According to "David Bowie releases first single in a decade" (2013), 66 year old singer David Bowie has released his first new work in ten years, to the delighted surprise of many admirers, such as Caitlin Moran who describes it as "hearing King Arthur's voice from the cave" ('Mystique' sect.). The report says that both the sophisticated video that accompanies them and the lyrics refer to Berlin, which is connected with Bowie's 1977 album Heroes.
As you probably guessed from my introduction, I was, and have remained, an admirer of Bowie since the 1970s, when he was building up a reputation not only amongst the fans who bought his albums (these were records containing collections of songs back in those ancient days when the internet had never been thought of, there were no such things as DVDs, and cassette tapes were the latest cutting edge in music technology), but also amongst other musicians and singers, many of whom acknowledge the influence he had on them. And because he changed to much almost with every album released, he appealed to many different people in many different ways. I don't listen to music a lot, and when I do, it's usually classical, but Bowie is one of the very small group of rock musicians whose work I do like. I don't listen to it that much now, but every now and then I watch an old video on YouTube - because of the strong connections with the time each song came out, they remind me powerfully of where I was and what I was doing at the time. I can't hear "Ashes to Ashes" from the 1980 album Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) without remembering very clearly lots of details about where I was living at university and what I was doing at the time, and like his latest, this song too makes references to his earlier work, in this case, to "Space Oddity" (1972), one of his most famous songs, which introduces the "hero" Major Tom. And then there was that 1977 album Heroes ...
Not so entirely cheerful was noticing on the video embedded in the BBC News story how old Bowie looks, but not even heroes can stay young forever, and one of the things I always liked about Bowie, in addition to his great music, was that although he was very well aware of it, he did not run his life according to other people's often ill-founded expectations and irrational notions about what is or is not "proper", for a somewhat awkward and insecure teenager and young adult at university, this was also very inspiring. And today, he has clearly not followed the mob into desperately using plastic surgery and other things to try to look as though he's still in his forties. He looks like what he is: a 66 year old man who has led a very rich and rewarding life.
Even tough I had already blogged in response to a story in The New York Times, this word hero in the BBC News story made it irresistible to me to blog when I saw it as I was having my evening coffee.
But is he a hero?
__________
Reference
Bowie, D. (1980). Ashes to Ashes [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMThz7eQ6K0
David Bowie releases first single in a decade. (2013, January 8). BBC News Entertainment & Arts. Retrieved January 8, 2012 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-20943160
I hope no one else had been inspired to choose this article to respond to in your blog response.
ReplyDeleteIt has also provided an opportunity to use italics and "quotation marks" for a few different reasons.
I just heard the name "David Bowie", but I don't know who he is. Actually I don't have any interest about music and songs even though I learned to paly the piano by force. I don't like artifical sounds which is whatever. Is it wired? This is what I am.
ReplyDeleteMy family like songs excpet me. They enjoy singing and going to a Karaoke. In the Karaoke, I'm a machine to punch the number of the songs. The Korean culture dosen't allow that kind of outsider, so I had hard time in a Karaoke.
Sometimes, no, very rare times, I enjoy some classic music, My favorite is Dvorak.
Sorry, I don't understand a singer could be a hero.
Thank you Katie.
DeleteI think it's fine if you've never heard of one of my heroes, nor is there any need for everyone to be interested in every topic that interests others.
And as Katie's comment shows, you can write a perfectly good response sharing your ideas even on something you might never have heard of before.
As I suggested in my post, I don't listen to music that much either - I've never listened to an mp3 file or used the music player on my mobile. I do like to watch movies, but never TV (truly - I have one of those wonderfully large TVs from Korea, but I only use it to watch DVDs), and I do sometimes enjoy a YouTube video on my computer when I need a break.
I also like Katie's concluding point, bringing us back to the topic in Quest: Can a singer be a hero?
Yes, I think he can be a hero for someone. Some singers has a power to change and influence the way you think from their songs.
ReplyDeleteI'm not good at music, but my brother can play many Thai classic music instrument. When I woke up on weekend, I always heard Thai music which is played by my brother; it was like that I was at Temple.lol