History Music / LetsDance

''Let's Dance'' is the fifteenth studio album recorded by English rock musician Music/DavidBowie. It was released through Creator/EMIAmericaRecords on 14 April 1983.

* RecordProducer: Nile Rodgers of Music/{{Chic}}.

[[caption-width-right:350:''"Sway through the crowd to an empty space."'']]

''Let's Dance'' is the fifteenth studio album by Music/DavidBowie, released in 1983.

Having finally broken ties with Creator/RCARecords after worsening CreativeDifferences throughout the late '70s, and having spent several years wrangling with a costly and lopsided severance agreement with his ex-manager, Bowie was determined to have a big, moneymaking hit with his first release for Creator/EMIAmericaRecords. With this in mind, he enlisted Music/{{Chic}} guitarist Nile Rodgers as producer and came up with his most mainstream album to date, a collection of radio-friendly pop rock tunes rooted strongly in post-{{disco}} (though not without Bowie's traditionally dark lyrical undercurrents).

* SpiritualSuccessor: Bowie himself considered this album one to ''Music/YoungAmericans'', as both are uncharacteristically mainstream-accessible albums consisting of eight songs that combine black music (soul and funk for ''Young Americans'', post-disco for ''Let's Dance'') with Bowie's trademark dark & artsy musical and lyrical undercurrents.

* FaceOnTheCover: Bowie's torso and face, shown in a fighting stance against a painting of a city skyline.

Released at a time when Black post-disco artists like Music/MichaelJackson and Music/{{Prince}} were breaking back through to white audiences (after a lengthy shunning of Black music in the wake of the 1979 DiscoSucks movement), the album was even more successful than he planned. "Modern Love" and the title track were international Top 5 hits (with the latter being his ''only'' single to top both the UK Singles chart and the Billboard Hot 100) and the follow-up Serious Moonlight Tour of '83 a sell-out worldwide. The album itself topped the charts in the UK, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, France, Japan, Norway, and Sweden, peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard 200, and went on to become the second-best-selling album of 1983 in the UK and Canada. It was later certified quintuple-platinum in Canada, platinum in the UK, the US, France, the Netherlands, and New Zealand, and gold in Finland and Spain.

* FaceOnTheCover: Bowie's torso and face, shown from a distance.

* PerformanceVideo: The video for "Modern Love".

* TitleTrack:
--> ''Let's Dance!''

Having finally broken ties with Creator/RCARecords after worsening CreativeDifferences throughout the late '70s, and having spent several years wrangling with a costly and lopsided severance agreement with his ex-manager, Bowie was determined to have a big, moneymaking hit with his first release for Creator/EMIAmericaRecords. With this in mind, he enlisted [[Music/{{Chic}} Nile Rodgers]] as producer and came up with his most mainstream album to date, a collection of radio-friendly pop-rock tunes (though not without Bowie's traditionally dark lyrical undercurrents).

The album was even more successful than he planned-- "Modern Love" and the title track were international Top 5 hits (with the latter being his ''only'' single to top both the UK Singles chart and the Billboard Hot 100) and the follow-up Serious Moonlight Tour of '83 a sell-out worldwide. The album itself topped the charts in the UK, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, France, Japan, Norway, and Sweden, peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard 200, and went on to become the second-best-selling album of 1983 in the UK and Canada. It was later certified quintuple-platinum in Canada, platinum in the UK, the US, France, the Netherlands, and New Zealand, and gold in Finland and Spain.

* {{Bowdlerize}}: The steamy {{Homage}} to ''Film/FromHereToEternity'' at the end of the music video for "China Girl" was graphic enough that it had to be re-cut; the only home video release that includes the original version is the ''David Bowie — Video 45'' VHS from 1983. The scene is also available on the video's official [=YouTube=] upload.

* ShirtlessScene: The album artwork depicts Bowie in a fighting stance without wearing a shirt.

* RearrangeTheSong: "Cat People (Putting Out Fire)" was originally written as the TitleTrack to the 1982 remake of ''Film/CatPeople'' before being re-recorded for this album. Bowie initially intended to use the '82 version on the record, but Creator/{{MCA}} (who owned the film soundtrack) denied permission.

