The Band!
Forgive me but I can’t help but post this bit:
Well, a .250 batting average will keep you on a major league baseball roster, at least. 
I know this pretty definitively, as music was alway important to me. I grew up in Dallas and up until Jr year in high school listened to the AM station KLIF. In my Jr year I went to an experimental magnet school where I studied architecture. We had an open classroom with a fair amount of freedom. And a radio. The fight began early for radio stations. In the end the cool kids won out with the FM station KZEW.
It was transformative. They played long versions and deep cuts. It was much heaver than the pop I was used to. I hopped off the deep end and never looked back.
Through the years, I transitioned, of course. And though there was the ever present influence of “Texas” music around, I tended to listen to heavier stuff. Van Halen’s first album rocked me.
But I moved on to singer-songwriter stuff and my tastes grew eclectic. I always had a base of blues and rockabilly too.
Somewhere along the way I saw George Jones live in a tiny venue and I became a believer. I saw him several more times live (luckily he made every show I paid for!). So drifted back into country for a bit until “new” country took over. Give me Hank, Merle and George any day.
These days I listen to almost anything. People I’ve been listening to lately are people like The Drive-by Truckers and Joe Swank and the Zen Pirates (sadly only on album but it’s a killer!) and whatever good stuff I can dig up.
I’m sure people will read this post and say, well no wonder!. But this just scratches the surface - it’s Cliff Notes of my musical journey. I went through the Bowie era but it just didn’t take for me.
When he died, it was a big deal to a huge portion of the music community in my neck of the woods. I have on the wall behind me a framed watercolor portrait of Bowie that a local/regional muso created at the time and was selling as a community fundraiser for… I don’t remember what.
As a kid, I had this ‘greatest hits cassette’ from 1984, adopted from my parents’ collection. I listened to that tape all the time in my elementary and early middle school age, often late at night before bed. I liked David Bowie based on just that tape for a long time. It was atmospheric, a little sci-fi, dramatic, and just kind of unusual in a cool way. It didn’t fit any musical boxes that I was aware of at the age of 7 or 8 or 9 when I first got hold of it. Add to that exposure to a few other tracks being played on AOR/classic rock radio, picking up he Changesbowie compilation some time after high school, and being an unabashed fan of the movie Labyrinth (and the songs therein), and Bowie secured a place in my personal pantheon of greats.
However, my little secret is that I haven’t really been able to get into any of his albums- though admittedly I haven’t tried listening to many.
He is one of the great ones for me. He was cool, and a great dancer too. I love his music. I don’t know what the OP is missing, but I recommend listening to him until he finds out.
Influence cannot be denied, but I do parallel Lucas’ views on his actual music. I won’t deny that he was an excellent writer of riffs, like on Rebel Rebel, or Ziggy Stardust. Since Elton was brought up above, I’ll say I’ve been into Reg since I was a preteen, but in the compositional department it isn’t really close IMHO. Elton was a craftsman, and his grasp of key and tempo changes, dynamics, and sheer eloquence was pretty unmatched, even in the early 70’s. Bowie by contrast didn’t seem to have that level of craftsmanship.
My fave Bowie cut now is Moonage Daydream, and, while it has this timeless aura which cannot be beat, after about the 90 second mark there is no real development per se, just the chorus repeated half a dozen times with different backing elements-but yeah it’s a helluva chorus and that final guitar solo by Mick Ronson is awesome.
Comparing it to Funeral For a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding, with its dizzying gearshifts and highs and lows and propulsive energy-just a different set of elements combined into a much more integrated whole (compare Davey Johnstone’s efforts here to the above solo). Even on the mellow side I’d say he still has Bowie beat in toto (c.f. Tiny Dancer or Your Song).
I think I’m younger than the rest of the board by 10-20 years. Bowie was an actor in Labyrinth and then, largely, just some guy that people mentioned regularly as having been someone that had sexual relationships with pretty much every other famous male rockstar of the 70s.
