10 Rock "Sellout" Albums That Are Actually Really Good
2. Let's Dance - David Bowie
The words David Bowie and selling out don't really seem like they ever belong in the same sentence. I mean, ever since the end of the '60s, the Thin White Duke had practically made it his mission to reinvent himself time after time on every subsequent release, from the glam rock of Ziggy Stardust to the mechanical sounds of Station to Station. As the '80s got underway though, it was a time to drop the instruments and time to dance.
Hooking up with producer Nile Rogers, Let's Dance marks a bit of a turning point for Bowie's career, where he started to see some of the biggest successes of his career off of singles like the title track and China Girl. Though you can see the more compromised sound from Bowie on this outing, it's hardly a disservice to the music, as songs become mini pop epics on tracks like Modern Love.
Hell, even songs like the title track still hold up well, with the outlandish chord progression still sounding fresh after almost 40 years. Instead of just selling out in order to get more exposure, this feels more like Bowie's latest reincarnation happened to correspond with the pop music rising to prominence around the same time. It just speaks to the quality of Bowie's songwriting that the one record in his catalog that could be labelled as a sellout contains songs that lesser acts would kill to say they wrote.