* TakeThat:
** "China Girl" is an open jab at Asian fetishism; the music video makes this even more overt, intentionally playing up a number of Asian stereotypes to make people who earnestly believe in them look silly and cartoonish.
** Music/FrankZappa (who had a long-standing animus against Bowie, partly stemming from Bowie's poaching of his sidemen Aynsley Dunbar and Adrian Belew in 1978) would mock the music video for "Let's Dance" in his anti-MTV song "Be In My Video" (1984) from ''Music/ThemOrUs'':
--> ''We will dance the blues (oh yes)''
--> ''Let's dance the blues (we will ''dance'' them very much)''
--> ''Let's dance the blues (sure we will) under the megawatt moonlight!''

* OneWomanSong: "China Girl".

Having finally broken ties with Creator/RCARecords after worsening CreativeDifferences throughout the late 70's, and having spent over a decade of putting up with an unsatisfactory contract that provided him with just a sliver of the money he earned, Bowie was determined to have a big, moneymaking hit with his first release for Creator/EMIAmericaRecords. With this in mind, he enlisted [[Music/{{Chic}} Nile Rodgers]] as producer and came up with his most mainstream album to date, a collection of radio-friendly pop-rock tunes (though not without Bowie's traditionally dark lyrical undercurrents).

* AlternateCharacterInterpretation: Invoked in Bowie's version of "China Girl". Producer Nile Rodgers interpreted the song as a metaphor for speedballing -- "China Girl" being code for China White heroin and cocaine (referred to as "girls" among New York druggies, with heroin also being "boys"). Bowie wrote the song as a satire of the fetishization of Asian women, but liked Rodgers' interpretation and how it informed the more pop-friendly arrangement of what was originally a rough proto-PostPunk track.

* {{Bowdlerize}}: The steamy {{Homage}} to ''Film/FromHereToEternity'' at the end of the music video for "China Girl" was graphic enough that it had to be re-cut; the only home video release that includes the original version is the David Bowie — Video 45 VHS from 1983. The scene is also available on the video's official [=YouTube=] upload.

* DeliberateValuesDissonance: The video for "China Girl". Bowie intended to present an anti-racist message through the video [[RefugeInAudacity by making it as blatantly stereotypical as possible.]] Best exemplified by this [[http://media0.giphy.com/media/k24zo2tuswQow/giphy.gif clip]].

* TakeThat: Music/FrankZappa (who had a long-standing animus against Bowie, partly stemming from Bowie's poaching of his sidemen Aynsley Dunbar and Adrian Belew in 1978) would mock the music video for "Let's Dance" in his anti-MTV song "Be In My Video" (1984) from ''Music/ThemOrUs'':

# [[Music/HotSpace "Under Pressure"]] [[note]]A collaboration with Music/{{Queen}}, originally released on their 1982 album ''Hot Space''[[/note]]

The album was even more successful than he planned-- "Modern Love" and the title track were international Top 5 hits (with the latter being his ''only'' single to top both the UK Singles chart and the Billboard Hot 100) and the follow-up Serious Moonlight Tour of '83 a sell-out worldwide. The album itself topped the charts in the UK, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, France, Japan, Norway, and Sweden, peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard 200, and went on to become the second-best-selling album of 1983 in the UK and Canada. It was later certified quintuple-platinum in Canada, platinum in the UK, the US, France, the Netherlands, and New Zealand, and gold in Finland and Spain. This unprecedentedly high success caused a NewbieBoom, and to this day, ''Let's Dance'' remains Bowie's highest-selling album ever released, selling over 10.7 million copies around the world over the decades. As a testament to its commercial popularity, the 1999 remastered CD alone was certified silver by the British Phonographic Industry. The album was later nominated for Album of the Year at the 1984 Grammy Awards, only to lose out to Music/MichaelJackson's ''Music/{{Thriller}}''.

This success was a double-edged sword for Bowie though. While critical assessment remains positive today (''Magazine/RollingStone'' for one dubbed it "the conclusion of arguably the greatest 14-year run in rock history"), it was initially met with a more mixed response from the press, and in subsequent years the album has come to be seen as triggering a DorkAge for Bowie, as his next two albums (1984's ''Music/{{Tonight}}'' and 1987's ''Music/NeverLetMeDown'') would try to duplicate its success to diminishing returns from both his established fan-base and the newbies to the fold. As a result, the stock comment for Bowie's post-DorkAge output was that new Bowie albums were "his best since ''[[Music/ScaryMonstersAndSuperCreeps Scary Monsters]]''", his 1980 PostPunk[=/=][[NewWaveMusic New Wave]] effort that immediately preceded it. Still, the album was never hated by any means, and its reception would eventually grow more positive with time, galvanizing with Bowie's death in 2016; in 2012, it would be listed at No. 296 on ''Magazine/{{NME}}''[='s=] [[UsefulNotes/NME500GreatestAlbumsOfAllTime list of the 500 greatest albums of all time]], and as of 2020 it stands at No. 1076 on ''WebSite/AcclaimedMusic''[='s=] [[UsefulNotes/AcclaimedMusicAllTimeTopAlbums dynamic list]] of the 3000 most critically lauded albums.

