkedtongue]

yeah, Ronno and Tony Visconti (or Ken Scott for that matter) are important factors completely missing from this equation.

[CatDesigner]

But like I say in the clip, the fact of this correlation (and the correlation is a fact) may be that it reflects Bowie's motivational state at the time of a particular album and that it's that which is the cause of the success, not the lyrics per se. The lyrics are caused by his psychological state, just as ihs success is caused (or contributed to) by his psychological state. The style of music, quality of production, art work, even other albums released at the same time, would all play a role.

[oledapra]

boy stops swinging...

[alexandreholland]

Although we have now much more understanding about the creative process and how do we use intelligence to create something, for me this only serves to prove how far we are from the complete understanding of the human brain. Nice job, anyway!

[Arielstrm]

Personally I think this song sucked. I didn't even make it half way through it. I couldn't stand the voice.

[naustin]

Shallow theory, boring song.

[fizzerzz]

Really interesting work. I liked the song too. I'll bet you have previously written your own words to this - I would love to hear the original version, it has great potential. Andy H, Herts Uni

[regorneerg]

Bloody brilliant mate...David Bowie eat your heart out!...always knew I should have studied psychology rather than sociology...Dr Rog/ University of Hertfordshire

[rueckwaertssalto]

Hey, I don't know if the song is really the biggest part, I'd rather think it's your performance... but buddy loves good loving is a good lyric :D

yes and also some other lyrical phrases are quite nice indeed.

[nrrtv]

Amazing work, Dr. Troop.

I would love to see some famous songwriter using your research as a base for writing a song. Would be a nice field test.

[jsymons1985]

These lyrics are very positive, and uplifting, however they are lacking in that they are disconnected, they don't have a clear narrative, they are not mellifluous, they have mismatched linguistic (prosody) and musical stress (meter)... in other words they sound clunky!! good singing though!

[CatDesigner]

But as I say in the piece, I was really only taking the correlations with success to extremes. I've had a look back at some of the Bowie data and for a song with high levels of positive emotion words and social words these account for between 25-33% of the song. I got it up to 80%. Obviously this is ridiculously high and you lose natural expression and a narrative. I just thought it was an interesting way to stimulate the songwriting process (it's very different from my own stuff)

[Nonaz1337]

OMG this is hilarious!! such great research! I would love to analyze this from a biological evolutionary point of view.. This goes straight to the basic fundaments of our society and human behaviour. And who would have expected you would be such a good singer as well :)

thank you for this!

/nonaz

[jordanthecat]

What an interesting experiment. Do you think your findings would be about the same if you cast a wider net and analyzed all pop music?

Bowie's records span 40 years. Are the "popular" lyrics of today the same as they were in 1969 when he began his recording career?  I would assume not.

A suggested experiment: analyze the lyrics of the top few hundred singles this year by various artists.

"Perfectly crafted popular hit songs never use the wrong rhyme" - John Prine.

[obehzadi]

An artist/song's success is down to a combination of melody, lyrics, image, position in the public eye (through radio, press, TV, word of mouth, fan following through live shows)

Bowie's success as an artist was due to lyrics alone - during his time he cut out worrds and jumbled them up to get interesting ides for lyrics! His songs were amazing, he was enigmatic and beautiful -

This is crap!

[CatDesigner]

The words people use is a reflection of various things like personality, mood and motivational factors etc. This isn't that contentious an idea in psychology. I say in the video clip that one reason why word type MIGHT correlate with commerical success is that it may reflect Bowie's emotional state at the time (e.g. he may work harder at promotion). All you've done is critique the song - you haven't exlpained why there is a correlation. That's the point of the clip and I'm afraid you missed it.

[heidinabucket]

Reminds me of Morrisy.

[CatDesigner]

In some of my album reviews, that has been a comment from a number of reviewers. So you're not the only one.

[silversparrowdotorg]

I do not hear bowie there. its more like something from velvet goldmine...

[laliloub]

is that derren brown under cover?? he has exactly the same voice/mannerisms!

[CatDesigner]

Derren Brown was born in Croydon in Surrey. I'm from North East Essex. Completely different accent.

[sheilavox]

I am Bowie's fan and I don't think that this lyric is "ideal" for him... There' s no sense at all! But congratulations for your research because Bowie deserves a study, he is a great artist with great songs and voice ;)

[djaflo]

It's a bit dissapointing that, after putting in all the effort to study this concept - corelation between lyrics & succes of a song - mr. Troop could at least have done that little extra effort to make a coherent story out of his sliced up phrases into real lyrics instead of loose phrases... these aren't a lyrics but just words who have a positive vibe. Really original would be putting the conclusions of his study into lyrics using all the 'right' words. He's stopped just before the finishline.

