R.I.P. David Bowie

[mlrg]

Here is the video for "Blackstar" on the DavidBowieVEVO site on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kszLwBaC4Sw

His last video is for the song "Lazarus", also from his last album, and it's quite premonitory.

[Greg]

Here is the video for "Blackstar" on the DavidBowieVEVO site on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kszLwBaC4Sw

[danfrank]

Bowie's death was a complete shock to me, and I am still trying to digest it. He was a huge figure in music for me. During my teens and 20s Bowie was in constant rotation on my turntable. As a kid who felt different I was so drawn to his celebration of otherness. He was in my consciousness in recent days I suppose because of the new album. Over the weekend I heard Rocket Man by Elton John on the radio and told myself I needed to listen to the real rocket man, so put on Space Oddity. I listened to it three times in a row and found myself singing it for the rest of the day (I love those high-low vocals). This was probably more a coincidence than a cosmic connection, but I'm glad I was able to cavort with him one more time before he passed. I would normally wish someone recently departed to rest in peace but for Bowie I'll just say, may your spaceship know which way to go.

[OscarGuy]

I made a comment on Facebook about how this is the most outpouring of acknowledgement and shared sadness in at least years. It was pointed out that Robin Williams had that level of support. This caused a bit of an argument between me and MovieWes because it was an inappropriate time to say it. I was beginning to think maybe I misremembered the amount of love that oozed the day he died. However, reading Magilla's response makes me realize I'm probably right. While Williams was an icon of comedy, his influence was limited to comedy. Bowie had a different level of influence and the degree of love and commentary that I saw on Facebook was indeed an aberration not seen in a very long time.

[Big Magilla]

When I first saw a blurb saying "coming up, the life and times of David Bowie" on the morning news - it think it was CNN - I thought it was going to be a promo for his album released on his birthday three days earlier. I couldn't put my head around the idea that he might be dead.

I don't think there's been this kind of reaction, at least in New York, since the death of John Kennedy, Jr. in 1999 and in the entertainment world since John Lennon in 1980. Before that you'd have to go back to Judy Garland, whose funeral was in New York in 1969. The throngs of people outside of Bowie's apartment house on Lafayette St. in lower Manhattan are still coming.

My favorite Bowie film was/is 1983's Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence even if he is out-acted by Tom Conti, Ryuichi Sakamoto and Takeshi Kitano.

That duet with Bing Crosby on "The Little Drummer Boy" is from Crosby's last Christmas show on November 30, 1977, about six weeks after Crosby's own sudden death on a golf course in Madrid.

[Precious Doll]

I haven't seen this sort of out reaction to an entertainers passing since I can't remember when. Even as I type this out 23 hours after hearing of his passing he is the lead news item on the evening news.

Totally understandable given his extraordinary career. For me he will always be The Man Who Fell to Earth. I never tire of watching Nic Roeg's film and Bowie's captivating one of a kind presence.

[Greg]

Curiously, what I remembered first about Bowie was a duet of him with Bing Crosby on a Christmas TV show.

[HarryGoldfarb]

I knew Bowie from my childhood: Under Pressure was my only (major) musical referent. My brother Elias took care to educate me in Queen matters, and obviously that song is required class. However, the history of Bowie as an artist were scarce to me. Then, after Freddie's death, I could see the London genie singing live (thanks to a very poorly edited and annotated version of the Tribute, transmitted by a local TV channel), wearing the mint suit, displaying his apparent heterochromia of iris ... His pose, next to an overwhelming and vampire-like (rather than Gothic) Annie Lennox was enough to intrigue me, to start admiring the man.

Besides, I knew him from Labyrinth!

However, the huge contribution of his career in the 60s, 70s and even 80s, again, was unknown by me. My brother Eleazar always told me that Let's Dance was a great album and that he was unfairly denied of the Grammy for Album of the Year. But the material contained therein for some reason did not come to me.

In 1994, the sad and heartbroken, melancholy and timid voice of Kurt ended the track 4 of Nirvana's MTV Unplugged saying "that was a David Bowie's song". Kurt brought the genius back to me. The Man Who Sold The World has never ceased to be in "my" music.

But in mid-1997 I was 16, perfect age to absorb everything that largely define you as a person: values, musical tastes, hobbies, passions. An age to know yourself... At that time MTV was still a music channel, an almost continuous celebration of that tiny art form that music videos are. Those were the times of Radiohead, The Cranberries, Björk, Portishead and Prodigy... And the new wave of "Latin rock"... Suddenly, Bowie breaks into my life with a huge force. For many (the vast majority of their fans, I'm sure), Earthling is far from his best work but it is an album that holds a special place in my heart. The 90's industrial sound kept me possessed by perhaps a little too long, and that was so partly due to this work. I watched on MTVthis too high and kind of grotesque figure, distorted by the lens of the mad and sublime Floria Sigismondi, with long legs, wearing the colors of the British flag for clothing, in oversaturated images. David euphoricly told a story with short sentences and insistence: "so far away ...". Little Wonder, Dead Man Walking and I'm Afraid of Americans remind me of the boy I once was.

