I woke up at 3 a.m. this morning, after another night of weird dreams and the frequent interruptions of a six-day-old cold. I was going to go right back to sleep, but then I checked my phone. A tweet of a made-up David Bowie accompanied by the words ‘R.I.P. Starman’ caught my eye. I didn’t think much of it until I scrolled down a bit more to see more Bowie references. I opened up Safari and checked on The Guardian…

Before I heard Elton John or bought anything by The Beatles, I was listening to David Bowie. My first Bowie record was the 1973 RCA ‘Space Oddity’ single, with ‘The Man Who Sold The World’ as the b-side. Intrigued, I subsequently used my allowance to buy copies of the Space Oddity and The Man Who Sold The World albums.

Space Oddity seemed an odd collection of songs. What to make of a song called ‘Unwashed and Somewhat Slightly Dazed’? Or ‘Cygnet Committee’, all nine minutes and thirty-three seconds of it?

The Man Who Sold The World was more to my liking, overall. I never much cared for ‘The Supermen’, but the rest of the album was great. ‘The Width of a Circle’ had moments that were genuinely scary, ‘After All’ had that weird ‘oh by jingo’ refrain, and the title track was the perfect song to follow the intense energy of ‘She Shook Me Cold’.

With these two records now part of my collection, I would often look at his albums in the LP racks at Sears or Marketime (Fred Meyer). I was most intrigued by the cover of Aladdin Sane, especially the cover image, which I couldn’t quite figure out—it looked like Bowie, but was that a woman made up to look like him instead? Ziggy Stardust didn’t look like the Bowie I recognized; for that matter, neither did the Bowie on the back cover of Hunky Dory.

That fall, the Pin Ups album was released, preceded by its first single, ‘Sorrow’, which didn’t sound like anything else on the radio. Was that a violin I heard? (No, but it would be years before I knew that.) Just after Xmas, when I got a Juliette stereo from my folks, Pin Ups became my first 8-track tape purchase. Part of the reason I chose it was that, unlike a lot of other 8-tracks, none of its songs was interrupted by program changes. I was not aware at that time, though, that the running order had been rearranged. So, to this day, the 8-track version is the one I am used to; the original running order of the LP has never sounded right to me.

Between that first single and my post-Xmas purchase of Pin Ups, though, came The 1980 Floor Show, a special episode of NBC’s Midnight Special. Bowie was basically given the show to do whatever he wanted. Part concert program, part theatrical production with sets and costumed dancers, the music was a mix of material from Aladdin Sane and Pin Ups, and the would-be 1984 musical that became Diamond Dogs, with appearances by Spanish band‘ Carmen, The Troggs, and Marianne Faithfull, plus the mysterious blonde host, Drushenka (Amanda Lear). Although this show has never been officially released, it has been widely bootlegged, and several clips are available on YouTube.

Diamond Dogs would be my next David Bowie album. Remnants of the originally intended 1984 musical were still present, though at that time I did not know enough about Orwell’s book to know what, if anything, beyond the song ‘1984’ remained. I did know that I liked the album, and that ‘Rebel Rebel’ was my first experience with different single and album versions of the same song. (And the end of ‘The Chant of the Ever-Circling Skeletal Family’ scared me out of the room the first couple of times I heard it.)

Over the next couple of years, David Bowie was a regular presence on American radio, especially with the release of the Young Americans LP in 1975. ‘Fame’ went to #1 on the singles chart, and ‘Golden Years’ was another big hit the following year.

I did not hear any of Bowie’s music again until 1979, so I basically missed most of the ‘Berlin trilogy’, with the exception of the ‘DJ’ single, which I most likely heard when the video was aired on cable (back when HBO used to show trailers and the occasional video between movies).

Then came Scary Monsters, with ‘Ashes to Ashes’ and ‘Fashion’. ‘Ashes to Ashes’ was initially notable as a sequel to ‘Space Oddity’, while ‘Fashion’ managed to both be funky and featuing guitar work by Robert Fripp and Carlos Alomar. An early favorite of mine was the opening song, ‘It’s No Game’, with its spoken Japanese sections and Bowie’s half-sung, half-screamed vocals. This was followed by ‘Under Pressure’, a seemingly unthinkable collaboration with Queen that actually worked quite well.

What happened next was completely unexpected: mainstream Bowie. Nile Rodgers produced and played guitar on Let’s Dance, which fit neatly into the 1983 pop-music landscape. It was Bowie minus most of the rough edges that had kept most folks at a distance. Although he had influenced a lot of the folks who emerged in the early 1980s, most Americans still thought of him as weird, so for him to seem so normal was no small accomplishment. It was both comforting and a little unsettling.

This was the MTV-era David Bowie. ‘Let’s Dance’, ‘China Girl’, ‘Modern Love’, ‘Blue Jean’, the Live-Aid cover of ‘Dancing in the Street’ with Mick Jagger, and Absolute Beginners.