[ohyeth]

i think this guy just wanted an excuse to do his bowie impersonation

[crh4878]

i really don't see it being an impersonation at all. He doesn't even try a "Bowie" voice. Interesting experiment, though.

[fs968a]

This is an excellent music.

congratulations.

- from brazil.

[CatDesigner]

Thank you very much

[shavingcreamrox332]

that song kinda sucked

[HellAlex1988]

wonderful voice, love it =)

btw. wonderful song too ;)

[helenamknox]

It's word soup, but then that's part of the experiment, so I can dig it. I can accept this as an "ideal" Bowie song in theory but, in practice, I'm less certain. But I think Dr. Nick has a nice voice and I love the idea of this research.

[stevieaunty]

Nice work man, much more interesting than my lecturers. Some guys who have commented have totally missed the point, they seem to think you're trying to BE Bowie. Mide you there are some Strange Little Creatures out there. Be great to see what the man himself makes of this. Love on Ya!

[patboberg]

nice sounding but I think you need to take into account personal identification with the theme or subject matter.

Your song is melodically nice but I have no idea what you're singing about.

[CatDesigner]

I think I see verse 1 as being about a boy, verse 2 as being about a girl and verse 3 as being about their relationship. But it is quite impressionistic and generated from randomisation and cut-ups. It was really meant as an illustration, taking the results of the analysis to an extreme. It was certainly not intended to mimic Bowie or to create a story or character-based song. I should also point out that it's also nothing like my own songs either. Just an experiment.

[JulioSalim]

I didn't understand what you were trying to say with this song, maybe because I'm not American or English, who knows...

[skolaric]

It's fascinating research, because it bridges the subjective and the objective, the heart and the mind, the intuition with the number, quality with quantity.

And now, something completely off-topic... What's the make of the guitar? It's a great sounding instrument. Just wondering.

[CatDesigner]

It's a Lakewood D-12 and I love it.

[jcbulhoes]

"Truth wins - an adult love to win awards"? WTF?

[dprista]

Dude, the song is BORING!

[ZeroSumSpiral]

You sound quite intelligent...

[dprista]

Well, if you say so! Thanks!

[ZeroSumSpiral]

...right.

[CatDesigner]

Any sentence beginning with "Dude" is one I can't bring myself to finish reading to the end. What was dprista saying?

[ZeroSumSpiral]

dprista basically said it was boring.

[dprista]

I am sorry for the "dude" if it did not help your comprehension. But I said it was quite boring. Understood now?

[ZeroSumSpiral]

Ahem....No.

[helmsdeep48]

this is pretty cool

[gracebatten]

HAHAHAHA I take it David Bowie is a duffus.

[CatDesigner]

Quite the opposite. Very intelligent and very articulate. A polymath (judging by some of the comments left here, this is a trait shared by some of his fans, but by no means all)

[luizpaulorocha]

Yeah... and maybe the song title could be "Pointless Babble".

[CatDesigner]

"Babble" would be a social word (since it indicates a social activity) but "Pointless" would probably be a negative emotion word, not a positive one. So it wouldn't be a very good title for a lyric that was trying to maximise the use of social and positive emotion words.

[sawunit]

i am not a huge fan of Bowie, but this to me sounds just like a Bowie song, more lyrically though than musically. nice work!

[luizpaulorocha]

it makes no point except proves that art is one thing and science another (is it science, anyway?) and it proves also that writing a song is totally different than putting a sort of -- good or bad -- words together.

[discovear]

I think the concept is fascinating! I wonder what Bowie himself would think. and I'd be really interested in his attempt to write a song concentrating on such words. Concerning the song itself: I find that doesn't sound anything like a Bowie song but instead almost like something Dylan would have written. I'd be really interested to hear a Bob Dylan-esque cover of it ;). Furthermore I'd be really interested to take the same principle to the visual arts end of the spectrum. Cool stuff man!

[delforge33333]

i like it

[OutlawJun]

Very interesting video, and you have a pretty good voice to boot.

[HeXaNoL]

what a noobed gay!

[sailor515]

If Mr. Bowie was dead (which he isn't, luckily, may he live happily forever) he would rotate within his coffin. Sorry.... but this is extreme BS. And Mr. Troop, apart from your ambiguous psychological aproach: leave the songwriting to David.

- A Bowie Fan -

[postbear]

ah, the much sought after lost bowie song, found at last: acoustic markov generator.