Hence the need to know more about him: after the cover The Wallflowers did of Heroes (for that aberration called Godzilla), it was not difficult to get the original and love it with reverential love. And so, through various processes I got to know and enjoy Life on Mars, Space Oddity, and many others that today I recall with particular affection considering his departure.

To put it in a simple way, David made me company in my teens and talked to me in my adulthood. I have so much to thank him.

[OscarGuy]

While I always knew who Bowie was, I never really knew his music. I didn't listen to a lot of the 1960s/1970s era music that he was such a part of. I was only familiar with Queen because of "We Are the Champions" and Freddie Mercury's AIDS battle in the 1980s. So, I came to Bowie late. I had heard his music, but never equated him with it. I had never seen the films in which he starred.

A few years ago, I was listening to Pandora and whatever station I was on had swapped into "Space Oddity." I think I'd heard it in passing at some point, but I was mesmerized. While I didn't buy much else of his music, that was my first piece. Today, I went to iTunes and bought his final album released just Friday. I'd already heard it was an exemplary record, but I felt I needed to own it even if I never owned another of his albums before.

I know his music well now and I'm thankful I came to know him better before his death, but no matter how little I knew his work prior to the last few years, this loss hits hard and it's not just his quiet acceptance of his fate and the interesting metaphors of his prior album, but after poring over the various tributes and mentions on Facebook, I came to realize just how staggering an influence he really had. There was no delineation of type of recognition. I saw country listeners, rap listeners, metal listeners and myriad others, film enthusiasts and not, all extoling the inspiration he had on them.

It takes a genuine artist and genius to have that kind of affect on others. Whichever film or song brought you to the altar of Bowie, we share it together at his parting, unified for once in our bleak and miserable lives by a man as diverse and spirited as he.

[Mister Tee]

Rarely am I as caught off guard as I was by this. He'd experienced a mini-renaissance just weeks ago, with Lazarus opening in NY, and then the new album. I had no idea he was sick.

He was one of those rock stars everyone knew despite him not having the myriad of mainstream hits that, say, Elton John did over the same period. His fame (to cue up one of his few top 40 songs) derived as much from his distinctive persona as it did from the uniquity of his music. I've seen tweets today from people who feel his sexual ambiguity made it easier for them to come to grips with their own, back in that long-ago and much different era.

But that's not at all to discount the music -- the lesser-known stuff, or the instantly recognizable "ground control to Major Tom" -- all of it one of a kind, from a guy who made a real difference.

[Franz Ferdinand]

A terrible, significant loss. I love so much of his music, and exponentially more from those who have been directly influenced by him. It speaks volumes when you look at a page of all the different artists paying tribute to him on social media - there is literally no boundary. His influence was boundless.
Tony Visconti wrote on his Facebook how "Blackstar" was crafted as a farewell: " His death was no different from his life - a work of Art. He made Blackstar for us, his parting gift. I knew for a year this was the way it would be. I wasn't, however, prepared for it." The album was ethereal and haunting already, but after Sunday night? Much more than we deserve.
Yes, his music and movies and fashion will live on, but damn, this one really hurts.

[Big Magilla]

So... Was I the only one who didn't realize that Moon director Duncan Jones is Bowie's son?

Possibly, but aside from Tee and me, how many of you were around when the birth of "Zowie Bowie" as he was called in 1971 made headlines?

[Aceisgreat]

Yeah, I'm pretty devastated about this.

Got his latest album bright and early on Friday. It'll take on a whole new perspective now.

[Heksagon]

So... Was I the only one who didn't realize that Moon director Duncan Jones is Bowie's son?

[Sonic Youth]

No fuckin' way.

My wife and I were just talking about him yesterday. He just released an album 2 days ago, on his 69th birthday. Let's see... Lou Reed, Lemmy and David Bowie. We're losing our elder statesmen quickly. All the rock stars I grew up listening to who were a generation older? I've always thought they'd outlive me. They are/were such large figures in my life, I assumed they'd be immortal.

I'm that most reprehensible of Bowie fans. I love much of his work from the 1970s and very little beyond that. A true Bowie fan reveres his entire output. England sure did, and he was a huge superstar over there for his entire career. But even considering only his 70's work, he's recorded many songs that are established classics, and will be a part of the rock songbook for as long as history lasts. An extremely significant passing.

I have a friend who is a huge Bowie fan, an idolizer. He's probably sleeping now. I feel terrible after hearing the news. I can only imagine how he'll feel in a few hours.