The following was posted to the Labyrinth mailing list by [email protected] on June 2, 1997.

Bowie was on the front of June 6th's issue of Goldmine magazine (a record/CD collector's mag.). The issue was "Bowie In The 80's" It is full of pics, and a huge article on him, and others who worked with him. There was a few paragraphs on Labyrinth, but it was less than cheerful. Here it is for those who can't get the magazine;

� � � Just as he had following The Hunger, Bowie did not hang around to experience the firestorm of scorn which rained down on his last movie, hustling off instead to begin work on his next. Labyrinth was the $20 million brainchild of Muppet maestro Jim Henson, and starred Bowie as an extravagantly coiffed King of the Goblins.
� � � He and Henson were not strangers; they had worked together briefly as bit actors in Jon Landau's Into The Night. Labyrinth, however, was to stretch Bowie in directions he had never previously dreamed of going. Henson recalled, "David's first couple of scenes were with Hoggle [a hairy, helmeted puppet], and he kept wanting to look offstage to where the voice was coming from. He would want to play the scene over there, where the voice was, instead of over here where Hoggle was. It took him a little while to get used to that."
� � � An unabashed juvenile fantasy, Labyrinth neither expected, nor received, a fair viewing at the hands of the music critics into whose orbit it naturally strayed. The presence of half a dozen new songs on the soundtrack notwithstanding, Bowie the pop star had nothing to do with Bowie the Troll, but while his own supporters turned their noses up in droves, their younger siblings sent Labyrinth soaring to the top of the box office charts, Bowie's most successful movie outing ever.
� � � Pairing Bowie with producer Arif Mardin, the soundtrack was less satisfying, even in the context of the movie. "Underground" and "Magic Dance", the 2 singles taken from the accompanying album, were frolicsome enough in their own way, but it took the inevitable 12-inch remixes to establish them as anything more than sub-narrative filler, and few people purchased them at the time. "Underground" made #21 in the U.K., "Magic Dance" did not even chart, and plans for a third single, "As The World falls Down", were abandoned even after a video for the song was created.

Ok, so it's not even bordering mediocre for a review, but we the undying fans know better. I just hope this article, or any like it, don't discourage people for watching it for the first time. The magazine in all is a great one to add to the collection! It's usually found in music stores, so go get it!!

Nikol (Mrs. Bowie)

� � � Go on to the excerpt from a Jim Henson biography.
� � � Go back one step.
� � � Return to the main page.
This page was last updated or modified on December 10, 1997 by [email protected].