One-eyed child who heard of God
David Bowie was born on January 8, 1947 under the name David Robert Jones. As a child, he had attracted the attention of both his family and teachers with his ability to music. He was also a hard rock listener of that age. Young Bowie was putting everything on this new trend coming from the USA. His favorite name was Little Richard. For his Tutti Frutti song, he says: When I first listened to the song, I heard God.
The saddest thing from this period is David, who struggles with a friend in elementary school, loses his eyesight as a result of a blow to his left eye. So now he will look at the world with only one healthy eye. For David, this does not cause offense to the world. We can even say that after this incident, with the change of the color of the damaged eye, there are now two different eye colors, and this image coincides with the alter ego identities that it will create in the future. They already become close friends with his brawling friend George Underwood, who has already given him a blind eye. Underwood even makes visual designs of the first Bowie albums.
A lonely astronaut in space
David has grown up now and has decided what to do for the rest of his life: he will become a singer. Like rock stars who have guided his entire life, he will write and sing his own songs. Of course, not everything will be so easy. He creates many bands, makes his own solo albums, sends his songs to the radio, but he cannot achieve the desired success. He also used many different stage names, but at the end he was inspired by his beloved Mick Jagger’s surname, and he made his own surname, a brand that was very trendy in England for a while, and now he is David Bowie. His first success comes in a very short time: he tells of an astronaut lost in space (our astronaut’s name is found again in the touch of Major Tom – two years later, in the song Ashes to Ashes: ash know to ashes / funk to funkie, we know Major Tom is a junkie ) song Space Oddity
the man who sold the world
In 1970, the first of the best albums series comes out: The Man Who Sold The World. The album’s songs, with schizophrenia, paranoia, madness, loneliness and alienation, make the audience goose bumps. The first musical change comes with this album. Bowie, who uses classic rock and roll and country themes in two albums he has released so far, dives into the markets with hard rock potion that has not been heard until then. In fact, this is a new trend in terms of both the content of the music and the appearance of Bowie: Glam Rock! The songs of the album that are like a slap on the face of the society, which is in the dreams of love, flowers, happiness and peace that came out of the 60s. In fact, Bowie has set the line for a new decade in this way: The Flower Revolution is over. One of the most memorable aspects of the album is Bowie’s pose by wearing women’s clothes on the cover of the album, and the second is The Man Who Sold The World song, which was re-composed by another legendary Kurt Cobain and popular until today. Two separate comments; both are fantastic.
Is there life on Mars?
You have discovered ready-made Glam Rock, just hang out, take your money, taste it, right? Imperishable. Bowie has already changed to her next album: Hunk Dory. Album Pretty Things and Life on Mars? It is engraved in mind with songs like. In this album, Bowie stands for two important names: Andy Warhol and Bob Dylan. Two songs of the album were written for these two masters.
And Ziggy plays the guitar…
But David Bowie makes his big bang with Ziggy Stardust. He does it on stage not as David Bowie, but with the first alter ego Ziggy Stardust he created. The name of his group is Spiders From Mars. Ziggy Stardust is a supposedly extraterrestrial being, descends into the world in human form and is sent to the worlds with peace and loving messages to the earthlings who have only five years with their songs, and is deified by the worlds and destroyed by their own fans. There is only one option left for him: Rock’s Roll Suicide. The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars album content, music, being a true concept album with all the songs telling a single story, and Bowie’s has made such an impact with stage outfits and the alter ego, the effect has not been erased over the years and influenced dozens of artists has been an inspiration.
A hero reborn in Berlin
Afraid of repeating himself, David Bowie moves to Germany, where nobody knocks at the time, after going on a tour to earn millions of dollars after all the successes, and he was interested in German electronic music, which at that time did not attract anyone’s attention. The change this time is quite radical. To give an example for the current generation, it is like Radiohead’s making an album like Kid A after OK Computer, the Low album released by David Bowie in 76. Leaving all fans and critics alone with an album they don’t know what to think, David Bowie receives the greatest praise from the famous classical music composer Philip Glass. According to him, Low is a masterpiece in itself, and he even dedicates his 4th Symphony, which he wrote years later, to this album and Bowie. Returns with three albums from the Berlin era Bowie: Low, Heroes and Lodger. So what is the real attention here: Bowie, who opened the door of the punk with The Man Who Sold The World and Ziggy Stardust, is knocking with the punk of England and this time it opens the door of a new type decorated with ambient, minimalist movements. Because after these three albums, electronic music, which will be put aside as punk in the eighties, will be on the rise. As you can see, Bowie is a captain of a huge pop culture.