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Music

David Bowie Dies At Age 69 (bbc.co.uk) 296

Posted by Soulskill from the rest-in-peace dept.
echo-e writes: Renowned singer David Bowie has died after an 18-month battle with cancer. His latest album, Blackstar, was only just released on Friday — his birthday. His last live show was in 2006. Bowie rose to fame in the 1970s, and he is known for hits such as Under Pressure, Let's Dance, and Space Oddity. He also appeared in handful of films, such as Labyrinth in 1986. Bowie was also notable for being one of the few musicians to immediately see the value and staying power of MP3s and the digital distribution of music. If anything, he was overly optimistic about it. In 2002, he said, "I don't even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years, because I don't think it's going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way. The absolute transformation of everything that we ever thought about music will take place within 10 years, and nothing is going to be able to stop it. I see absolutely no point in pretending that it's not going to happen. I'm fully confident that copyright, for instance, will no longer exist in 10 years, and authorship and intellectual property is in for such a bashing."
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David Bowie Dies At Age 69 More

David Bowie Dies At Age 69

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  • Awful... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11, 2016 @08:52AM (#51277145)

    I'll miss him and his excellent music.

  • Tribute (Score:5, Interesting)

    by The Evil Atheist ( 2484676 ) on Monday January 11, 2016 @08:52AM (#51277147)
    Send his ashes to Mars.

  • I had one of his CD+Gs (Score:3)

    by 50000BTU_barbecue ( 588132 ) on Monday January 11, 2016 @08:53AM (#51277151) Journal

    I think that's what it was, this was a good 20 years ago. It wasn't really a CD+G, it was a CD+LD, you could see the analog part of the CD that would play in a LaserDisc. The disc got stolen, who knows what it's worth today.

    Oh well, RIP imaginative dude.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by TWX ( 665546 )
      Based on the number of people with working Laserdisc players that still have actual interest, probably not much.

      That said, as someone with a working Laserdisc player and actual interest, if it turns out you just misplaced it and if you find it, I'll give you $5.00 for it...

  • Christmas Mr. Lawrence....

  • Now we'll never get to find out what happened to his character in Twin Peaks.

  • Possibly Lung (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    It seems they're being rather tight lipped about what type of cancer it was, but rumors prior to his death (and prior to the public admission he even had cancer) claim it was lung cancer [theguardian.com].

  • True artist (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Aethedor ( 973725 ) on Monday January 11, 2016 @08:58AM (#51277185)
    Whether you like his music or not, there is no denying that David Bowie was a true artist, a real entertainer. There was nothing fake about him. Nowadays, we don't see real artists like him very often.

    • Re:True artist (Score:5, Insightful)

      by rgbatduke ( 1231380 ) <rgb&phy,duke,edu> on Monday January 11, 2016 @09:32AM (#51277377) Homepage

      And he would have made a great Elrond...

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by TWX ( 665546 )

      Whether you like his music or not, there is no denying that David Bowie was a true artist, a real entertainer. There was nothing fake about him. Nowadays, we don't see real artists like him very often.

      I suspect that you're seeing history through rose-tinted glasses. There were plenty of pop-acts in every era that Bowie overlapped with, we simply don't remember many of them. People don't remember acts like Elastica or Commander Cody and his Lost Planet Airmen that charted and were popular for a short time. Hell, look at Weird Al's parodies throughout the years, there are some artists he parodied whose specific work is unknown now that were popular enough at the time to justify parody, like Tiffany and

      • Sure, there are many like him. But the majority of modern musicians don't make their own music. Those are the Justin Bieber-like music industry puppets who can easily be replaced by any other clown.

        • Re:True artist (Score:5, Insightful)

          by TWX ( 665546 ) on Monday January 11, 2016 @09:51AM (#51277511)
          I still think that's incorrect. The majority of modern acts that record labels push are, to an extent, puppets of the record labels, but mostly because, like how Hollywood wants every movie to be a blockbuster, these are the acts that they're convinced will knock it out of the park. Why would a label spend a moderate amount of money to get a simple equal return, when they can spend a bit more and get an order of magnitude more?

          These acts getting arrested for doing stupid things also helps with their sales, so long as the things they do to get arrested are that which we all point and laugh at rather than being truly revolted by. Young, dumb singers whose teen angst bullshit is highly public are great targets. Nearly all of us had our share of it, but we lacked the financial means to get into real trouble or to be so highly visible while doing it. These singers and musicians that the record labels are using have that means and thus when they do the same kinds of dumb shit that we all did, they get busted but also increase their profiles.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Gr8Apes ( 679165 )
            My personal thoughts are that very soon what Bowie said will come to pass. Namely, that the distributors will have less and less meaning in the world, because online distribution trumps them, and anyone can pop something up. Soon, new avenues of popular choice will become mainstream, and hopefully we'll get back to services that play music for their customers, and not for the distributors. (Yes, payola is still an ongoing problem)

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by TWX ( 665546 )
              We thought that about e-books too, but those are still under the control of the publishers for the most part and are still ridiculously expensive.

