The Jean Genie

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"The Jean Genie"
Single by David Bowie
from the album Aladdin Sane
B-side"Ziggy Stardust"
Released24 November 1972 (1972-11-24)
Recorded6 October 1972 (1972-10-06)
StudioRCA, New York City
Genre
Length4:07
LabelRCA
Songwriter(s)David Bowie
Producer(s)
David Bowie singles chronology
"John, I'm Only Dancing"
(1972) 		"The Jean Genie"
(1972) 		"Drive-In Saturday"
(1973)
Music video
"The Jean Genie" on
YouTube

"The Jean Genie" is a song by the English singer-songwriter

UK Singles Chart
.

Background and recording

"The Jean Genie" originated on the

smorgasbord of imagined America" and "my first New York song."[5]

The recording took place at New York's RCA Studios on 6 October 1972.[7] "I had a really great conversation with [bassist] Trevor Bolder," recalled Def Leppard's Joe Elliott. "I said, 'You remember when you were doing The Jean Genie?' He said, 'No. We did it in an hour and a half.'"[8]

Mixing occurred the following week at RCA Studio B in Nashville, Tennessee;[9] the original single mix is in narrow stereo, while the stereo soundscape is wider in the album mix.

Music and lyrics

The song's chugging R&B riff is often compared to the Yardbirds, especially their cover of Bo Diddley's "I'm a Man",[3][10] but was most probably inspired by French singer Jacques Dutronc's La Fille du Père Noël (1966), while the lyrics have been likened to the "stylised sleaze" of the Velvet Underground.[10] The subject matter was inspired in part by Bowie's friend Iggy Pop or, in Bowie's own words, "an Iggy-type character... it wasn't actually Iggy."[5] The line "He's so simple minded, he can't drive his module" later gave the band Simple Minds their name.[5]

The title has long been taken as an allusion to the author Jean Genet.[10] Bowie was once quoted as saying that this was "subconscious... but it's probably there, yes".[5] In his 2005 book Moonage Daydream, he stated this less equivocally: "Starting out as a lightweight riff thing I had written one evening in NY for Cyrinda's enjoyment, I developed the lyric to the otherwise wordless pumper and it ultimately turned into a bit of a smorgasbord of imagined Americana ... based on an Iggy-type persona ... The title, of course, was a clumsy pun upon Jean Genet".[11]

Music video

Bowie at the Mars Hotel, 192 Fourth Street, San Francisco, California, 1972

Mick Rock directed a film clip to promote the song, in October 1972 in San Francisco,[12] mixing concert and studio footage of Bowie performing with the Spiders from Mars, along with location shots of the singer posing at the Mars Hotel with Cyrinda Foxe.[6] Bowie wanted the video to depict "Ziggy as a kind of Hollywood street-rat" with a "consort of the Marilyn brand". This led to Foxe's casting, and she flew from New York to San Francisco especially for the shoot.[11]

Bowie also recorded "The Jean Genie" for BBC's Top of the Pops, the performance being broadcast on 4 January 1973. Unusual for the era, the four-piece band performed live, and included an extended guitar solo by Ronson.[13] Tapes of this edition of Top of the Pops were subsequently wiped, but a copy was made by BBC cameraman John Henshall, who had utilised the then new fisheye lens camera techniques for the performance. Henshall was contacted to share his historic material, and was surprised to find he was the only one with a surviving copy. The film has since been preserved and was shown at the British Film Institute in December 2011.[14] The BBC re-broadcast the clip in its Top of the Pops 2 Christmas Special on 21 December 2011, for the first time since the original broadcast in January 1973.[13]

Release and reception

"The Jean Genie" was released on 24 November 1972 by

UK Singles Chart, peaking at No. 2, making it Bowie's biggest hit until that time; it was kept off the top spot by Little Jimmy Osmond's "Long Haired Lover from Liverpool".[5] In the US, it reached No. 71 on the Billboard Hot 100.[5] While biographer David Buckley has described it as "derivative, plodding, if undeniably catchy",[18]
it remains one of Bowie's signature tunes and was often played at his concerts.

