Today marks the 10th anniversary since David Bowie passed away. I still remember that day clearly. I was in South Africa watching the news on the TV and seeing the wealth of tributes. It was a shock. He kept everything very private. In fact, I was thinking of him just a few months before he died and I was wondering when he would, if ever, decide to go on tour again? His last world tour was more than a decade before that point and I foolishly turned down the chance to see him play at Wembley Arena back in 2003. 2003-4 would be the last time he properly toured and save for a few sporadic and brief live appearances, he would never tour again.
Just a couple of days after he died on January 12th 2016, I wrote a piece entitled, “The Death Of David Bowie, The Future And 3D Printing”. This would also be my very first blog post for my newly established blog website that was originally called The Slider. In this post I not only reflect just on David himself, but also the wider context of the future and new and emerging technological developments. For example, I talk about the concept of The Singularity and the inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil’s prediction that in 2045 artificial intelligence will surpass human intelligence. Back then the topic of AI was not on everybody’s lips like it is today.
And what has all this got to do with David Bowie, you may ask? For me, it is all very relevant when I think of him. Aside from being a great artist who changed the face of pop music and expanded the parameters regarding the possibilities of what being a mainstream pop artist can be, he also had remarkable prescience. As well as embracing and harassing change (as opposed to fighting it), he had a unique ability to see far into the future and had a pioneering spirit. A great example of this is his interview with Jeremy Paxman from 1999. Back then we were still in its early days of the evolution of the internet. There was a lot of excitement and hype over the internet. Naturally, there were believers and sceptics. The doubting Thomases saw the internet as just a fad whereas the believers saw the net’s huge potential. Bowie was definitely in the latter camp, but he wasn’t a blind and blinkered believer. He was one of the first artists to release his own music online and he saw the great possibilities of the internet and how it would shape our lives. Yet he could also foresee the negative impacts it would have on humanity. In the interview, Paxman remarks that the internet is “just a tool”, although I suspect he may have been playing devil’s advocate and trying to gauge Bowie’s response.
It is a popular theory to say that Bowie planned his death all along and that he checked out at the perfect time before the whole world turned to custard. It is a compelling theory, but I don’t buy it. I don’t buy it, because I firmly believe that Bowie loved life for all its ups and downs. Yes, he may have been highly secretive about his illness and meticulously planned his final album, but if he had the chance he would have given anything to live longer on this planet. In fact, I recall reading somewhere after he died that one of the things that made him the most sad about knowing that he was going to go so soon was knowing that he wouldn’t be around to see his young daughter grow. Moreover, I also seem to remember reading a tweet by his son Duncan, a few years after his death, where he said that if only David had not smoked so much throughout most of his life there would have been a good chance he would still be around. So no, I am not one of those folk who thinks that he “died at the right time”.
On the day he passed away and the days after his death, I watched people who grew up with Bowie as far back as those Ziggy Stardust days being absolutely heartbroken; as if they had lost a beloved soulmate. I was very shocked and saddened when he died. I love his music and spent a lot of time listening to his records. However, I did not grow up with his music from the early days of his career. It was the Ziggy Stardust period that was the tipping point and that finally turned him into a star after several years of struggling and false dawns. Those veteran fans remember when Bowie appeared on Top Of The Pops in the early 70s playing his song Starman with a blue guitar. For them, it was like witnessing some exotic and androgynous extra-terrestrial being. In those days long before the internet, social media and hyperconnectivity, witnessing this on the TV was exciting and a blast of colour in a colourless world. Throughout most of the 70s Bowie was firing on all cylinders creatively and almost every album he released during this period was excellent. He took risks and never rested on his laurels like some of his glam rock contemporaries and he knew when the time was right to wrap up the Ziggy phase of his music career.
Sometimes I ask myself, if Bowie were starting out today would he strive to make it as a pop star or even go into the arts full stop? Personally, I feel that he was more than just a pop star and he didn’t have all his huevos in one basket. I think one of the most important things to deduce about him, as I already explained earlier, is that he had a pioneering spirit. He embraced change and new and emerging landscapes. He was terminally curious and open minded. When Bowie’s career first really took off in the early 70s, the music industry was still growing and there was still a lot of low hanging fruit in terms of creative musical experimentation and what could be achieved. Even though there were wild and unconventional musicians that existed before Bowie first emerged, one could argue that Bowie was the first mainstream pop star who created the template for all future popstars regarding what they could be. Thus in the same way that The Beatles were probably the most influential band of all time, it would not be unreasonable to argue that David Bowie was the most influential pop star of all time.
By Nicholas Peart
10th January 2026
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