As I write, I’m conducting business in Kuala Lumpur, and the death of David Bowie is front page news in the Asian morning papers. Like many artists his age (69), he didn’t have to die to get his due as the icon of popular culture he cultivated for himself for nearly five decades. The adulation of Bowie rarely waned through his career – adulation he carefully and skillfully cultivated. This from a young man who began his musical career recording insipid child-like tunes for Decca Records in the mid-sixties until one day he decided to reinvent himself (over and over again) and set the rules for pop stardom all the way up to his most recent album, Blackstar, released just this past Friday. Ironically, the initial single of the same name has Bowie crooning, “I’m not a pop star…” Ever the master of sleight of hand.
Just when we thought we understood his current persona, it disappeared and was replaced by a new one that pointed us toward the next phase of his vision, which legions of artists followed, many without knowing he was the vanguard. That said, it was always about songwriting first, and surrounding himself with great players (John Lennon, Carlos Alomar, Brian Eno, Robert Fripp), some of whom he put on the map (Stevie Ray Vaughn). Bowie’s music has many phases, folk, arena, funk, electronica and, in the past few years, a genre of his own creation of which Blackstar is the apex. Dark moods with lovelorn lyrics using a slowed-down groove that somehow keeps the listener aloft.
One day in the summer of 1979 I went to the record store (The Record Joint in South Bend, IN) with the specific intent of buying some albums of music I was not familiar with. One record I came home with was David Bowie’s 1977 “Heroes” and I listened to its raw, slinky crunch over and over. Within a year, I had purchased everything he had recorded to date and was a FAN. To this day, I’ve anticipated new music from Bowie with the eagerness of a teen, and listening to Blackstar straight through last night with the knowledge that he was gone was an agony of mixed emotions.
There are very few artists about whom I’m convinced I could spend an hour with talking about life and not be disappointed, but David Bowie is at the top of the that list. Because as much as he put himself out there in so many formats, I believe that when the album was finished, or the show was over, Bowie shed his personae to reveal a self only the closest to him truly know.
“Life’s still a dream
Your love’s amazing
Since I found you
My life’s amazing
I pledge you
Never be blue
There’s too much at stake to be down
My nightmare
Rooted here watching you go
Divine in both, our lives”
David Bowie, “Amazing”
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