While David Bowie’s impact — as a musician, as a brand, as a force of nature, as a sign of the times — has been as considerable as that of the Beatles, the abiding spirit of the 1960s, or Elvis Presley, whom Bowie mischievously named in 2009 as the living person he most admired, his influence as an otherworldly pop star is actually much greater. It may only be one reason among many, but this explains the outpouring of grief at news of his death this week at the age of 69.
Ever the enigma, the British-born recording artist who sang about love, God and spaceships, kept his 18-month battle with cancer a secret. But watching the video of his single Lazarus from the album “Blackstar” — released on Jan. 8, his birthday — it all makes sense. In the clip, the legendary outsider is seen writhing in a hospital bed with bandages over his eyes, singing “Look up here, I’m in heaven / I’ve got scars that can’t be seen.” He had planned his farewell all along and wanted it to be, as always, a work of art. Now, the inspiration behind “Blackstar” can be revealed: the black cancerous cells multiplying inside his body.
This wasn’t the first time David Bowie managed to sneak up on the world. When he turned 66 in 2013, he debuted a video for the downbeat Where Are We Now? with neither fanfare nor flamboyance even though it was his first new track in a decade. The studio album from which it was taken, “The Next Day,” followed in March.
Cosmic Confidence
In hindsight, perhaps the English rock icon already had an inkling that his time was soon. In the video for Where Are We Now? Bowie looks back on his days in Berlin 30 years ago, when he wrote many of his most admired songs. “For many years, Berlin has appealed to me as a sort of sanctuary. I was going broke and it was a cheap place to live. For some reason, Berliners just didn’t care. Well, not about an English rock singer, anyway,” he once said of the German city and its people.
Then again, just when earthlings assumed that Bowie would, as Dylan Thomas cautioned, go gentle into that good night, he turns his spacecraft around and points it back at the moon. With its blend of jazz, industrial rock, folk-pop and warped show tunes, the seven-track “Blackstar” is “the most extreme album of his career,” writes the Independent. Even in the face of death, Bowie remained restless and retained a cosmic confidence in his own musical powers.
Woeful Dimension
David Bowie’s passing carries a woeful extra dimension for a fan such as myself.
After I stumbled upon Young Americans, Fame and Rebel Rebel years ago, and became perversely attracted to Jump They Say, Little Wonder and I’m Afraid Of Americans because of their electronica and jungle elements, I have since become intrigued by the man born David Robert Jones and his brand of limitless, mercurial charisma.
So when I heard that he was gone, I found myself in a YouTube k-hole, replaying all the Bowie videos I could find and thinking about what we’ve lost. David Bowie was part of a golden moment in time that will never be seen or heard again, when songs and stardom existed because of the nature of the 45 RPM single and the 33 RPM album, and time was still able to lavish an artist with years and years for relentless shapeshifting.
In a world where music can be so easily distributed through the air, it’s rare to encounter someone from the vinyl era who instead conjured a tune out of the ether as if by magic. Bowie may have sold himself as entertainment but his autobiographical body of work also contained the meticulous detail and transformative depth of art.
Young Misfits
From Ziggy Stardust to the Thin White Duke, Bowie made it okay to be different and embrace your inner freak, allowing countless others to do the same. Despite having dressed in otherworldly clothes and makeup, flirting openly with bisexuality, getting hooked on drugs and weaning himself off them, becoming an accomplished actor, declining knighthood, selling his future royalties to the Prudential Insurance Company as Bowie Bonds, there are more facts about David Bowie’s life for fans, both new and not so, to uncover.
Somewhere in the world, a young misfit is listening to “Low,” Starman, The Jean Genie or “Station to Station” for the first time, finding the whimsical concoction of rhythm and lyrics akin to a miracle. In that sense David Bowie lives on, embedding himself in our lives from high up in the sky.