Upon release of the single in the U.S., Record World found the song "disappointing", saying that "Bowie, usually a master of melody and dynamics, has used an ancient riff on this more rhythmic number."[19]

Some controversy arose in the UK when fellow RCA act the Sweet issued the song "Block Buster!", utilising a riff very similar to "The Jean Genie".[10][20] The Sweet's single, written by Mike Chapman and Nicky Chinn, and recorded and released slightly later than Bowie's song, made No. 1 in the UK charts and No. 73 on the US charts while "The Jean Genie" was still in the UK Top 10. All parties maintained that the similarity was, in Nicky Chinn's words, "absolute coincidence". Chinn described a meeting with Bowie at which the latter "looked at me completely deadpan and said 'Cunt!' And then he got up and gave me a hug and said, 'Congratulations...'"[5]

"The Jean Genie" has appeared on lists ranking Bowie's best songs by Uncut (11),[21] The Guardian (19),[22] NME (33),[23] Mojo (64) and Consequence of Sound (67).[24][25]

Live versions and subsequent releases

With 1974's "

Hammersmith Odeon, London, on 3 July 1973, featured Jeff Beck on guitar and incorporated "Love Me Do" by the Beatles and "Over Under Sideways Down" by the Yardbirds.[5] During the Diamond Dogs Tour, "The Jean Genie" was rearranged as a slow cabaret number, sometimes incorporating "Love Me Do" during the later shows;[5] performances from this tour have featured on David Live (1974),[28] Cracked Actor (Live Los Angeles '74) (2017) and I'm Only Dancing (The Soul Tour 74) (2020).[29][30]

During the 1976 Isolar Tour, the song was used as the final encore, extending into lengthy guitar jams, false endings and ad-libbed vocals.[5] A live take recorded on 23 March 1976 was included on Live Nassau Coliseum '76, released as part of the 2010 reissues of Station to Station,[31] in the 2016 box set Who Can I Be Now? (1974–1976),[32] and as a stand–alone album in 2017.[33] Further performances from the 1978 Isolar II tour were included on the 2017 edition of Stage (1978) and Welcome to the Blackout in 2018.[34][35] The song again appeared during the 1983 Serious Moonlight Tour into the same cabaret style as the 1974 tour. For the 1987 Glass Spider Tour, guitarists Peter Frampton and Carlos Alomar used the song for duets, incorporating the Rolling Stones' "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction";[5] one performance appeared in the concert video Glass Spider (1988/2007).[36] A variety of standards were incorporated into performances of "The Jean Genie" during the 1990 Sound+Vision Tour, most prominently Them's "Gloria".[5] Bowie debuted a slower, acoustic version of the song at the October 1996 Bridge School benefit concert, while Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins joined him for a more conventional rendition during Bowie's fiftieth birthday concert in 1997.[5] A live version from the Earthling Tour the same year was released on Look at the Moon! (Live Phoenix Festival 97) in 2021.[37]

"The Jean Genie" has appeared on the compilation albums Changesonebowie (1976),[38] The Best of Bowie (1980),[39] ChangesBowie (1990),[40] The Singles Collection (1993),[41] The Best of David Bowie 1969/1974 (1997),[42] Best of Bowie (2002),[43] and The Platinum Collection (2006),[44] The single mix has also appeared on Nothing Has Changed (2014) and Legacy (The Very Best of David Bowie) (2016).[45][46][47] This mix was also released on the bonus disc of Aladdin Sane in 2003,[5] and on Re:Call 1, part of the Five Years (1969–1973) boxed set, in 2015.[48][49]

Personnel

According to Chris O'Leary:[50]

Production

Charts

Chart performance for "The Jean Genie"
Chart (1972–1973) Peak
position
Australia (Kent Music Report)[51] 18
Belgium (Ultratop 50 Flanders)[52] 26
Belgium (Ultratop 50 Wallonia)[53] 7
Canadian RPM Top Singles[54] 75
France (
SNEP)[55]
 22
Irish Singles Chart[56] 3
Netherlands (Dutch Top 40)[57] 7
Netherlands (Single Top 100)[58] 5
Spanish Singles Chart[59] 8
UK Singles (OCC)[60]
 2
UK (Melody Maker)[61] 1
UK (NME)[62] 1
US Billboard Hot 100[63] 71
West Germany (Official German Charts)[64] 37

Certifications

Certifications for "The Jean Genie"
Region Certification Certified units/sales
United Kingdom (BPI)[65] Silver 200,000‡

‡ Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone.

