David Bowie has died after a battle with cancer, his representative confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter.
“David Bowie died peacefully today surrounded by his family after a courageous 18 month battle with cancer. While many of you will share in this loss, we ask that you respect the family’s privacy during their time of grief,” read a statement posted on the artist’s official social media accounts.
The influential singer-songwriter and producer dabbled in glam rock, art rock, soul, hard rock, dance pop, punk and electronica during his eclectic 40-plus-year career.
Bowie’s artistic breakthrough came with 1972’s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars, an album that fostered the notion of rock star as space alien. Fusing British mod with Japanese kabuki styles and rock with theater, Bowie created the flamboyant, androgynous alter ego Ziggy Stardust.
Three years later, Bowie achieved his first major American crossover success with the No. 1 single “Fame” off the top 10 album Young Americans, then followed with the 1976 avant-garde art rock LP Station to Station, which made it to No. 3 on the charts and featured top 10 hit “Golden Years.”
Other memorable songs included 1983’s “Let’s Dance” — his only other No. 1 U.S. hit — “Space Oddity,” “Heroes,” “Changes,” “Under Pressure,” “China Girl,” “Modern Love,” “Rebel, Rebel,” “All the Young Dudes,” “Panic in Detroit,” “Fashion,” “Life on Mars,” “Suffragette City” and a 1977 Christmas medley with Bing Crosby.
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With his different-colored eyes (the result of a schoolyard fight) and needlelike frame, Bowie was a natural to segue from music into curious movie roles, and he starred as an alien seeking help for his dying planet in Nicolas Roeg’s surreal The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976). Critics later applauded his three-month Broadway stint as the misshapen lead in 1980’s The Elephant Man.
Bowie also starred in Marlene Dietrich’s last film, Just a Gigolo (1978), portrayed a World War II prisoner of war in Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (1983), and played Pontius Pilate in Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ (1988). And in another groundbreaking move, Bowie, who always embraced technology, became the first rock star to morph into an Internet Service Provider with the launch in September 1998 of BowieNet.
Born David Jones in London on Jan. 8, 1947, Bowie changed his name in 1966 after The Monkees’ Davy Jones achieved stardom. He played saxophone and started a mime company, and after stints in several bands he signed with Mercury Records, which in 1969 released his album Man of Words, Man of Music, which featured “Space Oddity,” a poignant song about an astronaut, Major Tom, spiraling out of control.
In an attempt to stir interest in Ziggy Stardust, Bowie revealed in a January 1972 magazine interview that he was gay — though that might have been a publicity stunt — dyed his hair orange and began wearing women’s garb. The album became a sensation.
Wrote rock critic Robert Christgau: “This is audacious stuff right down to the stubborn wispiness of its sound, and Bowie’s actorly intonations add humor and shades of meaning to the words, which are often witty and rarely precious, offering an unusually candid and detailed vantage on the rock star’s world.”
Bowie changed gears in 1975. Becoming obsessed with the dance/funk sounds of Philadelphia, his self-proclaimed “plastic soul”-infused Young Americans peaked at No. 9 with the single “Fame,” which he co-wrote with John Lennon and guitarist Carlos Alomar.
After the soulful but colder Station to Station, Bowie again confounded expectations after settling in Germany by recording the atmospheric 1977 album Low, the first of his “Berlin Trilogy” collaborations with keyboardist Brian Eno.
In 1980, Bowie brought out Scary Monsters, which cast a nod to the Major Tom character from “Space Oddity” with the sequel “Ashes to Ashes.” He followed with Tonight in 1984 and Never Let Me Down in 1987 and collaborations with Queen, Mick Jagger, Tina Turner, The Pat Metheny Group and others. He formed the quartet Tin Machine (his brother Tony played drums), but the band didn’t garner much critical acclaim or commercial gain with two albums.
Bowie returned to a solo career with 1993’s Black Tie White Noise, which saw him return to work with his Spider From Mars guitarist Mick Ronson, then recorded 1995’s Outside with Eno and toured with Nine Inch Nails as his opening act. He returned to the studio in 1996 to record the techno-influenced Earthling. Two more albums, 1999’s hours … and 2002’s Heathen, followed.
Bowie also produced albums for, among others, Lou Reed, The Stooges and Moot the Hoople, for which he wrote the song “All the Young Dudes.” He earned a lifetime achievement Grammy Award in 2006.
(This post was last modified: 03-31-2020 11:40 AM by GoodOwl.)
The world lost one of the most innovative and successful artists of all time. But David Bowie was also the man who sold the world … a new type of bond.
During half a century, Bowie recorded dozens of albums. The music and fashion icon released his last album “Blackstar” on his 69th birthday, January 8, 2016, just two days before his death.
In 1997, with banker David Pullman, he created bonds backed by the royalties from 25 of his albums released from his golden years starting from 1969 to 1990. The bonds were bought by Prudential (PRU) for $55 million and had a 7.9% coupon and amortized over 10 years. Because they were technically interest-paying bonds and thus considered a loan, Bowie got the money without the tax liability.
However, there was a scary monster that threatened the royalty income streams of recording artists: the rise of Internet music piracy. Bowie’s bonds were downgraded to just above junk status in 2004 but were paid off by 2007.
Other musicians to issue similar bonds include Rod Stewart, Iron Maiden, James Brown, and the Isley Brothers. Yet no single artist was able to match the size of Bowie’s bond sale.
The idea of selling assets backed by expected future revenue has even spread to sports. In 2013, a company called Fantex Holdings created a security allowing investors to receive a share of an athlete’s income in exchange for an upfront payment, much like the fixed-income securities brought to market by David Bowie two decades ago.
