London, Jan 9 (EFE)
Tomorrow, Saturday, will mark ten years since the death of David Bowie, “The Chameleon,” one of the most multifaceted and daring artists of his generation, who did not hesitate to change his image and style on multiple occasions throughout his 69 years of life.
Born David Robert Jones in Brixton, a popular neighborhood in south London, he displayed remarkable artistic talent from a young age, which did not go unnoticed by his teachers. By the age of ten, he was already singing and dancing and was enthusiastic about American music.
At fifteen, he formed his first band, ‘The Konrads’, and throughout his career he created no less than five more groups, always in search of new plot twists.
He left behind countless songs that have passed into the collective memory of several generations, but none define him as well as ‘Changes’ (1971, from the album ‘Hunky Dory’): “Changes… Turn around and face the strange. I don’t want to be richer, what I want is to be a different man,” sang a Bowie with long blond hair, one of the many images with which he disguised his identity.
In his life he was—or dressed as—a dandy in a white suit, a hypersexualized latex doll, an androgynous and ambiguous character, a pirate with an eye patch, a space traveler, a clown… but he always seemed to be ahead of the curve. One of his many nicknames was “king of glam,” that is, an emperor of glamour from whom so many others drew inspiration.
It’s said that Bowie could spend more time in the dressing room, putting on makeup for a concert, than actually singing on stage. His image was always an obsession.
But it is in his music that Bowie will endure, with a series of albums and songs created in the seventies and eighties that have marked contemporary music: ‘Changes’, ‘Starman’, ‘Heroes’, ‘Modern Love’, ‘Ziggy Stardust’, ‘China Girl’, ‘Under Pressure’, ‘Modern Love’… and the list could add several dozen more titles.
A company coveted by its contemporaries
There wasn’t a single contemporary artist of Bowie who didn’t seek him out to star in unforgettable duets, including Mick Jagger, John Lennon, Tina Turner, Bing Crosby, Lou Reed, Cher, Iggy Pop, Freddie Mercury…
The diversity of styles across all those names testifies to Bowie’s extraordinary adaptability, earning him the nickname “The Chameleon,” though in his case he never seemed to betray any essence or principles; he simply seemed to feel at home in pop, rock, punk, soul, or glam. In one of the most surprising turns of his career, he went from pop to hard rock by forming the band ‘Tin Machine’ between 1987 and 1992.
British Channel 4 premiered the documentary ‘Bowie: The Final Act’ this week to honor the ten years since his death.
The program features musicians and producers who highlight the visionary aspect of an artist described as a “cultural prophet,” someone who “lived with one foot in the present and the other in the future” or who “was not content with being a rock star, because he always wanted to be an artist.”
Musical and artistic vampire
Among those who knew Bowie closely during the years of the counterculture and “flower power” is his friend Dana Gillespie, who speaks in the documentary with a certain bluntness about the musician.
“When he got what he wanted from others, he abandoned them and moved on to another stage,” although Gillespie expresses it without resentment, taking for granted that this ‘use and discard’ was a necessary price to pay to burn through stages in an artist who was never content with being what he was.
In 21st-century Britain, David Bowie is still present in the “merchandise” that tourists buy in London, alongside other musical icons of the city such as the ‘Sex Pistols’ or ‘The Clash’.
And everyone seems to have forgiven him for something unprecedented in the United Kingdom: when Queen Elizabeth II offered him a knighthood in 2003, Bowie declined an offer so many dream of. He declared at the time: “I would never accept something like that. It’s not what I’ve spent my life working for.”