The only real drawback to this newfound mainstream popularity was that David Bowie suddenly seemed not so interesting anymore—a sense that was heightened a few years later, in 1989, with the start of the ‘Sound+Vision’ campaign that saw Bowie’s RCA back catalogue remastered and reissued on CD.

1989 also saw the emergence of Tin Machine, an attempt to step back from being David Bowie, with all the attendant expectations, by becoming just another member of the band. It was only a partial success, however. The band had some good songs—I particularly liked ‘Under the God’ and ‘I Can’t Read’—but I recall a lot of folks not buying what they saw as a conceit. I also recall seeing a performance of some sort (possibly part of a live show recorded in the UK or Europe) on Japanese TV (I was living in Tokyo at the time); I could have sworn I had taped it, but I don’t know what happened to the tape. Oh—of course, it is on YouTube.)

The Rykodisc/EMI reissue campaign was the first time I heard some of the Bowie albums I had missed the first time around. I originally owned copies of Space Oddity, The Man Who Sold the World, Pin Ups, and Diamond Dogs (all on LP, except  Pin Ups), plus a few singles (‘Space Oddity’/‘The Man Who Sold the World’, ‘Fame’, ‘Golden Years’, and ‘DJ’); by 1981, I had added Aladdin Sane (on 8-track) and Young Americans (LP) before CDs came along in 1982/83. Since I had not heard any David Bowie for a few years at that point (not since Live Aid, anyway), it was a good chance to reassess.

It turned out that the albums I liked the best were the ones I had originally owned. Based on what I heard on the Sound + Vision compilation, I opted to skip Station to Station, Low, and “Heroes”, which all seemed too esoteric for my tastes. Of the CDs I bought—the albums mentioned in the previous paragraph, plus Hunky Dory,  The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, Aladdin Sane (since I rarely listened to 8-tracks by the time I first bought my copy), Lodger, and Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps). I hadn’t expected much from Hunky Dory, so I was not very surprised that I liked ‘Changes’ and ‘Life on Mars’, and nothing else. I had slightly more hope for Lodger, since I had liked ‘DJ’, ‘Repetition’, and ‘Boys Keep Swinging’—but I didn’t like it much, either. Ziggy Stardust was probably the biggest disappointment. After all that hype for so many years, the only songs I liked were ‘Ziggy Stardust’ and ‘Suffragette City’. (To this day, I much prefer Aladdin Sane.) Scary Monsters fell somewhere in between; I really liked what was side A of the original LP, then lost interest on side B. (I skipped the live albums—David Live and Stage.)

Even though I ended up being less than enthusiastic about some of the most revered albums in the Bowie catalog, at least I now had a more complete picture of those years.

The next Bowie incarnation to catch my attention was 1995’s Outside. ‘The Heart’s Filthy Lesson’ is still one of the best latter-day Bowie tracks; it makes his decision to tour with Nine Inch Nails make perfect sense. The Pet Shop Boys remix of ‘Hallo Spaceboy’ (for the single) was as effective as it was unlikely. I didn’t take much notice of ‘I’m Deranged’ at the time, but came back to it after David Lynch included it in Lost Highway.

Between then and 2013, I was more aware of David Bowie than I was paying attention to what he was doing. I heard bits and pieces of the Earthling album, but it didn’t do much for me. I followed the news of his Bowie bonds, his ISP, and his interest in art collecting, but was not so much interested in the music.

‘Where Are We Now?’, from 2013’s surprise album, The Next Day, did catch my attention. Not so much because of the video (eye-catching though it is), but because of its haunting, emotional quality. (Its lyrics will no doubt be subject to added scrutiny in the wake of Bowie’s death.)

Finally, we have Blackstar, released on his 69th (and last) birthday, and previewed a couple of months ago by a video for the title track, and a few days ago for the song ‘Lazarus’—both of which will also receive added scrutiny now that Bowie is gone. I have not had much chance to listen to it yet, but the initial reviews have been very good.

In hearing the news of David Bowie’s death two days after his birthday and the release of what becomes his last album, it is hard not to be reminded of Freddie Mercury, who died one day after announcing that he had AIDS. Like Mercury, Bowie had time to prepare for the inevitable, wrap up loose ends; for the rest of us, it was a surprise.

(Though, at the risk of sounding like a twat, I had a feeling it might not be long. When watching the video for ‘Lazarus’ last Thursday, a thought suddenly entered my head: No, you can’t be old! Don’t die! I quickly dismissed it, but I’d had a similar feeling when watching George Carlin’s final HBO special, that he might not be around much longer. In this case, I never expected the end to come so soon after.)

It is safe to say that the influence of David Bowie on modern music will not be adequately measured (or measurable) in our lifetimes. It is simply too pervasive, and has trickled down too many levels. But, if you pay attention to what those musicians making comments are saying about his influence on them, then consider who they in turn have influenced, you will get a slightly better idea of how enormous David Bowie truly was.

(11 January 2016)