If anyone left their mark in this world, it’s David Bowie.
David Robert Jones, better known as David Bowie, was an English singer and actor who rose to fame throughout the 1970s and 1980s, thanks to his hit song, “Space Oddity.” During his lifetime, the rock singer released 26 studio albums, along with a posthumous record titled Toy in 2021.
The singer made music all the way up until his death in January 2016, when he passed away in his New York City apartment due to liver cancer. He was diagnosed 18 months prior, but did not make his condition public.
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Despite his death a decade ago, Bowie and his music still have a huge impact in this century. In an article published by Ultimate Classic Rock earlier last year, they named what they thought were the “Top 25 Rock Albums of the 21st Century.” Multiple iconic albums from various bands were listed such as Iron Maiden’s Brave New World, Modern Vampires of the City by Vampire Weekend, American Idiot by Green Day and more, but this iconic Bowie album came out on top.
Released on his 69th birthday on Jan 8, 2016, two days before he died, Bowie released what became his final album, Blackstar. He wrote all seven tracks, and the record was made in secret in New York City throughout 2015 with his longtime collaborator and producer, Tony Visconti, and a group of local jazz musicians. Visconti described the album as a goodbye gift for his fans after his death.
“He made Blackstar for us, his parting gift,” Visconti wrote on Facebook a day after Bowie’s death. “I knew for a year this was the way it would be. I wasn’t, however, prepared for it.”
The album was a commercial success and became the only album to top the Billboard 200 in the United States. Blackstar was his fifth best-selling album of 2016, and won three Grammy Awards and a Brit Award the next year. After his death, many fans and journalists reanalyzed the album and searched for hidden messages the singer may have left behind. But Blackstar was not the first time Bowie sang about the concepts of mortality and death in his music.
“He always did what he wanted to do. And he wanted to do it his way and he wanted to do it the best way,” Visconti wrote. “His death was no different from his life – a work of Art.”
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Blackstar and the rest of Bowie’s discography are available on streaming platforms.
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