10 Times Popular Musicians Tried Out Completely Unexpected Genres
8. David Bowie - Little Wonder
Bowie has written more drum ‘n bass songs than you’d think - i.e more than none. His lukewarmly-received, mostly-forgotten album “Earthling” found him indulging his love of drum ‘n bass, techno and industrial music, taking cues from musicians like The Prodigy and Underworld.
A hard, heavy album packed with monstrous beats and crunchy, distorted guitars, it’s easy to see how the album disappointed fans: Bowie’s vocal contributions often get lost in the pyrotechnic haze of thundering drums and bass.
Rather than crate-digging for samples, Bowie and producer Reeves Gabrels sampled in-house, recording their studio musicians before importing the sound files into samplers to play around with. The result is a surprisingly enjoyable album. Under-appreciated at a time when drum ‘n bass was losing its novelty, it’s a set of songs that seems impressively forward-looking today.