              Both generally require a fairly large amount of editing. Books may go through editors and even advance-copies to get reader feedback before a final text is set. Music, depending on how it's produced, could require a fairly extensive studio with multitrack recording and mixing and a sound engineer that knows how to get the mix right, sometimes despite the musi

        • So true, probably why when someone can actually sing (without autotune) and write like Adele, they break sales records when they come out with an album. As I understand it, her entire tour is already sold out. I saw (way to late to buy a ticket) she was coming here this November.
          Artists in the 70's and 80's were more likely to write their own stuff, but not always. Todays artists almost never write their own stuff, most can't sing in key, but they must be "pretty" enough for videos. Give me back the old day

      • Re:True artist (Score:5, Insightful)

        by mwvdlee ( 775178 ) on Monday January 11, 2016 @09:59AM (#51277563) Homepage

        Long story short; we don't see many musicians of his caliber today and we didn't see many back then either.

      • Re:True artist (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 ) on Monday January 11, 2016 @10:27AM (#51277783)

        Whether you like his music or not, there is no denying that David Bowie was a true artist, a real entertainer. There was nothing fake about him. Nowadays, we don't see real artists like him very often.

        I suspect that you're seeing history through rose-tinted glasses. There were plenty of pop-acts in every era that Bowie overlapped with, we simply don't remember many of them.

        Which is why we remember Bowie.

        I wonder if anyone 30 years from now will remember Beyonce. We are officially in a worse period of music than disco.

        • Re:True artist (Score:5, Interesting)

          by TWX ( 665546 ) on Monday January 11, 2016 @10:48AM (#51277947)
          Could be. Linda Ronstadt was hugely popular in the late seventies but is virtually forgotten today. The Manhattan Transfer won multiple Grammys and used to sell-out auditoriums like rock groups but is down to 2,000 seat auditoriums.

          Bowie had staying power because he continually reinvented himself and managed to keep up with what the public wanted in addition to giving them something new to consider. He was willing to vary his look- Bowie in the Ziggy Stardust era versus The Man Who Fell To Earth era vs Labyrinth are basically completely different acts.

        • I wonder if anyone 30 years from now will remember Beyonce.

          Who?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by plopez ( 54068 )

        T Rex immediately comes to mind as does Steelyeye Span, Funkadelic, and Fairport Convention.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by KGIII ( 973947 )

          It's probably unimaginable to many but, a few years back, I managed to get to see Meatloaf. It wasn't that many years ago. I want to say four years ago? It might have been five. Strangely enough - it was an excellent show. I saw Bowie twice back in the 70s. He was excellent, but more on that in a minute. Now, the kicker is, I saw Garth Brooks a couple of times and I don't even really like most goat-roping music. I also saw a whole bunch of Dead shows over the years - some good, some not so good. Not too man

    • Re:True artist (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Jhon ( 241832 ) on Monday January 11, 2016 @11:19AM (#51278175) Homepage Journal

      David Bowie and Bing Crosby. I don't think anybody will ever beat Crosby's records (though I think "we are the world" took the number one spot for a while -- and it took every pop artist of the time to knock Crosby down a notch) but that duet between Crosby and Bowie was awesome and demonstrates the longevity of his career.

      I'm not a fan of all Bowie's work -- certainly not most of it. But there's enough of his catalog that I believe we'll see/hear his music long after the majority of "pop stars" today are gone (I'm looking at you Beyonce).

  • Major Tom will be giving the eulogy (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jfdavis668 ( 1414919 ) on Monday January 11, 2016 @08:59AM (#51277195)
    and the spiders from Mars will be the pallbearers.

  • Watch the new videos (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11, 2016 @09:02AM (#51277209)

    He just released an album, its good, but bleak.
    He must have recorded knowing his death was imminent. You'd think why he didn't say he had cancer, but if you watch the videos he did say.

    Blackstar, is full of lonely candles and a Dead Major Tom.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kszLwBaC4Sw

    Love is lost,
    http://prostheticknowledge.tumblr.com/post/137078250186/prostheticknowledge-love-is-lost-hello-steve

    But for me, the best track he's never remembered for is "Andy Warhol"
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4sANPkk3ys

    Goodbye David.

  • news (Score:2)

    by Spaham ( 634471 )

    Thanks for posting this info here, or I would never have heard about it !

  • One word: Marketing. And promotion. Wait, you need three words: Marketing and promotion. And publicity. OK four words: marketing, promotion, and publicity. Oh, and connections to the industry.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by TWX ( 665546 )
      This is sounding increasingly like a Monty Python sketch...

      Let me sit down in this comfy chair and pray continue...
    • If only there were some other way that technology enabled marketing and promotion based on merit. Some sort of digital social interconnection of almost every individual. In such a world the dinosaur marketing and media companies might even be desperately trying to exploit such interconnected social meshes or social networks and poison them with content that actually lacks merits just to keep up.

      Nah, never happen.
      • Right. That is why the top grossing musicians of 2015 were One Direction. They made it on merit because they are so awesome that everyone talked about them on Twitter.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by PPH ( 736903 )

        exploit such interconnected social meshes or social networks and poison them

        Zuckerberg plz go.

