Vale David Bowie: Goodbye to the Best Part of the 20th Century (Bowie’s Music, Art, Fashion)

Today the world received the most devastating news. David Bowie died at age 69. This news is monumental to anyone who is a lover of avante-garde art and rock music. Anybody who respects and reveres a life lived to its fullest would feel sad about the passing of David Bowie.

A man elegant, humble and yet sublimely, transcendentally talented at melding music and art. A voracious reader and lover of books, Bowie simply understood the zeitgeist of the 70’s, 80’s,90’s, 00’s and 10’s.

He anticipated and then smashed people’s expectations – always making the whole thing look effortlessly cool and beautiful.

He was a man apart from other men. My heart aches as does the hearts of millions of other people today.

Even though we never met him, he was a gentleman and a friend to all of the world’s collective rabble-rousers, misfits, miscreants and loveable freaks.

Everyone would agree that Bowie gave a dark and sexy glamour to being an outsider. He allowed people living on the fringes to strut their unusually coloured plumage in public without apology or explanation.

He honoured and celebrated the outsiders of culture with his personas of the Thin White Duke, Ziggy Stardust,  the Man Who Fell to Earth, Alladin Sane.

By being an unabashed chameleon he encouraged us all to explore towards the outer boundaries of our inner selves.

Like a bright ray of technicolour sunlight he lit the way for all of us creative beings. His influence on fashion, art, literature and of course music looms large over the decades. Yet nobody else could ever hope to be Bowie. They would only be a cheaper, crappier imitation. He was the true originator, the true definition of a rock god – in the most meta way.

My favourite Bowie album, 1983 was a good year for music.  

Today all of the world’s iconoclasts and outsiders lost their leader. Now he’s transformed into stardust and moonage daydreams. My heart aches and breaks as though I’ve lost a friend.