Appearances in popular culture

References

  1. ^ Savage, Jon (1 February 2013). "The 20 best glam-rock songs of all time". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 26 August 2016. Retrieved 5 February 2016.
  2. ^ Wolk, Douglas (1 October 2015). "David Bowie: Five Years 1969–1973". Pitchfork. Archived from the original on 6 February 2016. Retrieved 21 November 2015.
  3. ^ a b Thompson, Dave. "'The Jean Genie' – David Bowie". AllMusic. Archived from the original on 7 June 2019. Retrieved 8 February 2020.
  4. ISBN 978-0-571-28198-5
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  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Pegg 2016, pp. 139–142.
  6. ^ a b Gordinier, Jeff (31 May 2002). "Loving the Aliens". Entertainment Weekly. No. 656. pp. 26–34.
  7. ^ Cann 2010, p. 270.
  8. ^ Wall, Mick (May 2018). "A wild ride over stony ground". Classic Rock. No. 248. p. 39.
  9. ^ Cann 2010, p. 271.
  10. ^ a b c d Carr & Murray 1981, p. 52.
  11. ^ a b David Bowie & Mick Rock (2005). Moonage Daydream: pp.140–146
  12. ^ "Mick Rock. David Bowie with Cyrinda Foxe, 1972 – TASCHEN Books". www.taschen.com. Taschen. Archived from the original on 7 March 2019. Retrieved 6 March 2019.
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  14. ^ "David Bowie Top of the Pops footage found by cameraman". BBC News. 13 December 2011. Archived from the original on 13 December 2011. Retrieved 14 December 2011.
  15. ^ Cann 2010, p. 276.
  16. ^ O'Leary 2015, Partial Discography.
  17. ^ Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "Aladdin Sane – David Bowie". AllMusic. Archived from the original on 24 April 2019. Retrieved 8 February 2020.
  18. ^ Buckley 1999, p. 184.
  19. ^ "Single Picks" (PDF). Record World. 11 November 1972. p. 12. Retrieved 28 March 2023.
  20. ^ Blake, Mark, ed. (2007). "Future Legend". Mojo. 60 Years of Bowie. pp. 74–75.
  21. ^ "David Bowie's 30 best songs". Uncut (133). 19 February 2015 [March 2008]. Archived from the original on 22 April 2021. Retrieved 26 September 2021.
  22. ^ Petridis, Alexis (19 March 2020). "David Bowie's 50 greatest songs – ranked!". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 22 March 2020. Retrieved 23 March 2020.
  23. ^ Barker, Emily (8 January 2018). "David Bowie's 40 greatest songs – as decided by NME and friends". NME. Archived from the original on 3 November 2019. Retrieved 16 February 2020.
  24. ^ Gilbert, Pat (February 2015). "David Bowie – The 100 Greatest Songs". Mojo (255): 82–83.
  25. ^ "David Bowie's Top 70 Songs". Consequence of Sound. 8 January 2017. Archived from the original on 20 September 2021. Retrieved 19 September 2021.
  26. ^ Pegg 2016, p. 423.
  27. ^ Thornton, Anthony (1 July 2008). "David Bowie – 'Live: Santa Monica '72' review". NME. Archived from the original on 4 October 2012. Retrieved 10 March 2020.
  28. ^ Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "David Live – David Bowie". AllMusic. Archived from the original on 24 April 2019. Retrieved 3 February 2020.
  29. ^ Randle, Chris (29 June 2017). "David Bowie: Cracked Actor (Live Los Angeles '74) Album Review". Pitchfork. Archived from the original on 11 July 2017. Retrieved 10 July 2017.
  30. ^ "I'm Only Dancing for Record Store Day 2020". David Bowie Official Website. 19 February 2020. Archived from the original on 18 April 2020. Retrieved 31 October 2020.
  31. ^ Pegg 2016, pp. 460–461.
  32. ^ Who Can I Be Now? (1974–1976) (Box set booklet). David Bowie. UK, Europe & US: Parlophone. 2016. 0190295989842.{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)
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  34. ^ "A New Career in a New Town (1977–1982)". David Bowie. 12 July 2016. Archived from the original on 13 July 2017. Retrieved 21 February 2018.
