It’s been five years since David Bowie died leaving fans all over the world bereft and mourning one of the biggest music mega-stars of all time.
The media is full of look-backs and new assessments of the Bowie phenomenon tying in with the anniversary and the radio waves are busy playing his hits and back catalogue – although I haven’t heard The Laughing Gnome yet.
But, in keeping with my life-long blank of the Bowie effect, all the memories and fan-tales are leaving me cold. Don’t get me wrong, I mourn David’s passing like almost everyone else. He was an artist, in music and other fields, of the highest order and he left a creative legacy of global importance. It’s just that I didn’t get Bowie when he shot to fame when I was a teenager and I never have since.
Backtrack! ... some Bowie records hit the mark. The Jean Genie was a regular on my first stereo in the 70s, Suffragette City is class and, like the world over, Heroes is a timeless anthem.
But for the rest… mmmm, so so…
It’s a strange magic that makes you love one band over another or one singer over the next. At the same time as Bowie was beginning to ride high in the early 70s, I first heard Roxy Music on John Peel’s BBC Radio show and that was it – I was a Roxy man for life. What determines the musical roads you travel down?
In the wonderful film starring Daniel Craig, Flashbacks of a Fool, a young Felicity Jones muses, ‘How could you choose between Bryan Ferry and David Bowie?’’.
Well I did, and I don’t regret it for one minute. But, in retrospect, if I could have had a choice, I wish I could have chosen both.
By the way, Flashbacks was my introduction to Felicity Jones and it was as clear as day then she was going to be a major star. It’s been an absolute pleasure to chart her success from that beautiful and tender film to her latest big movie on Netflix with George Clooney no less.
I really do wish I got the Bowie thing - the fact remains his music largely leaves me cold - but I suspect my lack of a Bowie gene, is my loss. Unlike, I’d suggest, my lack of Queen, Take That, Madonna, Radiohead etc and everything to do with Rap genes!