I'm not a student of David Bowie. You won't get me waxing about Bowie deep cuts or some of his experimental forays. But his work wormed its way right along with me from the years I spent listening to Classic Rock radio right through to when my tastes changed to things a little more left of center. I'm sure Bowie helped me along that journey. That was his magic, I guess. Even his biggest, most mainstream hits defied classification or pigeonholing. Everybody loves a Bowie song, from garage rockers to punks to fans of pop or electronica. Everybody, at some point, had their mind expanded or opened -- even if only a little -- by Bowie's genius.
"Under Pressure." 11 years old, and I loved this damn song. I had no idea about the politics behind it, but it spoke to me by just being so epic. It's a song that will keep me in the driveway until it's over.
Danny McCallum and I would sit in his room after school, playing video games on his Commodore 64 and listening to Danny's brother's copy of Changesonebowie on the turntable. Bowie's androgyny was something alien to a couple of sheltered suburban kids in the early 80s. But the music and the artist seeped into our consciousness and into the fabric of pop culture. It made our stupid, 12-year-old brains more accepting of difference and individuality; and we never even knew it was happening.
"Space Oddity," "Changes," "Suffragette City," "The Jean Genie," "Rebel Rebel," "The Young Americans," and "Ziggy Stardust." Oh my God.
I'll admit that I kind of hated Let's Dance when I was 13 years old. It was a huge commercial success, and "Let's Dance" and "China Girl" were everywhere. To me, it was some weird rock / dance combination that I didn't get or like. I loved "Modern Love," though. I still do. Something about those other songs eventually wrapped itself around my mind; and, whenever I hear them, I think of the summer. Family vacations in Upstate New York. Feels like a weird association to have with David Bowie, but there you go.
There wasn't too much direct interaction with Bowie's music for me after the mid-80s. "Blue Jean" and the mind-blowing (to 15 year-old me anyway) "Dancing In the Street" video with Mick Jagger. Maybe "Fame 90." My high school girlfriend had a copy of Tin Machine 1 that her dad had given her, but I never really gave it a chance. I've checked out some of that Tin Machine stuff this morning, and it may deserve further research.
Madonna.
Eurythmics. Culture Club. Pet Shop Boys.
The Smiths. The Cure. New Order. Depeche Mode. Siouxsie And The Banshees. Psychedelic Furs.
Bauhaus, of course. Love And Rockets. INXS.
Nirvana's cover of "The Man Who Sold the World" on Unplugged is one of the greatest things ever aired on MTV, and I stand by that to this day.
Pixies.
Pulp. Blur.
Bloc Party. TV On The Radio. Interpol.
Gaga.
Of Montreal.
Arcade Fire.
Beach Slang.
There are 100s more bands and artists that can trace a direct line to David Bowie. The ones I listed are just the ones who have, at some moment, literally made me speak his name under my breath.
I may only be a casual David Bowie fan (a casual fan that knows all the lyrics to, maybe, a dozen or more of his classic songs). Even as a casual fan, though, I cannot measure the influence that David Bowie has had on my musical tastes. I cannot measure the influence that David Bowie has had on the way I see the world.
The cooldaughters were trying to sing along with "Changes" and "Ziggy Stardust" this morning as we drove to school. It's something that CD #1 does, even if she's never heard a song before. Kind of her way, I think, of committing something to memory that she likes. They're 12 and 9 years old in 2016. They may not know it, but David Bowie changed their life this morning.
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