I never listened to David Bowie, never got time for that, it is a common situation for me. I have a list of bands that never reached my auditory cortex and that’s fine. Some relations are never meant to be established, for some we have only ourselves to blame, others are just missed opportunities that will never be revealed to us, and a fairly small percent of them will not happen until universe plot some crazy plan that will unroll when you least expect it.
After the tragic passing of one of the biggest musical icons in the modern world I decided to listen to what he played, to see if his music is truly mind-blowing, a description I got from many people when asked them how would they described his music.
So I went to YouTube and found one video containing 30 of his best songs and so the journey began. Song after song, verse after verse I started to realize how big artist David was. So many naturally entangled genres, fantastic lyrics, unique voice, so much emotion invested in every song slowly began activating my fan gene. Progressive side of his music is fascinating, songwriting is witty as it could be, there are lots of mainstream arraignments, but they are overshadowed by fantastically good lyrics, melodies that only a genius can produce and an overall feeling of spiritual fulfillment that I felt listening to only a dozen bands till now, maybe even less.
Heroes, Space oddity, Life on Mars?, Let’s Dance, Five Years and many more have that magical “something”, a feat that only truly great artists can incorporate into their music.
What I like the most is his avant-garde side, the ability to write crazy melodies, combine them with unreal lyrics and still be listened by millions. That phenomenon happens rarely, only a handful of musicians accomplished that and still retained their fan base.
Out of those 30 songs I fell in love with Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide, Suffragette city and Five Years right on the first listen, especially with Five Years, a song that has immeasurable amounts of feelings in it, I never heard it before but it enchanted me like no other song since Cult of Luna’s Leave Me Here did, and that was six years ago. Enough said.
For the end of this confession, I can only say that a couple of weeks ago I only had tremendous amounts of respect for him, and today I’m a fan, as simple as that. I regret that I haven’t got into his music earlier but it’s never too late for that, I’m happy and sad at the same time because today I found new artist who’ll be present in my playlist for a long time, but at the same time today I truly realized how big an artist David Bowie was and how big and deep is the emptiness that his passing left in the music world.
We can be heroes, just for one day and today he became one of my musical heroes.
Rest in Peace David, you will be remembered.
