Somewhere along the line, after experimenting with pop culture as an art form (the Ziggy Stardust character) and pioneering a genre (glam rock), someone showed David Bowie soul music, and he fell in love.
David Bowie himself described the Young Americans record as “the squashed remains of ethnic music as it survives in the age of Muzak rock, written and sung by a white limey,” and referred to the album as “plastic soul,” a common pejorative for white singers playing black music.
This racial self-awareness creates an album that’s so campy and overdone that it goes back around to being the coolest thing ever.
Bowie’s voice on the record, an exaggerated, over-expressive tenor, starts out as a parody of soul music, but becomes the most soulful sound a white Brit has ever made.
Mix that with the real soul musicians and backup singers performing on the tracks, one John Lennon colab and a Beatles cover, and what could have been a bad karaoke album becomes a self-conscious classic that knows just how impressive and important it is.