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David Bowie Has Died

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111–120 of 312 posts

Re: David Bowie Has Died

#111
He was the inventor of continuous public self-reinvention. He saw the job of re-imagining and then sculpting his own public identity as being inseparable from the musical inspiration that propelled it. For him, if any new musical idea he had felt unique enough, he would feel driven to create a new persona to perform it.

Re: David Bowie Has Died

#114
post #85

Do we all have to share this culture of mourning and condoleances? I have listened to some music made by David Bowie, but I kind of feel not that much about his death. Am I heartless? Or just honest? I mean, listening to some guy's music do not make it a close relative, is it? (If so, then well we all have too many "close relatives" for this mean anything anymore). Or should I just shut up and let the people weep unt…

> Am I heartless? Or just honest? No, Yes. You just don't happen to feel a close connection to this particular person who has died. That doesn't mean that other people here aren't being similarly honest and do feel a connection.

Then you are probably just a bit "young" for his music,but for me easily the best music came from the 70's

Re: David Bowie Has Died

#115
post #85

Do we all have to share this culture of mourning and condoleances? I have listened to some music made by David Bowie, but I kind of feel not that much about his death. Am I heartless? Or just honest? I mean, listening to some guy's music do not make it a close relative, is it? (If so, then well we all have too many "close relatives" for this mean anything anymore). Or should I just shut up and let the people weep unt…

God, you're more Asperger than me. When it's like that, I often download the last album, and I appreciate what the person gave to the world, whatever the way I feel, or don't feel. Some are more involved than others, but this is like an appreciation, and a global thanking to people who had notably a global impact. I just listened to the album and personally I'm actually in a 'good' mood, when I think he couldn't have…

Not sure what Asperger is. I am very sensitive: I cry at almost all movies I'm watching even the silliest ones, when the guy kiss the girl, or the father finds his son back. Maybe I'm weird, or just too influenced by Eastern philosophy, but when someone old dies I feel it is ok, it is supposed to be like that, it is the normal course of nature.

My preferred living writer died some time ago. It was ok too, even if I read all his books more than once and often refer to what I think he would say about a topic. He was old enough to pass away (and was apparently too old to write more interesting pieces), so it was ok. I think the same about David Bowie. No need to display an excess of [edit: affliction], he had his good time, let him let some room to younger musicians. No?

Re: David Bowie Has Died

#116
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My music style is far from trendy, but I can't remember the last time I listened (even more so bought something) from the major label. I'd say is much harder to become millionaire rock star now, but for indie bands, that play as a hobby, situation is very favorable as you can contact you audience directly and you don't need to frame yourself into "format" dictated by the labels.

It's an amazing time to be a hobby musician. You can record and produce your own music very cheaply and publish it to the world at the touch of a button. The problem is what happens next, which in most cases is nothing, unless you've got somebody spending money marketing your music or you're willing to work very very very hard to promote it yourself. The difference between now and the 60s through early 90s was that l…

Bowie's first albums didn't catch on at all. It wasn't until he decided to change his presentation and style that he became successful. I recommend seeing "David Bowie & The Story of Ziggy Stardust" which talks about it. It wasn't until Hunky Dory in 1971 that he really got traction. He was dropped by his label (Mercury) after his third album. He signed with RCA for his 4th, Hunky Dory (Ziggy was his 5th). After that, he basically hit single digits for his peak chart position in the UK for in to the 90s for his studio albums.

So, you can look at it as Mercury took a chance, didn't succeed and dropped him. RCA tried again and succeeded. But, he changed his approach and style around this time in an attempt to market himself better. Then, EMI would reap the rewards again in the 80s for Let's Dance which hit number 1 in a half-dozen countries and close to it in a few others.

Re: David Bowie Has Died

#117
post #90
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One would think services like Spotify would help, but they only make the music more accessible, they don't help you find it. I don't have pro and only ads I hear (besides the spotify ones that are trying to annoy you into paying) are ones from Universal Music.

Really? What about the anti-Spotify's like HypeMachine? Fiercely independent, trendspotting/trendsetting, and sustainable. It's a very valuable service to lots of folks. IMO Spotify/Rdio/Pandora could only ever hope to go the advertising route over subscription because they couldn't crack the much harder distribution problem (e.g. the HypeM's, SoundCloud's, Drip's, etc).

Spotify stopped working on Ubuntu a while back so I can't check but I'm pretty sure there is a HypeMachine app for Spotify. So you can get recommendations from them within the Spotify client.

EDIT: it stopped working after 15.04. Something with an old version libgcrypt. I didn't care enough to debug it.

Re: David Bowie Has Died

#118
post #2

When September 11 happened, I was living in New York City, and like many other NYC residents -American or not- I was distressed. Paul McCartney and Co. put together a concert to cheer us up ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Concert_for_New_York_City ), and that was the first time I had a chance to listen to Bowie live. It turned out to be the last time. RIP.

Wow, I feel old. I saw him in concert over a decade earlier for his Sound + Vision tour.

Re: David Bowie Has Died

#119
post #71

Though unfortunate, I don't think this belongs on HN.

"Unfortunate"... ? When a stone hits your windshield and causes a small crack, that's unfortunate.

How is dying not unfortunate? You have an exact 50/50 chance of making the next day. So a death is unfortunate, as you might as well have lived another day.

Re: David Bowie Has Died

#120
post #117
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? What about the anti-Spotify's like HypeMachine? Fiercely independent, trendspotting/trendsetting, and sustainable. It's a very valuable service to lots of folks. IMO Spotify/Rdio/Pandora could only ever hope to go the advertising route over subscription because they couldn't crack the much harder distribution problem (e.g. the HypeM's, SoundCloud's, Drip's, etc).

Spotify stopped working on Ubuntu a while back so I can't check but I'm pretty sure there is a HypeMachine app for Spotify. So you can get recommendations from them within the Spotify client. EDIT: it stopped working after 15.04. Something with an old version libgcrypt. I didn't care enough to debug it.

Spotify works fine for me, under both Ubuntu and Arch, but they removed support for apps a while ago (on all platforms, IIRC Linux was actually the last holdout).
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