Bowie, Bowie Everywhere
Last year a friend asked me to write a piece about how and where David Bowie's stamp on the culture still shows up, 10 years after his death. The piece didn't run for whatever reason, so I got permission to share it here. Put on your red shoes and enjoy! With due respect to Taylor Swift, David Bowie was the original “eras” artist. Even before he had chart success with 1969’s “Space Oddity,” he had already shed a few skins— novelty singer , blues rocker , mime —and his ensuing career was defined by shifting personas and genres: the glam rock of Ziggy Stardust, the plastic soul of the Thin White Duke, the electronic minimalism of the Berlin records, the bright New Romantic pop of the 1980s, the eclectic experimentalism that continued through to his 2016 swan song, Blackstar . Given that polymorphous influence, it’s no wonder we can still hear Bowie’s legacy everywhere in pop music: in the glam pop of Chappell Roan, in the indie rock of The 1975, in the alien R&B of Janelle M...
