Berlin (dpa) – Thoughts of death were with David Bowie <!––> often very present. His first hit, the futuristic ballad “Space Oddity” (1969), describes the tragic end of astronaut Major Tom in the cold universe.
“Blackstar” (2016), Bowie’s last album during his lifetime and certainly one of the best of this pop decade, is a gloomy farewell to his own life in seven monumental songs.
That Sunday was five years ago. On January 10, 2016, the British superstar, one of the most important artists of the 20th century, died of liver cancer diagnosed 18 months earlier.
This came as a complete surprise to the public – only two days before, on his 69th birthday, Bowie had released a new studio album. A career that ended in shock included the legendary stage death of Bowie’s fictional character Ziggy Stardust in 1973, life-threatening borderline experiences through drug abuse – and constant grief that time was limited.
The song “Heathen”, for example, is about “the finiteness of human existence – and how much I regret that life is gradually saying goodbye to me,” the singer said in 2002. He was only 55 and supposedly in top shape until he suffered a heart attack in 2004 after a concert in Germany). Headline of the interview: “I want to be three hundred years old.”
Bowie’s death in 2016 was as dramatic as Michael Jackson’s for millions of fans <!––> 2009, John Lennon 1980 or Elvis Presley 1977: You can still remember exactly what it was like to hear the bad news.
The reactions: overwhelming. In his native London at the Ziggy wall painting, in Bowie’s adopted home of many years, New York – and also in Berlin, where the artist, who is still a citizen of the Wall, spent two extremely productive years in the 1970s with the “Heroes” anthem from the Hansa Studios as the highlight.
Mountains of flowers, homemade gifts, mourning letters: in the three metropolises pop fans came together in mourning on January 11, 2016 – the day Bowie’s death became known – and long afterwards. Since then, a diverse Bowie cult has been cultivated, including numerous book, comic and music publications, which, however, have by no means solved all the riddles about the pop magician.
Probably the most important biography after the death of the musician was written by Dylan Jones. For “David Bowie: Ein Leben” (in German 2018), the “GQ” journalist spoke, according to Rowohlt-Verlag, “with 182 friends, rivals, lovers and family members”. The author provided an exciting “oral history” – although the downside of the genius, such as his temporary fascination with Hitler or his greed for “groupies”, remained underexposed, as critics criticized.
Jones said on Deutschlandradio Kultur about his biography approach: “Most books focus on the musician David Bowie, the performer, the entertainer, the concept behind himself. I wanted to portray the person David Bowie. ”
The culture journalist and book author Tobias Rüther (“Heroes. David Bowie and Berlin”) says, however, that there is still room for improvement when coming to terms with some of the 70s excesses: “It would be interesting, Bowie’s special awareness and the desire for populist To look at leadership of Great Britain around 1975, 1976 in the light of the Brexit, ”he told the German press agency. And: “I find it horrific that the behavior of male rock stars like Bowie towards groupies is still viewed as a minor offense.”
Such abysses have not harmed the reputation of the musician overall – Bowie is pop culture par excellence even after his death. The jukebox musical “Lazarus” with famous Bowie songs could be seen on several stages.
And the auction of a large part of his knowledgeable art collection at Sotheby’s brought in a lot of money for the family around Bowie’s widow, the ex-top model Iman Mohamed Abdulmajid: Wealthy admirers drove the total proceeds for the 350 works at the London auction in November 2017 to almost 40 million euros – almost three times as much as expected.
In the German capital, there is still a special veneration for the British, which can be traced on a lovingly guided “Bowie Berlin Tour”. In the summer of 2017, a memorial plaque was hung up at 155 Schöneberger Hauptstrasse, where Bowie lived largely anonymously from 1976 to 1978 and overcame his cocaine addiction.
“I was bankrupt, my friend Iggy Pop and I drove around in a Mercedes that was rusty enough to see the street through its floor, and we felt like teenagers,” Bowie recalled 25 years later. “I had the feeling that a huge burden was being lifted off of me in Berlin at that time.”
The fact that Bowie did not die as a pop star from yesterday or the day before yesterday, but as a highly admired, highly topical artist – it is largely due to his last albums. The comeback work “The Next Day” (2013) and the “Blackstar”, which was posthumously awarded four Grammys in 2017, showed him at the height of his art.
About his courage to avoid the pop mainstream as much as possible, Bowie said in 2002: “During my career I have taken flight from this cursed place time and again. As soon as you belong to the mainstream, everything suddenly becomes empty and completely obsolete. ” The music of «Blackstar», which boldly combines avant-garde jazz and indie rock, made us expect a great late work – it shouldn’t be.
“The fact that there were only days between this last record and his death increased the shock and sadness again and made the view of Bowie certainly milder and warmer,” said Bowie expert Rüther of the dpa. “I found the idea that he had ‘staged’ his death, but always grotesque – for all that is known, he hoped to the last to be able to continue working.”
It is unclear whether the supposedly existing last songs from the New York sessions with jazz luminaries Donny McCaslin (saxophone) and Mark Guiliana (drums) will still be released. Bowie’s friend Tony Visconti dampened expectations in “Mojo” magazine: “I think most of it is known. There are still a few unfinished songs with a full band, but absolutely no vocals, not even ‘La La La’. ”
The now 76-year-old “Blackstar” producer offered a winking consolation on the fifth anniversary of his death in the interview: “Contrary to what many fans think – he wasn’t God,” said Visconti of Bowie. “But he was close.”
Despite all the Popgott worship: Because of the corona pandemic in Great Britain, mass mourning scenes like 2016 and 2017 on Sunday are unthinkable. In Brixton, given the exit restrictions, there is little to remind us that the fifth anniversary of the death of the most famous son.
Opposite the subway station at Tunstall Place, where the mural usually attracts fans and tourists, it is almost deserted. But some unknown Bowie fan stuck a bouquet of tulips on the pane to protect the Ziggy portrait by Australian artist James Cochran.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210107-99-936661 / 2
– .
