{"id":2039,"date":"2025-09-21T04:07:04","date_gmt":"2025-09-21T04:07:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/countrymusictune.com\/?p=2039"},"modified":"2025-09-21T04:07:04","modified_gmt":"2025-09-21T04:07:04","slug":"baba-oriley-vs-teenage-wildlife-vs-god-the-battle-of-the-three-greatest-midlife-crisis-anthems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/countrymusictune.com\/?p=2039","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Baba O\u2019Riley\u2019 vs \u2018Teenage Wildlife\u2019 vs \u2018God\u2019: The battle of the three greatest midlife crisis anthems"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 1980,\u00a0David Bowie\u00a0would drop the last of his classic run of albums with the art-rock marvel\u00a0Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Superstardom and greater commercial heights would follow in the aftermath of\u00a0Let\u2019s Dance<\/em>\u2019s peroxide, soul boy domination of MTV three years later, but\u00a0Scary Monsters<\/em>\u2026 stood as the closing bookend of a phenomenal body of work that defined the 1970s and dictated much of punk and the new wave his last LP hurrah was dropped in. From\u00a0The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars<\/em>\u2019 glam zenith toward the chilly electronic exorcisms that haunt his so-called \u2018Berlin Trilogy\u2019, Bowie had fashioned both pop and alternative\u2019s blueprint which would collide in creative fashion upon the new decade\u2019s arrival.<\/p>\n

With the exotic\u00a0Lodger<\/em>\u00a0behind him, Bowie looked with equal parts fascination and cynicism at the emerging Blitz scene that congregated in London\u2019s Covent Garden every Tuesday. All shaped by Ziggy Stardust\u2019s exotic alien glamour in their youth, the New Romantics\u2019 flamboyant embrace of androgynous extravagance, coupled with the associated synthpop scene that would serve its weekly DJ nights, Bowie found himself a most welcome guest when he snuck in to the bar\u2019s top room surreptitiously by Blitz honchos Steve Strange and Rusty Egan.<\/p>\n

Strange would appear in the pioneering video for \u2018Ashes to Ashes\u2019 among other Blitz regulars of the day, Bowie ever the shrewd artistic manoeuvrer of where pop\u2019s winds were blowing, but a diffidence was held with much of the scene. Bowie was in his 30s as plans for\u00a0Scary Monsters<\/em>\u2026\u2019s session were due, and the grappling of his legacy was accelerated by the scores of new artists about to litter\u00a0Top of the Pops<\/em>\u00a0that had all too obviously \u2018borrowed\u2019 elements of his craft, harbouring a particular contempt for\u00a0Gary Numan<\/a>\u2019s\u00a0Low<\/em>-heavy automaton shtick.<\/p>\n

While lyrically ambiguous as ever, the complex feelings surrounding his cultural impact as he waded through the ruminative fug of a soft midlife crisis were poured into the new wave coated \u2018Teenage Wildlife\u2019, boasting the wry barbs: \u201cSame old thing in brand new drag comes sweeping into view \/ As ugly as a teenage millionaire pretending it\u2019s a whizz kid world\u201d. A wry putdown on the imitators around him, Bowie also presents a lyrical flashlight to his life and legacy, asking himself, \u201cA broken-nosed mogul \/ Are you one of the new wave boys?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Teenage Wildlife\u2019 sounds awfully like a lyric from one of The Who\u2019s biggest songs. Strangely featuring Pete Townsend\u2019s guitar work on the same album\u2019s \u2018Because You\u2019re Young\u2019, \u2018Baba O\u2019Riley\u2019 from nearly ten years earlier, too touched on the bewildering daze that comes with age and disillusionment. The second single from 1971\u2019s\u00a0Who\u2019s Next<\/em>\u00a0and originally intended for the abandoned\u00a0Lifehouse<\/em>\u00a0project, the \u201cIt\u2019s only teenage wasteland\u201d line was directly inspired by the flotsam of drug-addled hippies and strewn rubbish witnessed at their 1969 Isle of Wight and Woodstock Festival performances, an image of failed counterculture that coloured The Who\u2019s material as they moved away from the peace and love idyll of the 1960s, a movement they always had one foot out of.<\/p>\n

A year before that, old\u00a0Dirty Mac\u00a0member John Lennon entered a brand new creative spell, making sense of his career and life. Turning 30, Lennon pivoted to a direction of naked, self-confessional, shaking off The Beatles\u2019 weighty lumber and chasing iconoclastic catharsis wrought from his primal scream therapy at the time. Featured on 1970\u2019s solo debut\u00a0John Lennon\/Plastic Ono Band<\/em>, \u2018God\u2019 unveils a private communiqu\u00e9 with the higher powers that be, warding off all pop-cultural, political, and historical baggage before arriving at the epiphanous, \u201cI don\u2019t believe in The Beatles \/ I just believe in me\u201d.<\/p>\n

The dreaded existential seizure that can strike around your 30s all inspired three immortal cuts that stood as their respective creators\u2019 most lauded works. Arguably, no one pulled off the crisis-inspired record better than The Cure, who spun the defining\u00a0Disintegration<\/em>\u00a0in 1989 over frontman Robert Smith\u2019s anxiety of leaving his 20s behind, just as Bowie was pulled out of a second crisis of his own during the Tin Machine career renewal.<\/p>\n

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