David Bowie #

Some thoughts on David Bowie’s passing #

I grew up with David Bowie, alongside a slew other legendary musicians, with the help of my Dad’s CD and LP collection. Ziggy Stardust was my favourite, and in the early years of high school I remember thinking I had the coolest Dad ever for providing me with a foundation for my taste in music. As a bonus I was able to scoff at the 90s kids who thought Kurt Cobain wrote The Man Who Sold the World. Later in high school I tried to be cooler than my Dad (impossible obviously) by taking Bowie further: I spun burnt copies of his Berlin albums (mostly Low and Lodger) on my discman through headphones while walking to the train in the morning. On a slow day towards the end of the term, we might watch Labyrinth in Art and Design (I guess because of the costumes?) and take the piss while steering clear of mocking the great man. A few times I took it too far and tried to get into his 90s oeuvre (there’s a few good tracks there but it’s a hard slog). His appearance on Extras is one of the funniest scenes ever shown on television. I think his comeback album The Next Day was one of the best albums of 2013, and the new track Blackstar from the album he released on his birthday only last week shows he was still thinking and playing like no one else in the world. It’s incredible how the voice and ideas of a man you’ve never met can weave through your life in this way. It’s testament to the power, magnitude and beauty of music, of course, but in this case also testament to the unique and magnificent imagination of the man himself. A genuine legend and a sad day for music lovers everywhere.