David Bowie
David Bowie
David Robert Jones, better known by his stage name David Bowie, was an English singer, songwriter and actor. He was a figure in popular music for over five decades, regarded by critics and musicians as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s. His career was marked by reinvention and visual presentation, his music and stagecraft significantly influencing popular music. During his lifetime, his record sales, estimated at 140 million worldwide, made him one of the world's best-selling music...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionRock Singer
Date of Birth8 January 1947
CityLondon, England
There seem to be a lot of black artists making very good videos that I'm surprised aren't being used on MTV.
People will keep the TV on even if a show is on that they hate - because, unfortunately, they've been programmed to do that.
Having not really written any generational songs - I think maybe two or three of the songs that I've ever written have any bearing on the age of the listener. My stuff tends to be far more concerned with the spiritual and with subjects like isolation and being miserable.
I'm not actually a very keen performer. I like putting shows together. I like putting events together.
There's not much point in getting any heavier... there's too many things to read and look at.
There's something about the style of living in the country that they feel, "This is what represents me." So style is about the philosophy of how we create our civilization.
Things have to hit for the moment. That's one of the reasons I'm into video; the image has to hit immediately. I adore video and the whole cutting up of it.
Trying to tart the rock business up a bit is getting nearer to what the kids themselves are like, because what I find, if you want to talk in the terms of rock, a lot depends on sensationalism and the kids are a lot more sensational than the stars themselves.
Ironically, style doesn't come even closely related to fashion. It's got nothing to do [with clothes].
David Bowie emerged as a rock star in the late '60s. And as Ken Tucker wrote, "In the face of the hippy era's sincerity, intimacy and generosity, Bowie presented irony, distance and self-absorption. His song 'Changes' announced the arrival of a new counterculture," unquote.
I'm not a natural performer. I don't like performing very much.
[David] Bowie had a genius for continual change himself, reinventing his sound and his image throughout the decades. Each album seemed to find Bowie in a different persona, with a new sound to match his new look.
I would like to believe that people knew what they were fighting for and why they wanted a revolution, and exactly what it was within that they didn't like.
[David] Bowie went on to make best-selling music - funk, dance music, electronic music, while also being influenced by cabaret and jazz.