UnNews:Belated news: David Bowie dies at 69
January 10, 2016
Thursday, January 12, 2017
|
Belated news
|
This news event happened on January 10, 2016, but went unreported (except in passing in the article UnNews:2016 Q1 recap). We at UnNews felt that David Bowie was deserving of a full-blown obituary. Besides, the news has been slow lately. There's nothing much happening in the news, just some orange fascist, an outgoing President, and some Russians rigging American elections. And Charles Manson can't decide whether he wants to die or not. But who cares about all that?
|
Legendary rock musician and occasional actor David Bowie died January 10, 2016, just two days after his 69th birthday, the release of what would be his final antemortem album (Blackstar) and the release of his final single (the appropriately named Lazarus). He had been suffering from terminal liver cancer.
David Robert Jones rose to fame in 1969, taking the stage name David Bowie to avoid confusion with Monkee Davy Jones and/or his pirate namesake. Inspired by Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, Bowie released "Space Oddity," a song about an astronaut named Major Tom.
Several more hit songs and albums followed, such as The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars; "Heroes;" "Blue Jean;" "Jean Genie;" "Rebel, Rebel;" "Let's Dance;" Queen's "Under Pressure;" "Fame" with John Lennon; "Suffragette City;" Aladdin Sane; Hunky Dory; Young Americans; and Ch-Ch-"Changes."
He occasionally acted, with credits including The Man Who Fell to Earth, Labyrinth, SpongeBob Squarepants episode "Atlantis Squarepantis," and Christopher Nolan's The Prestige. In fact, he wrote some of the music for a SpongeBob musical in 2015, along with Cyndi Lauper and Sara Bareilles.
Bowie, needless to say, was one of the most iconic and influential rock stars of all time. He was the first to envision rock stars as aliens. He reinvented himself many times, from Ziggy Stardust to the Great White Duke. And one year later, in the year that he would have been 70 years old, and in the years ahead, he will be greatly missed.
His widow is supermodel Iman (m. 1992-2016) and oldest son is film director Duncan "Zowie Bowie" Jones.
Sources[edit | edit source]
- Alistair McGeorge "Iman remembers David Bowie on first anniversary of his death as widow shares touching message" Mirror.uk, January 10, 2017
- "David Bowie dies of cancer, aged 69" BBC, January 11, 2016