  35. ^ Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "Welcome to the Blackout (Live London '78) – David Bowie". AllMusic. Archived from the original on 17 November 2019. Retrieved 12 March 2020.
  36. ^ Pegg 2016, p. 459.
  37. ^ Kreps, Daniel (29 January 2021). "David Bowie's 'Brilliant Live Adventures' Series Continues With 1997 Festival Gig". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 29 January 2021.
  38. ^ Erlewine, Stephen Thomas (24 May 2016). "David Bowie: Changesonebowie Album Review". Pitchfork. Archived from the original on 10 September 2019. Retrieved 15 March 2020.
  39. ^ The Best of Bowie (LP record sleeve). David Bowie. Europe: K-tel. 1981. BLP 81.001.{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)
  40. ^ Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "Changesbowie – David Bowie". AllMusic. Archived from the original on 28 July 2019. Retrieved 15 March 2020.
  41. ^ Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "The Singles: 1969–1993 – David Bowie". AllMusic. Archived from the original on 1 May 2021. Retrieved 7 May 2021.
  42. ^ Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "The Best of David Bowie 1974/1979 – David Bowie". AllMusic. Archived from the original on 6 October 2021. Retrieved 12 November 2021.
  43. ^ Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "Best of Bowie – David Bowie". AllMusic. Archived from the original on 1 April 2019. Retrieved 15 March 2020.
  44. ^ Monger, James Christopher. "The Platinum Collection – David Bowie". AllMusic. Archived from the original on 8 May 2019. Retrieved 28 August 2018.
  45. ^ Sawdey, Evan (10 November 2017). "David Bowie: Nothing Has Changed". PopMatters. Archived from the original on 14 July 2017. Retrieved 11 August 2017.
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  47. ^ Trendell, Andrew (28 September 2016). "New David Bowie greatest hits album 'Bowie Legacy' set for release". NME. Archived from the original on 11 August 2020. Retrieved 19 October 2016.
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  50. ^ O'Leary 2015, chap. 6.
  51. ISBN 0-646-11917-6
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  52. ^ "David Bowie – The Jean Genie" (in Dutch). Ultratop 50.
  53. ^ "David Bowie – The Jean Genie" (in French). Ultratop 50. Retrieved 12 September 2020.
  54. ^ "RPM Top 100 Singles" (PDF). Library and Archives Canada. 13 January 1973. Retrieved 15 October 2023.
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  56. ^ "The Jean Genie in Irish Chart". IRMA. Archived from the original on 2 June 2009. Retrieved 19 July 2013. Only one result when searching "Jean Genie"
  57. ^ "Nederlandse Top 40 – David Bowie" (in Dutch). Dutch Top 40. Retrieved 12 March 2023.
  58. ^ "David Bowie – The Jean Genie" (in Dutch). Single Top 100. Retrieved 12 March 2023.
  59. ^ "Hits of the World – Spain". Billboard. Nielsen Business Media, Inc. 12 May 1973. p. 64. Retrieved 22 October 2020.
  60. ^ "Official Singles Chart Top 100". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 12 March 2023.
  61. ^ "Melody Maker Pop 50". Melody Maker. 20 January 1973. p. 2.
  62. ^ "NME Pop 50". NME. 17 January 1973. p. 2.
  63. ^ "David Bowie Chart History (Hot 100)". Billboard. Retrieved 12 March 2023.
  64. ^ "Offiziellecharts.de – David Bowie – The Jean Genie" (in German). GfK Entertainment charts. Retrieved 14 February 2019. To see peak chart position, click "TITEL VON David Bowie"
  65. ^ "British single certifications – David Bowie – The Jean Genie". British Phonographic Industry. Retrieved 4 February 2022.
  66. ^ "Four Bowie Compositions on Control Soundtrack". David Bowie. 23 August 2007. Retrieved 8 February 2020.

Sources

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