RIP David Bowie

[Basvarken]

A great artist joined the great gig in the sky...

Rest In Peace David Bowie

[amptech]

Not him too?? That is really sad. What a great musician.

[gweimer]

We will be doing these more frequently, I fear, and we'll never be accustomed to it.  I remember my dad, in his last year, saying that a month (or week) didn't go by when a friend of his passed away. 

RIP to a true music icon.

[godofthunder]

   Crap. R.I.P David.

[Pilgrim]

I'm listening to a story on NPR - I didn't even realize some of those memorable songs were his. He was unique!  R.I.P., David.

EDIT: I just got to work and added a David Bowie channel in my Pandora playlist.

[uwe]

I listened - by coincidence, I only heard about his passing this morning - to his new album Blackstar as well as the one before (The Next Day) over the weekend. Blackstar is the kind of album you listen to 15 seconds of and it dawns on you that you are some lowly bass strings mangler while Bowie was an artist. Huge Loss. And a great performance to go out on, Blackstar is among his strongest works. He must have spent the last years playing a lot of saxophone, while I always liked his sax playing, I've never heard him as fluid and "note-ambitious" as on Blackstar.

I first heard Bowie in 1975, a Cassette with the Diamond Dogs album on it. I was immediately transfixed by the dystopian aura of the music, his voice and the lyrics, that haunting Future Legend intro ...

And in the death
As the last few corpses lay rotting on the slimy thoroughfare
The shutters lifted in inches in Temperance Building
High on Poacher's Hill
And red, mutant eyes gaze down on Hunger City
No more big wheels

Fleas the size of rats sucked on rats the size of cats
And ten thousand peoploids split into small tribes
Coverting the highest of the sterile skyscrapers
Like packs of dogs assaulting the glass fronts of Love-Me Avenue
Ripping and rewrapping mink and shiny silver fox, now legwarmers
Family badge of sapphire and cracked emerald
Any day now
The Year of the Diamond Dogs

"This ain't Rock'n'Roll
This is Genocide"

I only saw the cover of the album some time later and was again fascinated by his appearance, Bowie as that half-dog creature was both unsettling and immaculate, androgynous and rebellious, stylish and outrageous ...



The next album I bought was the vastly different Station to Station. Where Diamond Dogs had seen him on the way from having been Ziggy Stardust to becoming The Thin White Duke, Station to Station saw The Thin White Duke in full (space) flight.



The music was nothing like Diamond Dogs had been and it took some time to get used to it, but I noticed immediately - as a kid back then listening to mostly Status Quo and Deep Purple - that Station to Station was something very special as well. To this day, they are my favorite albums of his though the much derided Let's Dance hit album was a masterpiece too, defining the whole era of the early 80ies.

I have all Bowie albums in my collection, even the not so great ones have sufficient moments of magic. And I always adored his work with Tin Machine (the only time I saw him live, in a half-empty hall, as no one back then seemed to know what to make of his work with Tin Machine).

[nofi]

this is so sad. i have been a fan since hunky dory and saw the diamond dogs tour. this sounds dumb but bowie struck me as one of those people who was 'gifted' in so many ways he  seemed protected from things that affect mere mortals. i know one friend of mine who will have a very, very bad day today.

[Pilgrim]

This is another case in which someone pushed to finish a major project before revealing their mortality. His album release on Friday is evidence of that to me.

Sounds like he kept his health a pretty well guarded secret until the last days.

[gearHed289]

RIP to the man I often call my number one favorite rock artist. He caught my attention about 1975 when I was 11 years old. Probably due to Fame being a huge single at the time, and also by the influence of my older sisters. His music, writing, voice, looks.... It was as if he came from another planet. I thank and applaud him for being who he was.

[TBird1958]

RIP my Ziggy Stardust, your light lit my path from early on.
Thank you for all the wonderful music.

[Rob]

RIP

[Hörnisse]

 

Hopefully jamming with Mick and Trevor.

[uwe]

This is another case in which someone pushed to finish a major project before revealing their mortality. His album release on Friday is evidence of that to me.

Sounds like he kept his health a pretty well guarded secret until the last days.

I wondered about the quick release of Blackstar too, the last one was scarcely two years old, why the rush in such a late part of his career? Now we know. He hadn't been looking well on the few pictures you saw of him lately. That said, Blackstar is nothing like a rush job at all. Bowie was a great fan of Scott Walker's late work (which defies all laws of pop music and is a task to digest, don't listen to it if you feel depressed), Blackstar is probably his most "Walkerish" work though still far more accessible.

[Basvarken]

When you hear see this you cannot believe you didn't recognize all the references to his death:

[slinkp]

Terrible news.  For such an adventurous artist, he had unusually wide appeal.  My Facebook feed is basically nothing but Bowie right now.

I have to get the new album ... really impressed by Lazarus.   Amazing way for an artist to depart.

My favorite old Bowie song is this one... I still like slap bass when it suits the song, and this is one of the weirdest songs where it fits well: