David Bowie

[fillow]

Many people probably knew, but Bowie camp does make a good job of keeping everyone's mouth shut. Like nobody spoiled the The Next Day announcement, despite album being in the making for two years with a dozen musicians and probably same amount of tech personnel involved.

[onthewall2983]

He was interviewed for 60 Minutes in 2003, but it never made to air. CBS released clips of his interviews with them today.

[botley]

Either way, you've got to admire how he managed to avoid any rumors of his illness surfacing beforehand and then releasing an album full of lyrics hinting towards his death, yet still no-one realizes and then when he goes just days later, everyone realizes what the album was about. He was artistic in life as in death.

He wasn't "artistic in death", nobody dies artistically. He created art with references to (obsession with?) mortality. I don't know if you were paying attention, but one doesn't disappear from his sort of position in public life, after having had a heart operation and ceasing further public appearances, without lots of speculation about one's health. There were rumours before The Next Day, the release of which somewhat quelled them, but we all thought Reality was going to be the 'last Bowie ever' until then.

[orestes]

Watching this tonight.

[allegro]

Was not directed at you, my apologies. Idiots claiming he chose to die for the promotion of a fucking record were the target of my "Internet" rage, I am grieving as I'm sure you are and very angry at that type of armchair speculator hysteria.

Exactly. I am sure he FAUGHT to LIVE.

He has a FIFTEEN-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER AT HOME!

[the duder]

Bowie was a major part of my entire adolescence. My dad, audiophile that he was/is, had THE stereo system growing up. Friends of the family would come, share beer (and a few joints), and crank the classics. There were times when the neighbors, who live about a quarter mile away, would call and threaten to call the cops due to the volume. Of the three albums that were on heaviest rotation (The Doors' "LA Woman", Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon", and Bowie's "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust"), I could ALWAYS count on a great night's sleep when Bowie was being dimed downstairs.

So many incredible memories, and as I reflect more on his passing, so many other memories of childhood - good and bad - are starting to resurface. Such a wild day.

[Shadaloo]

Tonight's itinerary:



And alcohol. Lots of.

[thevoid99]

I just wrote this. It's not perfect or anything but, this is from the heart, thank you David:http://thevoid99.blogspot.com/2016/0...1947-2016.html

[frankie teardrop]

redecorated the apartment a little tonight:




also redecorated my arm a little, too:

[frankie teardrop]

i've otherwise spent the day in deep shades of mourning, really affected deeply by everything. i put on the best of DVD at work in our cafeteria, blasting it loud and proud. in personal listening, i focused on his latter day records, losing it completely at points to "lazarus," "strangers when we meet," "bring me the disco king," "seven," and especially the title track from heathen.

what a tremendous idol. really, he felt like family.

[botley]

^^ Dude that's an impressive haul. WTF WAIT WHERE ARE THE TIN MACHINE LPS?




...(just kidding)

[frankie teardrop]

hah! ...i have them. i have some love for a handful of tracks off each record. also not pictured are the dozen or so 7''s, both the heart's filthy lesson and i'm afraid of americans singles, as well as that amazing rare extended "beauty of the beast" 12'' from 1977, a collection of early pre-space oddity singles, a bunch of related soundtracks, the original three live records from the 70s, and the sound and vision ryko boxset.

we're having some friends by this weekend and aim to listen to as much of this as we can. wish you could be here, man.

[richardp]

Threw this together today and hung it up behind my station at work.

[henryeatscereal]

^Needs more "Labyrinth" Soundtrack, lol...

JK, @frankie teardrop , awesome collection and tat i did not expected less from you...


On topic: I posted this on my facebook earlier:

[allegro]

hah! ...i have them. i have some love for a handful of tracks off each record. also not pictured are the dozen or so 7''s, both the heart's filthy lesson and i'm afraid of americans singles, as well as that amazing rare extended "beauty of the beast" 12'' from 1977, a collection of early pre-space oddity singles, a bunch of related soundtracks, the original three live records from the 70s, and the sound and vision ryko boxset.

we're having some friends by this weekend and aim to listen to as much of this as we can. wish you could be here, man.

PINUPS! I love "Sorrow" off of that SO FUCKING MUCH. We used to play it about 10 times per day on the jukebox at the club where I used to work in the early-80s

[frankie teardrop]

PINUPS! I love "Sorrow" off of that SO FUCKING MUCH. We used to play it about 10 times per day on the jukebox at the club where I used to work in the early-80s[/video]

and that b-side, too... what a killer 45. i know scott walker was making a name doing that same song as well as 'my death' just a few years prior, but bowie's versions of both are equally tremendous.
@allegro via cat people- that song has always been a barn burner. i can even recall watching the movie constantly when i was young, and he wasn't even in it...

[allegro]

and that b-side, too... what a killer 45. i know scott walker was making a name doing that same song as well as 'my death' just a few years prior, but bowie's versions of both are equally tremendous.

The other one we used to play a LOT on the jukebox during that period was this one:

[allegro]

<!-- BEGIN TEMPLATE: dbtech_usertag_mention -->
@<a href="http://www.echoingthesound.org/community/member.php?u=76" target="_blank">allegro</a>
<!-- END TEMPLATE: dbtech_usertag_mention --> via cat people- that song has always been a barn burner. i can even recall watching the movie constantly when i was young, and he wasn't even in it...

