David Bowie's dead

ON THE BOWIE BANDWAGON

I noticed that David Bowie died today.  I couldn't help but notice really, since all the news programmes and all my social media timelines have been about little else.  Big event, eh?

Well it seems to be for a lot of people.  Cue much wailing and fearfulness and a great gnashing of teeth.  Or something like that.  His death is a sad event, but all deaths are.

OK, I sort of get it.  Most people have songs or albums from their past they associate with particular moments in their life.  Sometimes they feel the artist was talking just to them and helped them through some difficult patch, usually in their teenage years.  And Bowie did turn out some good songs, and was amazingly long lived as a pop star.

But that, when all is said and done, is all that he was.  A pop singer.  An influential one perhaps, but he's still just someone you either liked or didn't, or just found to be a background noise to your life.  And if it's the former you shouldn't really expect everyone else to feel the same way you do.  Yet I suspect many will find my words objectionable.  (I saw one tweet that linked to a video of his last gig and said that everyone - yes, everyone - had to watch it.  Or maybe I could make my own mind up?)

I looked at one article that claimed to list his seven most important songs.  Right enough, I'd heard of six of them, and really liked a couple.  The seventh meant nothing to me.  It's noticeable that the latest of the six was recorded in 1983, round about the time I realised I no longer felt any need to pretend I was taking an interest in pop music.  Much as I think Space Oddity is a great song, some of Bowie's stuff I found a bit annoying.  He had, to my ears, that slightly whiny quality you get with some London accents, and that could be off-putting.  So I was never going to be a fan, was never tempted to buy his music, even though I was fully aware of who he was.  Many people weren't, and what's wrong with that?  Yet there are articles out there on the internet wondering how anyone could not have heard of him.  It's not that hard to figure out....

A few days ago there was a similar, albeit far lesser, outpouring about the death of another singer called Lemmy.  (Sorry if you're a fan of his, but I'd genuinely never heard of him.)  If someone dies who was an important part of your formative memories then such events are upsetting.  Shortly before that I heard of the death of a singer who was important to me when I was developing my own musical tastes - Andy M Stewart.  I'm well aware that hardly anyone who reads this will have a clue who the guy was, but he mattered to me.  Bowie didn't.

We're all different, we all have our own tastes, memories and heroes.  Let's not expect everyone to share them.

Ironically, from what I do know of Bowie, I think that's a message he'd have approved of.