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David Bowie Has Died

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Re: David Bowie Has Died

#151
post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Here are some differences: sports fans don't think that their team is capable of supernatural feats. I don't think I've ever seen a fan of one team try to convince a fan of another to change allegiance, or proselytizing on a street corner. thinking that something is capable of supernatural feats is not required for something to become a religion. Quite on the contrary I present you exhibit A: "forum atheists", non-…

> thinking that something is capable of supernatural feats is not required for something to become a religion. I basically agree, but I think the concept of "religion" invokes a lot of correlated things, and belief in the supernatural is one of the main ones. I expect most religions to differ from the 'prototypical' religion in a few ways, but I think sports differs in lots of ways. (edit: or perhaps better, "beliefs…

OK, well argued. Have my upvote :-)

Re: David Bowie Has Died

#152
A sad way to start my day. His version of Hallo Spaceboy w/ Foo Fighters immediately came to mind.

Wrong bit in the article... Tony Sales was the drummer in Tin Machine. His brother is Hunt Sales, who was the bass player in the same band.

Bowie has a half-brother, Terry, who passed in the mid-80s.

Re: David Bowie Has Died

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been traveling all over the world and all I hear everywhere I go is crap American top 40 pop music. Like I said there's a ton of interesting stuff going on outside their purview but they control the conversation right now.

That's unfortunately what most people want to hear.

It might also has something to do with the fact that not all good music is simply radio-friendly. That is, it's hard to appreciated it in a similar way it's hard to appreciate a good movie unless you're watching it somewhere in a quite place without distractions.

Re: David Bowie Has Died

#154
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…

Dont download the last one. Listen to Ziggy.

Re: David Bowie Has Died

#155
post #74

I bought my first Bowie album probably 35 years ago, I still carry Bowie music around on my phone. Back then buying music seemed like such an important thing. It was both a choice, you could only afford one record out of many, and a statement, your record collection said something about you to your peers. I guess social media takes it's place in that you use it to express who you are and what you like. Back then you…

Your comparison between this kind of behaviour to social media seems fairly insightful. Is this a realisation you came up with just now, previously, or picked up somewhere?

Re: David Bowie Has Died

#156

A sad way to start my day. His version of Hallo Spaceboy w/ Foo Fighters immediately came to mind. Wrong bit in the article... Tony Sales was the drummer in Tin Machine. His brother is Hunt Sales, who was the bass player in the same band. Bowie has a half-brother, Terry, who passed in the mid-80s.

Very sorry, I had Hunt And Tony playing each others instruments...

Re: David Bowie Has Died

#157
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

While making it to the next day may be binary, the odds of 0 coming up for the average healthy person is not 50%. Otherwise only 2% of children would live more than one week after being born.

Re: David Bowie Has Died

#159
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Even after he made it in the UK Bowie still couldn't crack the States. His US Ziggy tour was a mostly unsuccessful attempt to have him fake it until he made it. He had to nearly go disco to become a commercial success in the US. Bowie seems to have been the beneficiary of a degree of early patience from record labels that was fairly extraordinary even at the time.

Re: David Bowie Has Died

#160

I don’t even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years, because I don’t think it’s going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way. The absolute transformation of everything that we ever thought about music will take place within 10 years, and nothing is going to be able to stop it. I see absolutely no point in pretending that it’s not going to happen. I’m fully confident that copyrigh…

> I don’t even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years, > because I don’t think it’s going to work by labels and by distribution > systems in the same way. > > --David Bowie, 2002 Something to think about in music that also happens in startups and software: These are social activities. People don’t judge music solely by some kind of independent metric of appeal. They also judge whether the music is popu…

I think Bowie was the antithesis of this.

If you'll forgive the hyperbole, he is the archetypal outsider, the patron saint of the dispossessed. So for all those who don't feel that they belong, Bowie's activities provided a message - 'It's OK to be an outsider', and, curiously, through that message provided a sense of belonging - I'm going to get all metaphysical and say that that is alchemical / transformative in a very profound way for many people.

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