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.
See More: Hollywood’s Notable Deaths of 2015
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: 01-11-2016 04:12 PM by 49RFootballNow.)
I think the last thing he did that I saw was playing Nikola Tesla in The Prestige. I kept saying that guy looked familiar but couldn't place it. He played the role well, though it was a small part.
(01-11-2016 09:12 AM)pilot172000 Wrote: Complete shocker this morning. He has just released an album on his birthday a month ago. I didn't even know he was sick.
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.]
David Bowie's "Young Americans" was the theme song of the mid-1970s in college, standing in the "Hole in the Wall" bar, playing pinball machines (remember those?) under an enormous speaker connected to the juke box (remember those?) with 40-cent 12-oz. bottles (Miller or Budweiser, no light beers - yet) or a "Wing-Ding" 50-cent, 24-oz draft beer in a large paraffin cup or even a 65-cent PBR quart, and next song was usually "Can't You See" by the Marshall Tucker Band - see, I still remember some of the 70s (just nothing I was taught)!
I used to sit in my '84 Crown Victoria, in my high school's parking lot after school let out and listen to the entire B side of Diamond Dogs (Bewley Brothers is bomb). Jean Genie was my Great Western Adventure theme song. Afraid of Americans helped me cope through the Bush years. Golden Years was my "new dad" song. Wild-eyed Boy from Free Cloud was my awkward teenage anthem. Black Country Rock was my pot years chill tune. He'll be missed so much, but then again he was never ours to have, we were only borrowing him.
Watch Bruce Springsteen pay tribute to David Bowie
January 18, 2016 |
At the Friday night kickoff of “The River Tour 2016” in Pittsburgh, Springsteen started the encore of the three-hour plus show by reminding fans that he and the recently deceased British superstar had a long history.
“He supported our music way, way back in the very beginning, 1973… He covered some of my music and was a big supporter of ours … Anyway, we’re thinking of him,” Springsteen said. And with that, the band kicked into a taut cover of “Rebel, Rebel.”
