The “only” genre David Bowie never wanted to listen to: “Much easier for me”
David Bowie, celebrated throughout his career for fearlessly exploring an enormous range of musical styles, revealed that country and western was the one genre he never listened to. This stands out because Bowie was famed as a musical chameleon who moved fluidly between glam rock, soul, electronica and experimental art rock, making his outright avoidance of one specific genre notable and revealing about his artistic identity.
Bowie stated plainly that country and western was "the only music I didn’t listen to," adding that this remained true throughout his life even as he embraced everything else "from jazz to classical to popular." Commentators suggest this makes sense given country's traditional songwriting conventions sat at odds with Bowie's reinvention-driven, avant-garde persona, and unlike contemporaries such as Bob Dylan, he had little interest in adopting a countrified sound later in his career, preferring to remain distinct from that tradition's crooning outlaws like Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings.
- Bowie said country and western was the only genre he never listened to.
- He embraced almost every other style, from jazz to electronica.
- Country's traditional songwriting clashed with Bowie's reinventive artistic persona.
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David Bowie spent nearly five decades building a reputation as pop music's great shape-shifter, moving through glam rock, soul, electronic experimentation and art rock, often reinventing his sound and image with each new album. That restless curiosity made him one of the most studied and admired figures in modern music, so any comment he made about his own listening habits carries weight for those tracing his artistic influences.
Country and western is a genre rooted in storytelling ballads, twang-heavy instrumentation and figures such as Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings, and it has traditionally followed more fixed songwriting conventions than the genres Bowie favoured. Other major artists of his era, including Bob Dylan, did dip into country influences at points in their careers, which makes Bowie's stated aversion to the genre a point of interest for those examining what shaped, and what didn't shape, his music.