She says "Shh..."

I often find myself unable to listen to David Bowie's cover of China Girl. Any time I listen to the Let's Dance album, I skip the song or lower the volume enough to barely hear it. One time, I was with a group of friends, and the cover came on. Instantly, I recoiled in disgust and quickly skipped to the next song. I think we all had a nice laugh. I'm not kidding, I did recoil in disgust. I think I writhed a bit, too.

It's because I find that David Bowie's cover of China Girl is more style and not enough substance. I realize how odd this must sound but I feel it'll make sense once I give some sort of explanation. What I mean by being more style is that that it has too much of a pop sound to it. I know how odd that sounds given that Let's Dance was pretty much a pop album. Too much pop, gleam, and this overproduced feel to the song only hinders it, for me. It had too much of an 80's pop feel to it which isn't always a bad thing, see The Cars' Shake it Up for an 80's pop song that doesn't sound so... odd. I'm also not a fan of SRV's guitar work on this song in particular. Too much blatantly 80's gleamy overproduced pop for my taste. The bass is fucking tight, though.

And then there's the delivery. It lacks heart and conviction causing it to come off as detached and uncaring. Whereas Iggy Pop's version had this sort of weary but steadfast passion and genuineness to it, as well as a certain kind of vulnerability and almost romantic desperation. Bowie's comes off as too restrained and nonchalant and generally uncaring (like I said, but it's worth repeating as to drive my point forward). Whereas Pop comes off as a genuine fellow singing about the titular China Girl. Now, a lot of people will argue that Iggy Pop sounds like he was singing about heroin. While I don't agree with that particular interpretation, I won't actually hold any animosity towards anyone who does. Well, not much because I should point out that the inspiration for the song came when Iggy Pop was smitten with some dude's Asian wife who rejected him. (When I get more details, I'll edit this portion of the entry so it doesn't come off as weird and somewhat brash). In a nutshell: Pop seems to care, whereas Bowie's on a seemingly nonchalant auto-pilot.

True, Bowie only recorded and released the cover to help Iggy Pop get back on his feet financially, but that's still no excuse to be underwhelming and not give your best. Hell, if you're doing it to help a friend you should probably be more motivated to make sure your cover sells like hot cakes or some other lucrative commodity that people would buy in large(r) quantities! Still, Bowie's cover introduced more people to the works of Iggy Pop so it isn't all bad.

Right?