Tuesday, January 12, 2016

David Bowie


I was shocked to hear yesterday morning about David Bowie's death. Like most people, I hadn't even known he was ill, and losing such an eternally youthful, adventurous artist at 69 seems untimely.

I must confess, I was never a huge Bowie fan. I never owned any of his albums. While I liked some of his more popular songs -- "Modern Love," "China Girl," "Changes" -- enough to sing along when they came on the radio, the only single I ever bought was "Space Oddity," the haunting extraterrestrial tale of Major Tom. (And that primarily because I really liked Peter Schilling's early-80s Cold War adaptation.)

I laughed yesterday when I read in one of his obituaries that his grade-school music instructors declared he had an "adequate" voice. That's about right.

Bowie's most valuable cultural contributions came from breaking rules. His gender-bending, make-up wearing, wild costumes and frank declarations of sexual freedom must have been mind-blowing at the time. When I was young he was one of just a handful of people I knew to be avowedly bisexual (Elton John was another). I specifically remember an interview in which Bowie said, "I like men. I like black girls." For a gay kid like me, more accustomed to the suburban smoothness of Barry Manilow and the Carpenters, that outspokenness made him something of a role model.

I think I might have been into Bowie if I'd heard more of him, and if I'd been more musically adventurous myself. But the experimental, performance-art aspect of much of his music didn't lend itself to radio airplay -- at least not without sacrificing a lot of the effect. To this day I don't think I've ever listened to a Bowie album in its entirety. Maybe I should.

(Photo: Orange Saab, South Hampstead.)

10 comments:

Mwa said...

I sometimes think that some artists are not in your life for their art. Like Bono - whose music I don't like, but I love that he's trying to save the world all the time. And Bowie, for being himself at all times. Or whatever he chose to be. And showing us it can be done.

Yorkshire Pudding said...

My listening relationship with David Bowie was pretty much the same as yours. Back then I thought of him as a bit of a curiosity but from this viewpoint I can now see that he was someone who challenged the status quo and that can't be a bad thing. His endurance was also admirable.

herding tapeworms said...

same here with respect to his music and an appreciation for his gender bending/boundary pushing. he's one of those artists I really WANT to like because of my respect for his individuality, but I have trouble getting into the sound. then again, I haven't listened to an entire album either, so it could be a matter of exposure. love the car picture today!

Ms. Moon said...

Here's the deal- Bowie was ethereal. He wasn't cuddly and warm. But he was amazing. And yes, he made it possible for so many young people to feel that they weren't alone. That maybe there was nothing wrong with them. That maybe...they...were awesome.

ellen abbott said...

The thing about Bowie was he was constantly evolving. Unlike so many artists who would stick with the thing that made them popular, he would change his persona when the previous one became popular.

Red said...

I was also not a fan but can appreciate who he was and the influence he had on music and many other aspects in life.

Linda Sue said...

age 69 is not untimely I suppose if one smokes daily...though it was a little bit surprising, Not that we had not been warned but still, He was amazing for our times, and I count myself so lucky to have shared the same space/time with one such as he. He gave us permission, without being threatening to status quo sleepy heads, to bend, invent, and be beautiful in our weirdness.

jenny_o said...

Bowie's music wasn't really to my taste although I liked a few of his tunes. But I appreciate what he did for art and for society nonetheless.

What struck me most (and it feels selfish even to say it) was that when I heard he died at age 69 it sounded old to my ears. Until I realized I'm only eleven years from that. It's kind of sobering.

e said...

As a teen-ager in the mid-seventies, I enjoyed Bowie's gender-bending and his willingness to go where other artists would not...I was one of those kids who appreciated that I wasn't alone.

alphabet soup said...

David Bowie. Major Tom and the movie Labyrinth.

I could have re-visited the movie again late last year when ACMI held a David Bowie exhibition and this movie was screened every third weekend while the exhibition lasted.

However I was overtaken by other events at the end of last year and missed this opportunity.

Ms Soup