Anthony Bourdain’s favorite songs from the 1970s and 80s

On By Littum

Anthony Bourdain - Chef

(Credits: Far Out / Alamy)

There is a healthy cross between the fiery pits of a Michelin kitchen and the studio of a rock ‘n’ roll band. Fertile ground for authentic personalities, cutting-edge creative ideas and anti-establishment musings, they have produced some of the loudest and most iconic voices of the last 50 years. While bandana-wearing Marco Pierre-White and his musical counterpart Keith Richards have spearheaded the aforementioned cultural crossover, it has always been Anthony Bourdain who sat at the heart of these two worlds meeting.

A true poet at heart and bastion of the wandering everyman, his book Kitchen nightmare propelled his voice to a cultural cred among the postmodern urban dweller. It cut to the heart of culinary truth and spoke to a wider audience and their experience of commercial life. Within that, Bourdain created a following of people who trusted his take on all aspects of modern life, be it cooking, travel, or music.

A native of New York, he first emerged in the city’s thriving punk scene over the years. A societal misfit and observer of cultural structures, a mid-20s Bourdain found solace and understanding in the city’s late ’70s scene. It was sub-cultural and authentic, and the complete opposite of an environment where, he said, “Every douchebag in America who could buy a white suit or some heavily adulterated cocaine suddenly had the power to show you his back fat and chest hair. It was the triumph of the Ron Jeremy family. It was their time.”

This quote from his 1977 New York essay, published in Spingave insightHt into the kind of grumbling observer Bourdain was at the time. He continued in the essay, saying, “The music and the musicians who started playing and hanging out at CBGB (a small club in the East Village) were an appropriate response to the general feelings of hopelessness, absurdity, futility, and loathing to live in New York at the time.The irradiated brood of tormented loners who had grown up listening to the Stooges and the Velvets, wannabe poets, failed romantics—anyone with enough enthusiasm or anger to pick up a guitar, it seemed, converged on the only place that would have them. And briefly (and only for a lucky few), the music was good again, as it gets in New York, banished they immediately all music that preceded it and condemned it to irrelevance”.

While his talents as a chef made him a career, Bourdain’s now-iconic writing style, showcased in that essay, was that of a man whose thoughts were shaped by the brutal honesty and gritty poetry of late ’70s New York. At the turn of the century and the bright lights of the hyper-capitalist 1980s, Bourdain’s unsung responsibility became to voice the subculturally unknown expression as the city’s urban community sought more modern anti-establishment ideas.

Soundtracked by fellow cultural commentators NWA, the Beastie Boys and The Specials, Bourdain delved deeper into ’80s cultural folklore, fashioning a man whose culinary fame was forged by an insatiable appetite to exist on the cutting edge.

The final episode of his iconic documentary series Unknown parts was a bit of a love letter to New York’s Lower East Side in the 1980s. The episode, which aired six months after his tragic death, weaved between interviews with New York legends Debbie Harry, Fab 5 Freddy and Richard Hell, giving Bourdain space to reflect on the vitality of living in the city during those heady years.

During the episode, Bourdain patrolled the ruined sidewalk of downtown New York, reflecting on a period in New York’s history so often associated with financial deregulation and capitalist excess with a more off-beat outlook, describing it as a place where “cheap rent brought a lot of people together.” While the bright lights of enterprising New York shone, chefs and creatives learned to live in the shadows and brought meaning to life that lived alternatively.

Bourdain’s favorite songs from two formative decades of his life are fitting for a man who had a disdain for conformity and a yearning for creative authenticity. While music is a pleasant backdrop to onion chopping and risotto stirring for many, it was a setting for Bourdain. Meaningful, innovative and honest – if that’s what he heard, it’s most likely what he wanted to serve up.

A selection of Anthony Bourdain’s favorite songs:

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