David Bowie’s ‘Let’s Dance’ at 40: Producer Nile Rodgers and Engineer Bob Clearmountain on the Making of the Singer’s Multiplatinum Breakthrough
David Bowie’s ‘Let’s Dance’ at 40: Producer Nile Rodgers and Engineer Bob Clearmountain on the Making of the Singer’s First Superstar Album “Bowie had this wonderful saying,” Nile Rodgers recalls. “He’d say, ‘Nile, darling, it’s all the same, but different.’” It’s a remarkably simple way of summing up a musical career that has become the go-to reference for artists who are continually changing and challenging themselves. And one of the biggest in his long string of shocking sound-and-vision pivots is the one that brought him true superstardom and his first platinum album: “Let’s Dance,” which was released 40 years ago today. Rodgers, who spoke with Variety about the album in 2018, was already a multiplatinum hitmaker via his work with Chic and Diana Ross. But “Let’s Dance,” which he co-produced with Bowie, was the album that vaulted him into the mainstream — and within a year he’d be helming Madonna’s smash breakthrough album, “Like a Virgin,” and overhauling Duran Duran’s original muddled mix of “The Reflex” into a global smash single.