[raulcorrea]

OMG, it's so bad! x)

[villagegirl]

actually you have a beautiful voice and melody; I'm sure you've got a lot of the "right" words in there too. But Bowie creates narratives out of those words, so there would almost inevitably be a story about the "elegant" moonlight. Also your styles are totally different, but I'm sure you realize that you're not new wave. Still gorgeous voice and playing in your own right.

[CatDesigner]

A compliment. Thanks very much. An oasis in a desert of negativity. And you're right about the lyric - I'm merely amplifying the processes in Bowie albums that relate to commercial success. The really successful albums have around 15% of the lyrics that are social or positive emotion words. I've taken it to extremes and got it up to about 80% (the rest are conjunctions, articles, prepositions). So it does leave out Bowie's creative process (for the record, it's also not like my own songs either)

[sazerac1]

A Bowie song would be more interesting than this.

When Bowie imitates the Beatles it is spot on.

[BobMobber]

Dude, you suck.

[willamato]

Awful song. Hogwash analytics. A bad joke. Or maybe just a desperate love letter. But it has as little to do with Bowie's "creative process" as a wood tick has to do with a space station.

[nmyrk]

Okay, you do realize this doesn't sound like anything Bowie has ever done? It's some textual analysts "ideal" song somehow, but not in relation to Bowie.

[quartzy]

26 is too low a sample size.

[lora1331]

It is science, no music. So from the perspective of science, this is a hit. But people are so unpredictable, you never can say it before. The perfect experiment would be, that Bowie really plays it, and that hte radiostations play it. But I don't think he would do that.

But, I need to admit that it was very interesting

( Sorry for my horrible English, I'm Flemish ;) )

[CatDesigner]

I would love it if he did. Although an even better experiment would be for me to give Bowie the original, very long list of words I used from the dictionary included in the text analysis program and wrote his own song from scratch. That would be more likely to have the narrative or plot that many people are saying is lacking from mine.

[Dshow0]

C'mon you aren't serious, are you?

[HARFMUSIC]

sounds more like John Denver, I think it's to high for Bowie :-)

[CatDesigner]

Apparently Bowie lost 3 semitones in his range because of decades of smoking. Since he gave up smoking he has pretty much regained them (I can't remember where I read that ... maybe a Tony Visconti interview?)

[wwwselwycom]

cool song!

Best regards, Selwy

[mlkjhgfds]

when music becomes science, we're doomed

[UncleSam13]

Music has always been science, the difference is that its normally mathematics.

[prinsbilliebollie]

you can't take this seriously indeed.

[Elfinacht]

I wonder why Mr. Troop is so interestet in the commercial success of bowie.

Most fans love the less commercial albums, for many reasons, not only because of the lyrics.

And these lyrics seem silly to me. Nothing but cheerfulness, no thrill/tension - and no intention but making a hit.

This isn´t complex enough to analyse, why an when bowie does a hhart hit and when he decides to do something less accessible.

Music isn´t just chords and lyrics.

[bodhranjane]

I think there is something to be said about the musical style, as well as lyrics and positive words, which account for the chart success of Bowie's albums. "Let's Dance" was so popular b/c it was more accessible than "Low" or "Lodger" - although the latter two were far more artistically pleasing to the average Bowie fan. "Ziggy Stardust" appealed to a wider audience because, at heart, it was pure rock --but had not only the word "suicide" in its lyrics, but also "darkness and dismay"

[CatDesigner]

At the time, of course, Low wasn't well received by most Bowie fans. In retrospect we can see what an amazing album it is. And in the song, "Rock'n'Roll Suicide", the word suicide is only mentioned 3 times while "give me your hands 'cos you're wonderful" is repeated more often and this phrase includes social words (give, your) and positive emotion words (wonderful). But you're right to flag up the negative words. I was actually surprised myself. I went back and checked to make sure it was right.

[bodhranjane]

When I was in school I wrote several papers on Bowie- one on Ziggy Stadust for philosophy, even one for a religious studies class! Sure wish I'd had you as a professor!

[girlofthebutterflies]

this is rubbish.

[Jauly]

sounds like lyrics from a sect. too much positiveness misses the tension under the skin.

[Laboratorytalk]

That was a lot better than I expected, but who on Earth is this Tim fellow and why do so many girls want to meet him?

[filefool]

Not any weirder than most bowie lyrics. ;-)

With some serious effort put into the right sound, this song could have been a hit.

[connyvanhaan]

Come on David! Make a new song out of it!!!!!!!!!