1975: Fame, David Bowie (Plastic Soul)

Plastic soul is a term coined by an unknown black musician in the 1960s, describing Mick Jagger as a white musician singing soul music. Paul McCartney heard the comment and later said that the name of the The Beatles album Rubber Soul was inspired by the term "plastic soul". In a studio conversation recorded in June 1965 after recording the first take of "I'm Down", McCartney says "Plastic soul, man. Plastic soul." David Bowie described his own funky, soulful songs released in the early-to-mid 1970s as "plastic soul". These singles sold well, and Bowie became one of the few white performers to be invited to perform on Soul Train. In a 1976 Playboy interview, Bowie described his then-recent album Young Americans as "the definitive plastic soul record. It's the squashed remains of ethnic music as it survives in the age of Muzak, written and sung by a white limey." [more...]

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