To this day, bonds issued by artists are sometimes referred to as “Bowie Bonds” in honor of the man who changed music – and finance.
[Disclosure: The author of this story is a very big fan of David Bowie.]
He also provided a huge spark to ignite the career of Texas's Stevie Ray Vaughan. If SRV had gone on tour with Bowie to support the Let's Dance album, instead of backing out during rehearsals, it's interesting to consider whether he'd have had his breakthrough.
And that Montreux performance for SRV that got Bowie (and Jackson Browne, who provided the studio to record what eventually became Texas Flood) to notice him is incredible.
I much preferred the Eagles music over Bowie, but both are huge losses in the music world.
There is also a Rice connection to Frey. The Eagles played Rice Stadium in the early 1990's. I remember Bobby May was the AD at the time, and he claimed to know none of their music. But during the concert, many of the athletic department employees were able to watch and listen to the concert in the press box and he kept saying 'Oh, I know that song!'.
(This post was last modified: 01-18-2016 05:36 PM by Fort Bend Owl.)
Haters are going to hate, but I was a huge Eagles fan...and still am. They, Springsteen and Fleetwood Mac were the mainstay acts during my time at Rice, even as many of us were more into the harder rockers such as Led Zep, The Who, Rolling Stones, Jethro Tull, Yes, Kansas, etc. I saw them last at Soldier Field a couple years ago, and they still sounded great (albeit with an small army of backup musicians).
(This post was last modified: 01-18-2016 06:40 PM by waltgreenberg.)
When they sing about taking it to the limit one more time, are they doing calculus?
(01-18-2016 06:29 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote: Haters are going to hate, but I was a huge Eagles fan...and still am. They, Springsteen and Fleetwood Mac were the mainstay acts during my time at Rice, even as many of us were more into the harder rockers such as Led Zep, The Who, Rolling Stones, Jethro Tull, Yes, Kansas, etc. I saw them last at Soldier Field a couple years ago, and they still sounded great (albeit with an small army of backup musicians).
(01-18-2016 08:19 PM)75src Wrote: When they sing about taking it to the limit one more time, are they doing calculus?
Back in 2007 or so, I was listening to The Now Show on BBC Radio 4 (TNS was far funnier than anything on American television or radio at the time). One of the segments on the show that day was "Mathematics Word Association."
The presenter said, "Oasis"; one of the panelists accordingly responded with "derivative." I nearly choked on my sandwich.
(This post was last modified: 01-18-2016 09:00 PM by Wiessman.)
(01-18-2016 06:29 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote: Haters are going to hate, but I was a huge Eagles fan...and still am. They, Springsteen and Fleetwood Mac were the mainstay acts during my time at Rice, even as many of us were more into the harder rockers such as Led Zep, The Who, Rolling Stones, Jethro Tull, Yes, Kansas, etc. I saw them last at Soldier Field a couple years ago, and they still sounded great (albeit with an small army of backup musicians).
As a younger person who was more into the rock bands of my parents' era than those of my own, I've never had the pleasure of seeing my favorite bands in concert in their respective heydays. I'm sure it can't compare to their live sound 40 years ago, but the Eagles show at the Toyota Center almost two years ago was easily the best version of an "old" band that I've seen. Henley and Frey still had it and even Joe Walsh wasn't too bad...shame the bitter feud between Frey and Don Felder still persisted and prevented him from rejoining the band. The recent documentary about them was really well done and that opening scene really reminds one why the Eagles had, arguably, the best harmony of any rock band of that era or any other.
(01-18-2016 06:29 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote: Haters are going to hate, but I was a huge Eagles fan...and still am. They, Springsteen and Fleetwood Mac were the mainstay acts during my time at Rice, even as many of us were more into the harder rockers such as Led Zep, The Who, Rolling Stones, Jethro Tull, Yes, Kansas, etc. I saw them last at Soldier Field a couple years ago, and they still sounded great (albeit with an small army of backup musicians).
As a younger person who was more into the rock bands of my parents' era than those of my own, I've never had the pleasure of seeing my favorite bands in concert in their respective heydays. I'm sure it can't compare to their live sound 40 years ago, but the Eagles show at the Toyota Center almost two years ago was easily the best version of an "old" band that I've seen. Henley and Frey still had it and even Joe Walsh wasn't too bad...shame the bitter feud between Frey and Don Felder still persisted and prevented him from rejoining the band. The recent documentary about them was really well done and that opening scene really reminds one why the Eagles had, arguably, the best harmony of any rock band of that era or any other.
If you got the 2 DVD documentary you should have also received the bonus DVD of their 1978 concert in Washington DC, just before Randy Meisner left the band. I saw them a year earlier in The Summit while a student at Rice. Their sound today is almost identical, with the lone exception being the absence of Bernie's banjo playing twang on some of their earlier hits (Taking It Easy, Peaceful Easy Feeling, Midnight Flyer, Already Gone, etc.). And they were still having fun on stage.
(01-18-2016 08:19 PM)75src Wrote: When they sing about taking it to the limit one more time, are they doing calculus?
Back in 2007 or so, I was listening to The Now Show on BBC Radio 4 (TNS was far funnier than anything on American television or radio at the time). One of the segments on the show that day was "Mathematics Word Association."
The presenter said, "Oasis"; one of the panelists accordingly responded with "derivative." I nearly choked on my sandwich.
I was baffled by the word association until I found the 2nd definition in the Urban Dictionary
(01-28-2016 10:57 PM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote: Paul Kantner (Jefferson Airplane) too. We're going to need an extremely long headline at this rate that they're dropping in 2016.