On January 10, 2016, I woke to my phone alarm and a news alert.  The headline read, “Singer David Bowie has died of cancer, at the age of 69.”  I sucked in a deep breath and held it.  I felt lightheaded.  I think I said, “Oh shit,” or “What the fuck,” or something like that.  I looked around the room to make sure I was actually awake and present in reality.  I was, and the headline was all too real.

In the days and weeks after Bowie’s death, I began to think about what a constant presence he has been throughout most of my life, an unrelenting glittery daydream, perpetually lodged in a back corner of my brain.  I was first introduced to Bowie in the movie Labyrinth.  My uncle, already a Bowie fan, gave me a copy as a Christmas gift in 1987, the year it was released on VHS.  I was six years old.  When I watched the movie, I couldn’t take my eyes off of him.  I was mesmerized.  He was just so beautiful, and his voice was so hypnotic.  I watched it over and over, captivated every time.  Labyrinth would be my primary exposure to Bowie, with the exception of hearing the Let’s Dance pop hits of the 80s on the radio and occasionally catching a video on MTV (I didn’t have cable growing up so I only got to watch MTV when it was on at somebody else’s house), until I was about twelve years old looking to spend some allowance money at the mall and came across ChangesBowie, a compilation album.  I bought the CD and listened to it repeatedly.  It is truly a great collection of his hits, and I loved every song on that album.  It was my first time hearing his gritty sound of the 70s, and it made me realize that his catalogue went back way further than when I had begun listening as a child in the 80s.  I started digging into his entire body of work.  I was completely enamored. I wanted to hear all of his music, see all of his movies, and know everything I could about him.  The more I discovered, the more devoted I became.  It wasn’t just his sound that enchanted me, but his apparent fearlessness and his ever changing style, his ability to command attention.  He set the bar, in my eyes, for everyone else to live up to, and I wanted to be just like him, impossible to ignore.

I was thirty-four when Bowie died, and although I had pursued my Bowie infatuation slowly but steadily throughout the years, his legacy is so extensive that there was still plenty of material left for me to discover.  I cannot claim to be a Bowie expert, but I felt that if I was going to declare myself a true fan, I owed it to him to experience all that he had offered up.  I decided I would dive into the David Bowie rabbit hole.  I would start by listening to his studio released albums, every song, from the beginning.

As I listened with this renewed sense of purpose, hearing some material for the first time, I became even more awestruck by the seemingly endless abyss of talent he possessed.  I began to think about some of the people that I’ve encountered over the years who were confused by Bowie, who thought he was weird, people who just didn’t get it.  I wished I could sit them down, put them in a pair of headphones and tell them, “Just close your eyes and listen.”  I wanted them to understand what I understood, that Bowie was a genius, the most significant and influential pioneer of rock music.  Every time I listened to a song, I had an intense desire to tell someone why I loved it so much and why they should, too.

Thus, the idea for this blog was born.  I do not plan to dissect everything ever produced by Bowie.  I only want to share the passion I feel for my favorite of his endeavors.  If I can convert just one person into a Bowie fan, then it will be worth it.  And if not, well, at least I’ll get it off my chest.  🙂