‘Who can I be now?’: David Bowie’s Vocal Personae

Abstract

Critical and public reception of David Bowie’s use of personae have primarily focused on visual signifiers such as his ever-changing hair style, wardrobe, make-up, and body language in performance. However, Bowie also constructed personae through his remarkably supple voice. In addition to the physiological manipulation of his voice, Bowie also used various kinds of studio processing techniques to create an additional ‘mask’ between performer and listener. In this article, I survey Bowie’s use of electronic voice-modifying technology—ranging from studio techniques that are more ‘transparent’ to those that radically disfigure Bowie’s vocal identity—considering the dramaturgical implications of these diverse voices. I also consider the intertextual implications of Bowie’s various singing styles and modification techniques in the later years of his career.

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