This morning I suddenly noticed on my Twitter timeline\u00a0that a lot of messages about David Bowie appeared. After a first impression that this might have something to do with the\u00a0release of his new album Blackstar a few days ago, it soon turned out that the outburst of tweets\u00a0had a \u00a0devastating and sinister character: David Bowie passed away, a few days after his\u00a069th birthday.<\/p>\n
It was only this past weekend that intensively listened to Blackstar and started to recognize\u00a0that Bowie delivered a new masterpiece. I even posted a tweet<\/a>, after realizing\u00a0what an amazing music journey I witnessed with\u00a0David Bowie. I remember clearly when I heard the first song by David Bowie that impressed me as a 9-year old even so far to make my first efforts in music composition myself. That song was ‘Jean Genie’ with its remarkable riff and dark atmosphere. Maybe in that time I considered David Bowie to be among the likes of other glam\u00a0rock\u00a0acts in that period\u00a0like Sweet\u00a0and\u00a0Gary Glitter. But where those artist\u00a0soon\u00a0faded into oblivion, David Bowi’s star was on the rise and accompanied me through adolescence with songs like ‘Fame’, ‘Golden Years’, ‘Station to Station’, ‘Sound and Vision’, ‘Heroes’, ‘Fashion’ and ‘Ashes to Ashes’ meanwhile triumphing or incorporating 70s music trends like punk, new wave\u00a0and\u00a0funk. Meanwhile I had a lot of catching up to do by intensively going through Bowie’s previous releases like the phantastic early song, ‘The Laughing Gnome’\u00a0or the phenomenal albums like ‘The Man Who Sold the World’ and ‘Ziggy Stardust’.<\/p>\n David Bowie’s break through to worldwide stardom undoubtedly took place\u00a0in the 1980s. Successful collaborations with Queen, Tina Turner, Mick Jagger and most of all with Chic producer Nile Rodgers on ‘Let’s Dance’ made Bowie easily one of the biggest stars during\u00a0that era. Yet the 1990s though saw a steady decline of his popularity that for me personally started with his Tin Machine band, that produced ruthless metal music. But that was David Bowie, a chameleon like character that was both reflected in his stage presence as well as his music endeavours, not shy of any risk taking.<\/p>\n Bowie mainly disappeared in 1990s and 2000s from my radar, although\u00a0every now and then he would be there\u00a0again, for example when he made ‘Space Boy’ with the Pet Shop Boys. His heart attack in 2004 seemed to crush any serious music ambitions and after that life changing event\u00a0 Bowie seemed to be only in\u00a0the news with speculations about\u00a0his fragile medical condition. Yet there was one cheerful moment in 2007 when Bowie made a surprising appearance in Ricky Gervais’ Extras series.<\/p>\n In\u00a0March 2013 everything changed when there was suddenly an immense outburst of new creativity\u00a0with a new album: ‘The Next Day’ that I reviewed on my blog<\/a>. Bowie sounded fresh and reborn, although speculations at that time about him touring again never became a reality. ‘The Next Day’ was followed last week by ‘Blackstar’ another impressive album that with the news\u00a0of today concerning his life threatening disease\u00a0from the last one and half year, suddenly brings a whole new perspective\u00a0to the album: here was\u00a0an artist at work who wanted to make one last important statement and addition\u00a0to his already impressive music legacy, in the same vein like Freddy Mercury produced ‘Innuendo’ in 1991.<\/p>\n Because of these\u00a0recent releases that show such a vibrant and inventive artist it is very hard to come to grips with that Bowie’s music legacy is now fulfilled and ‘Blackstar’ is to be considered\u00a0as his swan song. Although it is likely we probably will see future\u00a0additional releases with outtakes and unreleased material.<\/p>\n I want to finish by pointing you to, “Space Oddity”, one of the most important popular songs of the 20th century and probably the song David Bowie will be remembered by for a long time to come.<\/p>\n https:\/\/youtu.be\/cYMCLz5PQVw<\/p>\n = The Hague, January 11th 2016 =<\/p>\n