David Bowie

[TheHowieLama]

No one is close - music, tv, film and stage. Probably not another.

[Lee909]

We have plenty of stage and screen actors on the same level as Bowie was. Thats not a slight on him or taking anything from him. Its just a fact. The UK and Ireland have produced some of the greatest performers off all time. Daniel Day Lewis,Ben Kingsley and Ian Mckellen for three.

 

Anyway im not here to piss on anyones parade. I was never a big Bowie fan but you can only praise his achievements as he was obviously a phenomenal performer,writer etc.

[TheHowieLama]

You may have missed the point Lee

[Boss]

Think you're right there mate. I know people who wouldn't know any of his songs but if you put a picture of him in front of them they'd be able to tell you it was David Bowie.

 

Don't know if I read it here or somewhere else about someone hearing he'd died and saying they knew him from Labryinth and not mentioning his music, but in a way that just proves how iconic he is.

 

I'm not even comparing the quality of their music but I'd imagine more people would recognise the songs of say Ray Davies, Roger Waters, Robert Plant etc... Than would recognise the people, but with Bowie it's the opposite.

 

If we're just talking as a British music Icon, again not comparing the music like for like, I'm not sure how many alive now would hold up to him.

 

The two remaining Beatles and Mick Jagger certainly.

 

Elton John probably.

 

Possibly Roger Daltrey and Keith Richards but personally I wouldn't think so.

 

Any more?

 

I don't think any of them are on the same level, barre maybe McCartney. But i don't think even McCartney is as loved as Bowie. 

[Lee909]

Probably have

Only jumped in the last page on phone. Ignore me if so

[Sugar Ape]

McCartney and Jagger are the only two who definitely are for me and probably Ringo thinking about it. Don't think you can underestimate how big The Beatles are.

[TheHowieLama]

I don't think any of them are on the same level, barre maybe McCartney. But i don't think even McCartney is as loved as Bowie. 

 

McCartney is anyone's equal on a musical stage - Bowie had alot more in his artistic quiver though. Not sure Ringo in Caveman cuts it tbh.

[Pidge]

Listening to Heathen, don't think I've ever heard Afraid through the good headphones. Fuck me... what a tune.

[The Midnight Rambler]

Ringo scrapes in but nobody will really give shit. I can only think of three Americans that would compete too.

[Boss]

Bob Dylan would be on the same level, that's the only one i can think of.

[s(k)aturation]

McCartney is a treasure.

So is Ringo.

So are Harrison and Lennon.

 

Anyone who tries to divide, segment or compartmentalise the Beatles collective brilliance is entitled to do so I guess.

 

Not me though.

[TheHowieLama]

All of those are musical comparisons. Some valid. As a group no one touches the Beatles. As a solo artist, he's tough.

 

Broadway? Feature Films? Avant garde art scene? No contest.

[s(k)aturation]

Ringo scrapes in but nobody will really give shit. 

 

I do.

[s(k)aturation]

All of those are musical comparisons. Some valid. As a group no one touches the Beatles. As a solo artist, he's tough.

 

Broadway? Feature Films? Avant garde art scene? No contest.

 

Is it a contest?

 

Stones, Beatles, The Who, The Kinks, Bowie, Clapton, John.

 

Music and popular culture alike.

 

I don't want to choose.

[TheHowieLama]

No, its a poll - but Vega Ris'ed it up

[Sugar Ape]

Agree it's not a contest. I'm just saying I think the other three are as iconic as him.

 

If you take out The Beatles the only other two I'd have on his level, dead or alive, would be Jagger and Freddie Mercury.

[s(k)aturation]

Agree it's not a contest. I'm just saying I think the other three are as iconic as him.

 

If you take out The Beatles the only other two I'd have on his level, dead or alive, would be Jagger and Freddie Mercury.

 

Yep.

 

I'd have to throw in Richards then.  

But then I'd be doing Watts et al a disservice.

 

Watts runs the band, musically, arguably.

 

The Stones are an icon collectively aren't they?

 

Their logo, the tongue, is Jagger I suppose though.

[Longview1982]

Read an article earlier which had a great passage in it:

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/david-bowie-how-a-master-of-invention-changed-british-culture-for-decades-a6806686.html 

 

".....In fact his entire professional career was one of myth, legend and invention. Brilliantly so.

 

When I was writing my Bowie book, as I was writing the final chapters, I went to‎ visit my father in Cheltenham (this turned out to be the last time I saw him before he died). He asked me what I was working on, and I told him that was writing a book about Bowie’s extraordinary performance on TOTP, and how he influenced an entire generation of music and fashion obsessives. When he asked me why I reeled off the various elements of his performance that had been so challenging, so inspiring, and so transgressive. I described the way in which Bowie had toyed sexually with his guitarist Mick Ronson, the way in which he had dressed like a pansexual spaceman, the way in which he looked, the way in which he sashayed across the screen like a 1920s film star, and, saliently, the way in which his flame-red hair, his dayglo jumpsuit and the general glam colour fest had almost colonised the programme. I explained that this was the moment when the 1970s finally outgrew the 1960s, when the monochrome world of boring, boring south-east England had exploded in a fiesta of colour.

 

My father looked at the floor, took a moment, and then said, very quietly: “You know we had a black and white television, don’t you?”......."

 

I never owned a single Bowie record at any stage of my life, but the amount of his songs - singles and album tracks - that I know really well is probably a situation replicated by many others elsewhere who are accidental fans simply through the huge reach and influence his music had.

[s(k)aturation]

A giant has passed.

 

Simple as that.

[General Dryness]

Dave Gilmour ?

Great guitarist, but not a songwriter. He needed Waters for that.

[stringvest]

The only one alive that can match his impact and influence on pop/rock music is McCartney. And im not just talking about Britain here.

[aws]

The only one alive that can match his impact and influence on pop/rock music is McCartney. And im not just talking about Britain here.

And Dylan.

 

Bowie undoubtedly one of the greats and one of the few who can genuinely be called an icon. I saw him on the tour when he killed off Ziggy Stardust and wondered what he was going to do next but he just kept re-inventing himself and producing great music ( except Tin Machine).

[Alan Sex]

[Alan Sex]

Page/Plant as a single entity belong in the conversation, but only as a side note.

 

Not on the same tier.

[TheHowieLama]

Page/Plant as a single entity belong in the conversation, but only as a side note.

 

Not on the same tier.

 

 

The FUCK