This success was a double-edged sword for Bowie though. While critical assessment remains positive today (''Magazine/RollingStone'' for one dubbed it "the conclusion of arguably the greatest 14-year run in rock history"), it was initially met with a more mixed response from the press, and in subsequent years the album has come to be seen as triggering a DorkAge for Bowie, as his next two albums (1984's ''Music/{{Tonight}}'' and 1987's ''Music/NeverLetMeDown'') would try to duplicate its success to diminishing returns from both his established fan-base and the newbies to the fold. As a result, the stock comment for Bowie's post-DorkAge output was that new Bowie albums were "his best since ''[[Music/ScaryMonstersAndSuperCreeps Scary Monsters]]''", his 1980 PostPunk[=/=][[NewWaveMusic New Wave]] effort that immediately preceded it. Still, the album was never hated by any means, and its reception would eventually grow more positive with time, galvanizing with Bowie's death in 2016; in 2012, it would be listed at No. 296 on ''Magazine/{{NME}}''[='s=] [[UsefulNotes/NME500GreatestAlbumsOfAllTime list of the 500 greatest albums of all time]], and as of 2020 it stands at No. 1076 on ''WebSite/AcclaimedMusic''[='s=] [[UsefulNotes/AcclaimedMusicAllTimeTopAlbums dynamic list]] of the 3000 most critically lauded albums.

This success was a double-edged sword for Bowie though. While critical assessment remains positive today (''Magazine/RollingStone'' for one dubbed it "the conclusion of arguably the greatest 14-year run in rock history"), it was initially met with a more mixed response from the press, and in subsequent years the album has come to be seen as triggering a DorkAge for Bowie, as his next two albums (1984's ''Music/{{Tonight}}'' and 1987's ''Music/NeverLetMeDown'') would try to duplicate its success to diminishing returns from both his established fan-base and the newbies to the fold. As a result, the stock comment for Bowie's post-DorkAge output was that new Bowie albums were "his best since ''[[Music/ScaryMonstersAndSuperCreeps Scary Monsters]]''", his 1980 PostPunk[=/=][[NewWaveMusic New Wave]] effort that immediately preceded it. Still, the album was never hated by any means, and its reception would eventually grow more positive with time, galvanizing with Bowie's death in 2016; in 2012, it would be listed at No. 296 on ''Magazine/{{NME}}''[='s=] [[UsefulNotes/NME500GreatestAlbumsOfAllTime list of the 500 greatest albums of all time]], and as of 2020 it stands at No. 1076 on ''WebSite/AcclaimedMusic''[='s=] [[UsefulNotes/AcclaimedMusicAllTimeTopAlbums dynamic list]] of the 3000 most critically lauded albums.

The album was even more successful than he planned-- "Modern Love" and the title track were international Top 5 hits (with the latter being his ''only'' single to top both the UK Singles chart and the Billboard Hot 100) and the follow-up Serious Moonlight Tour of '83 a sell-out worldwide. The album itself topped the charts in the UK, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, France, Japan, Norway, and Sweden, peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard 200, and went on to become the second-best-selling album of 1983 in the UK and Canada. It was later certified quintuple-platinum in Canada, platinum in the UK, the US, France, the Netherlands, and New Zealand, and gold in Finland and Spain. This unprecedentedly high success caused a NewbieBoom, and to this day, ''Let's Dance'' remains Bowie's highest-selling album ever released, selling over 10.7 million copies around the world over the decades. As a testament to its commercial popularity, the 1999 remastered CD alone was certified silver by the British Phonographic Industry. The album was later nominated for Album of the Year at the 1984 Grammy Awards, only to lose out to Music/MichaelJackson's ''Music/{{Thriller}}'',

* CoverVersion: "China Girl", from Music/IggyPop's ''Music/TheIdiot'', and "Criminal World, from English glam rock band Metro's 1977 SelfTitledAlbum.