I think I've seen it at least 10 times, that is one GROSS movie, LOL. Malcolm McDowell eating a lot of flesh ... Ed Begley Jr, "You and your pussycat smell" then he loses an ARM, ugh ... LOL

But Bowie IS in this movie and my friends and I saw it a bunch of times, and !

[Shadaloo]

Tonight's itinerary:

Oh god, Peter Frampton's slack-jawed gurning facial expressions like he's happy to smell the world's worst pile of horse poo are helping to add a touch of comedy to this incredibly shitty day. Thank you for this, David.

Still lost it during "Loving The Alien" though.

[allegro]

Oh god, Peter Frampton's slack-jawed gurning facial expressions like he's happy to smell the world's worst pile of horse poo are helping to add a touch of comedy to this incredibly shitty day. Thank you for this, David.

Still lost it during "Loving The Alien" though.

The dancing chicks with oxygen tanks and Broadway love story stuff made me get up and leave at some point. Don't say I didn't warn ya. The COVER should have warned you enough, he looks like David Hasselhoff on Baywatch.

[howdidislipinto]

He wasn't "artistic in death", nobody dies artistically.

I think he just proved you wrong, honestly. Obviously the timing couldn't be predicted, but he wanted to make an artistic statement about his death, from the subtle to the not-so-subtle elements of this album/these videos/even the album cover, and he succeeded. "Nobody dies artistically" -- maybe he's the exception that proves the rule?

[allegro]

Lots of poets and artists throughout history have written ABOUT death (even their own) and he just happened to be facing his own death, but you are kinda making this gimmicky. While making this album, he was fighting cancer and probably suffering. And he was leaving behind a wife, a grown son, I believe a grandchild, and a 15-yr-old daughter.

This guy, a photographer, photographed his wife every day while she battled cancer and it's honest and touching and is one of the most brutal things I've ever seen in my life.

This album isn't SOLELY about Bowie's death or Bowie facing death; there are a lot of other things going on, here.

If Bowie was an artist, he was going to continue to be an artist until he took his last breath. But I suspect that his actual death wasn't very artistic at all.

[Baphomette]

Wish I hadn't lost my US Fest ticket.
Also, I need to clean my stereo.

And Alice seriously needs to play a little saccharine.

[screwdriver]

random thought as I muse on Bowie: I'm already annoyed with the orthodoxy that seems to be settling in that "the next day was alright, but Blackstar is the real deal"

The Next Day is a great album.

[botley]

^ They are both great. TND tied up a bunch of loose ends so that he could take one last leap into uncharted territory.

"Nobody dies artistically" -- maybe he's the exception that proves the rule?

Everything @allegro just said, but also: that phrase you used doesn't actually mean anything. He was a human being; exceptional though he was, no one can disprove the facts of life and death.

I suspect the man had some beliefs about an afterlife, reincarnation, or spiritual fulfilment, and I hope in his last moments he found peace. But nobody is going to write a doctoral thesis about his stays in hospital, or put his painful, nightmarish cancer treatments into galleries alongside his touring exhibition of costumes and artefacts. His art was his writing, and his record making, and his stage/screen performances.

After fifty-plus years of work as an artist it would be rueful indeed to have the world count dying as one of your achievements. Please let's remember his work instead.

[screwdriver]

I suspect the people musing that his death was art are fixated on the Lazarus video and the timing of his death. The entirety of the album, while certainly confronts themes of mortality, does not seem like some single-minded didactic on death.

I imagine that he was probably very ill near the end and probably held on just long enough to see the album come out, and when he did, he let go. That happens in a lot of similar circumstances.

[armogi]

Hard day to go through today at work, I didn't think his death would affect me like it did. I guess it forced me to reflect on my own mortality and the pointlessness of what we do every day.
Never been a huge fan but I got into him with outside, like many others here I'm sure. blasting it right now, and the wine bottle is going down well too... played station to station last night when i got the news, a 40 years old thing, like me. then blackstar a few times today. somehow I can't listen to the anything else from him at the moment.
Amazing how he was able to go in his own terms. I am pretty sure he intended the next day to be his last one but (luckily) he stayed with us longer and gave us an eulogy, in his own words. And I was so narrow minded I didn't even get it or see it coming even though it was obvious. somehow he made it until it was out for us to experience.
As mere mortals it's hard to comprehend his impact on our world, everything is so intermixed, how different this world would be without people like him and many other?

RIP man. thank you for everything.

[screwdriver]

^ They are both great. TND tied up a bunch of loose ends so that he could take one last leap into uncharted territory.

well said. TND seems like a great bow on the classic Bowie experience; it brought together much of his live experience in a nice package. That it was not massively 'experimental' does not subtract from its genius in the way a great pop song is still a great song.

[Jinsai]

I'm about to listen to the new album for the first time, and it feels kind of scary. Kind of a new experience, and maybe I sound melodramatic, but it's really the furthest thing from it. If the album is good, if it's bad... it's going to be an upsetting and depressing experience either way, but either way it's something you'll only hear that way right now. I've never listened to a new piece of music with the understanding that it is has a fleeting and immediate force, and all of that hinges on the fact that Bowie was the musician that first made me really love music. The last thing he did was make music.

[Soma]

I had initially put off hearing Black Star until it was in my hands, but after hearing the news and literally feeling numb all day.. i tuned in, somehow I made it until 'Dollar Days' until I really cried. i understand its really early but I really feel that this is one of his best works.

We lost a truly genuine artist. Peace be with you, Mr. Jones