  • No mention of banker Bowie (Score:5, Informative)

    by clovis ( 4684 ) on Monday January 11, 2016 @09:10AM (#51277249)

    So far the articles I saw made no mention of his adventure as a banker and alternative currencies.
    Bowie was a more interesting person than your typical rock star.

  • RIP (Score:2)

    by koan ( 80826 )

    I'm fully confident that copyright, for instance, will no longer exist in 10 years, and authorship and intellectual property is in for such a bashing.

    Indeed... if only it were true David, going to miss this guy, grew up with his music and strangeness

    • He was right - it did happen, at least among the younger generations. The old people still have the guns, but they too will have their obituaries.

      • Sort of. The Napster generation is coming into power now and they show no signs of intending to fix anything. Instead they are using their enhanced savy to make enforcement of law more successful.

        That's a scary and terrible thought especially with our courts giving themselves the power to set aside jury verdicts and lying to jurors about their right and duty to judge whether a law is just on a case-by-case basis and instead telling them they are only allowed to judge the facts of a case.

  • Hell of a guy (Score:5, Informative)

    by SMoynihan ( 1647997 ) on Monday January 11, 2016 @09:11AM (#51277255)

    The guy was razor sharp, and at times almost prescient.

    From around 6 minutes in this interview [youtube.com], he talks re. the music industry's rot, and predicts much of the internet's climb over the last decade and a half. All to Paxman's skepticism...

    We have an emptier world today

  • Still one of my favorite albums. I was just listening to it last night, it always hits me how well the theme of the album works.. are there any album themes anymore?

    • Re:Ziggy Stardust (Score:4)

      by TWX ( 665546 ) on Monday January 11, 2016 @09:43AM (#51277461)
      Muse has picked up that mantle lately. The Art of Noise (The Seduction of Claude DeBussy), Spacehog (the Chinese Album), Styx (Kilroy Was Here) and many, many others have released concept albums that are best listened-to whole.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by N1AK ( 864906 )
      Yes. Drones by Muse is a recent major example. The Streets concept album A grand don't come for free is brilliant (though not typically my style of music).

    • Green Day's American Idiot. Three major Marilyn Manson albums together tell a story, from Wikipedia:

      After the release of "Holy Wood", Manson said that the overarching story within the trilogy is presented in reverse chronological order; Mechanical Animals, therefore, acts as the bridge connecting the two narratives and remains constant whether the trilogy is viewed in reverse or not.[5]

    • Ayreon!

      Arjen Luccasen is a genius.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Daetrin ( 576516 )
      There's Rush's latest (and possibly last? =/) album, "Clockwork Angels." And i'd suggest giving Poe's "Haunted" a try. Supposedly even better if you've read her brother's book, "House of Leaves". (I haven't read it yet, so i can't attest one way or the other.)

      Looks like wikipedia has a list of concept albums [wikipedia.org], though i've gotta say at least some of the items on there seem a little dubious.

  • RIP Thin White Duke (Score:5, Interesting)

    by markpg ( 59112 ) on Monday January 11, 2016 @09:24AM (#51277323) Homepage Journal

    Just spent the weekend listening to the new album and trying to figure out the meaning behind the Blackstar video. It suddenly all makes sense.

    He will be missed, but it's nice to know he left at the top of his game.

  • Ground Control To Major Tomb (Score:4, Funny)

    by shortscruffydave ( 638529 ) on Monday January 11, 2016 @09:28AM (#51277341)
    That is all

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday January 11, 2016 @09:33AM (#51277381)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • I saw The Man Who Fell to Earth on first release, when local censors had shredded it into incomprehensibility. Gotta give it another shot...

  • Coolness on fleek (Score:5, Informative)

    by PopeRatzo ( 965947 ) on Monday January 11, 2016 @09:54AM (#51277531) Journal

    The dude played fucking Nikola Tesla in the movies. Because of course he did. That's how cool he was.

  • "In 2002, he said, "I don't even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years, because I don't think it's going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way. The absolute transformation of everything that we ever thought about music will take place within 10 years, and nothing is going to be able to stop it. I see absolutely no point in pretending that it's not going to happen. I'm fully confident that copyright, for instance, will no longer exist in 10 years, and authorship and in

  • remotely linked but a good series (Score:3)

    by plopez ( 54068 ) on Monday January 11, 2016 @10:35AM (#51277841) Journal

    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt04... [imdb.com]

    Don't waste your time with the American series.

  • Played as Nikola Tesla (Score:5, Informative)

    by necro81 ( 917438 ) on Monday January 11, 2016 @10:55AM (#51277993) Journal
    Gosh. On /. I would have figured that some people would have chimed in that he played Nikola Tesla [youtube.com] in the film "The Prestige [imdb.com]." Bonus: his lab assistant was played by Andy Serkis [google.com], in one of his few live-action roles.

  • I will never forget the first time I heard Ziggy Stardust (to be played at maximum volume).

    It was cold and it rained so I felt like an actor and I thought of Ma and I wanted to get back there. Your face, your race, the way that you talk. I kiss you, you're beautiful, I want you to walk.

    RIP David. I love you.

  • Based on Bowie and the entire Glam rock scene of the early 70's .

    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt01... [imdb.com]

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