* RecycledInSpace: "China Girl" is a cover of a song he co-wrote for Music/IggyPop's album ''Music/TheIdiot'' in 1977. "Cat People (Putting Out Fire)", meanwhile, is a rerecorded version of a song Bowie himself recorded with Music/GiorgioMoroder a year earlier for [[Film/CatPeople the motion picture of the same name]].

* RecycledInSpace: "China Girl" is a cover of a song he co-wrote for Music/IggyPop's album ''Music/TheIdiot'' in 1977. "Cat People (Putting Out Fire)", meanwhile, is a rerecorded version of a song Bowie himself recorded a year earlier for [[Film/CatPeople the motion picture of the same name]].

* ShoutOut: "Cat People (Putting Out Fire)" was used in ''Film/InglouriousBasterds'' from 2009 [[spoiler: during the scene where Shoshanna sets the film theatre on fire]].

''Let's Dance'' is the sixteenth studio album by Music/DavidBowie, released in 1983.

Having finally broken ties with Creator/RCARecords after worsening CreativeDifferences throughout the late 70's, and having spent over a decade of putting up with an unsatisfactory contract that provided him with just a sliver of the money he earned, Bowie was determined to have a big, moneymaking hit with his first release for EMI. With this in mind, he enlisted [[Music/{{Chic}} Nile Rodgers]] as producer and came up with his most mainstream album to date, a collection of radio-friendly pop-rock tunes (though not without Bowie's traditionally dark lyrical undercurrents).

* DeliberateValuesDissonance: The video for "China Girl". Bowie intended to present an anti-racist message through the video [[RefugeInAudacity by making it as blatantly stereotypical as possible.]] Best exemplified by this [[http://media0.giphy.com/media/k24zo2tuswQow/giphy.gif clip]]

[[caption-width-right:350:''If you should fall into my arms, and tremble like a'' '''''[[LargeHam FLOOOOOOOOWER!]]''''']]

# "Under Pressure" [[note]]A collaboration with Music/{{Queen}}, originally released on their 1982 album ''Hot Space''[[/note]]

This success was a double-edged sword for Bowie though. While critical assessment remains positive today (''Magazine/RollingStone'' for one dubbed it "the conclusion of arguably the greatest 14-year run in rock history"), it was initially met with a more mixed response from the press, and in subsequent years the album has come to be seen as triggering a DorkAge for Bowie, as his next two albums (1984's ''Music/{{Tonight}}'' and 1987's ''Music/NeverLetMeDown'') would try to duplicate its success to diminishing returns from both his established fan-base and the newbies to the fold. As a result, the stock comment for Bowie's post-DorkAge output was that new Bowie albums were "his best since ''[[Music/ScaryMonstersAndSuperCreeps Scary Monsters]]''", his 1980 PostPunk[=/=][[NewWaveMusic New Wave]] effort that immediately preceded it.

* AllAsiansLookAlike and MistakenNationality: Music/IggyPop's infatuation for an Asian woman was the inspiration for "China Girl", a song that appeared earlier on his solo debut ''Music/TheIdiot'' from 1977, which was also produced by Bowie. Even though she was actually Vietnamese.

* NewSoundAlbum: The third big 180, ditching the unique brand of rough, abstract art rock that Bowie had built up with Tony Visconti & Music/BrianEno in continental Europe in favor of mainstream pop rock & post-disco. The closest tie to Bowie's earlier work is the re-recorded version of "Cat People (Putting Out Fire)" included on this album, which still maintains a visible connection to the original 1982 version's PostPunk direction.

The album was even more successful than he planned-- "Modern Love" and the title track were international Top 5 hits (with the latter being his ''only'' single to top both the UK Singles chart and the Billboard Hot 100) and the follow-up Serious Moonlight Tour of '83 a sell-out worldwide, while the album itself topped the charts in the UK, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, France, Japan, Norway, and Sweden, peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard 200, and went on to become the second-best-selling album of 1983 in the UK and Canada. It was later certified quintuple-platinum in Canada, platinum in the UK, the US, France, the Netherlands, and New Zealand, and gold in Finland and Spain. This unprecedentedly high success caused a NewbieBoom, and to this day, ''Let's Dance'' remains Bowie's highest-selling album ever released, selling over 10.7 million copies around the world over the decades. As a testament to its commercial popularity, the 1999 remastered CD alone was certified silver by the British Phonographic Industry. The album was later nominated for Album of the Year at the 1984 Grammy Awards, only to lose out to Music/MichaelJackson's ''Music/{{Thriller}}'',