“Something happened on the day he died
Spirit rose a metre and stepped aside”
Ziggy Stardust, The Thin White Duke, Aladdin Sane and his other inventions had all stopped living years ago, but no one expected David Bowie himself to die so suddenly. Two days after his last album Blackstar was released, he passed away in his hidden fight against cancer.
“He trod on sacred land he cried loud into the crowd”
Almost thirty albums, countless successful tours with exceptional sets, and ongoing musical experiments have made him an admired artist in Europe as well as on the other side of the Atlantic. But what fascinates me most is his capacity for renewal. Every new creation revealed another aspect of his impressively diverse abilities: he marked the world of pop with his hit ‘Let’s Dance’, played with the conventions of rock music in ‘Looking for water’ and dazzled the whole world with his innovative and powerful voice in songs like ‘Life on Mars?’.
“’I’m a blackstar, I’m a blackstar.’”
The androgynous boy who started out in London as David Jones has left the music world with an immense legacy, two generations of fans attached to his songs, and a set of questions. It seems just too perfect for someone who liked to create characters for himself to die at such an exciting point in his career. If The Next Day didn’t ask much deciphering of the listener, the meanings of the tracks from Bowie’s last album, Blackstar, will remain obscure. While we try guessing what exactly “the villa of Ormen” represents, listening to his timeless creations is the best we can really do – and perhaps that is how he meant it to be.
Here is the team’s short and arbitrary selection of David Bowie’s most known and appreciated works
‘Life on Mars?’, Hunky Dory (1971)
‘Rock’n’Roll Suicide’, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972)
‘The Jean Genie’, Aladdin Sane (1973)
‘Station to Station’, Station to Station (1976)
‘Ashes to Ashes’, Scary Monsters (1980)
