David Bowie wasn’t better than pop music beacuse of the level of artistry he brought to the art of pop music. Bowie was a Warhol.

I’m just starting to dig into Blackstar now, his final album. The comparison’s to his 1995 collaboration with Eno Outside are right on. But this is not a remake. Even when Bowie looked backwards, such as on Heathen, he was still perfectly modern. Heathen is one of my favorite Bowie records beacuse of how perfectly in two places — past and present –it was. The perfect way to tell the story of a character out of place.

Bowie was sly that way. He was sly in a way that was endearing and charming. He winked at his audience, instead of fucking with his audience.

I don’t know where I’m going from here, but I promise it won’t be boring…

If you’re reading my blog, you probably know me as Josh the WordPress guy, but before I was a web developer I was an audio engineer and musician. My music tastes have always been fairly eclectic and how Bowie did so many things, with such wonderful authenticity and evolved with time was always a huge inspiration on me in that phase of my life.

My career may no longer be in music, but Bowie is still an inspiration to me. My career in music became consumed with the technology of music for the same reason my career today is in programming — technology and the magic of making things with it is utterly fascinating to me.

Bowie moved with the times, but he also looked beyond it. When we take inspiration we risk seeing him as a chameleon — taking on the form of his current surroundings. Bowie took many forms, but none of them were purely copying what others were doing.

All of his forms challenged what was happening and pushed them in a new direction.

Press Your Space Face Close To Mine

Bowie’s music evolved over time authentically beacuse it evolved with the co-evolution of culture and technology. He never came off as a poser or a squatter in whatever type of music he landed in for a time. Where he landed he didn’t ape, he occupied it and looked forward. He wasn’t just modern he was futuristic. His work was authentic science-fiction.

The search for authenticity is hard beacuse there is no clear way to describe what it is. But, authenticity is something you could point at Bowie and see.

As Ursula K Le Guin wrote in the forward to Left Hand of Darkness, true “Science fiction is not predictive; it is descriptive… truth is a matter of the imagination.” Science fiction is way to use our visions of a different world, better or worse to discuss the present in an way that without fiction would lack authenticity.

Bowie challenged us to see a different version of the present.

It’s hard to define, but, for me, Bowie has stayed an inspiration beacuse of the way he embodied wonder, and a desire for something different or better… What I love about what I do is that it is never done.

Oh I’ll be free

Just like that bluebird

Oh I’ll be free

Ain’t that just like me