In general, I’d agree that his music somehow never seemed to be as famous as he himself was.
But, likewise, I’d say the same of Prince.
My AI is suggesting that Radiohead as an additional contender.
I agree with Bowie and Prince and I’d throw in Bruce Springsteen for good measure (IMO).
Ziggy Stardust is probably his most accessible album. It’s certainly my favorite of his.
Born in the USA is probably played often enough that it would be hard to fully put him in the background.
Never heard anything about this. Shit! Now I gotta do homework.
Sounds like XRT in Chicago. Pretty sure back then they played plenty of Bowie.
Yeah - Van Halen was HUGE - but IIRC that was freshman year for me. Our band definitely dove into Joe Ely, Butch Hancock, Townes Van Zandt, etc. And of course SRV.
I think it is just taste. Yours that he didn’t click with you, and others that they near-worship him. Nothing wrong with that.
I was HUGE into Springsteen - up until the disappointment that was The River. Born In was everywhere, but basically unlistenable.
Here’s mine - Dylan. And The Dead. Dylan was hugely influential, but I’ve never been that into lyrics, and just never listened to much of him. Never understood the Dead worship.
Mick Jagger (at age 17) and Jimmy Page as well. Though another groupie claimed that Mattix was not telling the truth about a relationship with Bowie.
Separately, Bowie was cleared of rape charges by a grand jury in Dallas.
This article talks about how those allegations left him with a complicated legacy.
I’m a casual-plus fan. I enjoy a lot of his music but only have a couple of albums. Concert-wise, I only saw the Glass Spider tour. Being a big fan of Peter Frampton, I appreciate Bowie bringing him onboard and giving his career a boost. (Carlos Alomar wasn’t so happy about sharing the lead guitar spotlight with him though)
Posts like this seem to imply I’ve insinuated that I don’t think he’s good or that I have not heard his music. That’s wrong and missing the point. I think he was talented. Yes, he was a good dancer and showman. Yes he changed his style and look more often than I change underwear (though I don’t see that as a plus, more of a gimmick).
But there are many, many influential people/bands that that made good music and wrote just as good songs that are not fawned over as Bowie is.
Here’s a few: Nick Drake, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Big Star, The Replacements, Hüsker Dü, Ian Curtis - hell, even Jellyfish.
I do think Bowie is talented, I do think he had some hit songs, deservedly so.
What I’m not getting are comments like this:
“David Bowie was unfathomable.”
"Everything from his life to his career made him a true artist, He’s the kind that only comes up every few generations. "
“David Bowie is widely revered as the most influential artist of the 20th century,”
“Massive talent”
" Gary Oldman says it’s no coincidence that the “world’s gone to shit” since David Bowie died: “He was like cosmic glue. When he died, everything fell apart.”
I could listen to his entire catalog 3 times in a row and I’m still not going to understand that kind of reverence.
Equally, for instance, I never bought into to 'Clapton is God, bullshit either.
I don’t think that remark is meant to be a serious comment on his skills/influence (which I do still think were tremendous) but more just a humorous take on how so many terrible things happened shortly after he passed (that he obviously didn’t have any control over) - Prince died three months later, Tom Petty died a year later, the US elections of 2016, Brexit, etc.
Eh, some of his old songs are okay. The whole Let’s Dance album is hot garbage and I fervently hope to never hear any of it ever again.
I thought he did a pretty good job in The Prestige, though.
I don’t hear it any more frequently than Under Pressure or Modern Love (but then again, I don’t live in the USA). Personally, I definitely can name more Bowie songs than Springsteen songs (even though some people consider Springsteen to be some sort of living Jersey god).
I’m going to be honest. I’ve never liked Springsteen. Not as in, “I hate that guy!” But as in, I consider his music “okay” at best. I just don’t think the guy can sing well at all, and his best songs are decent despite him. Eh, music appreciation is very subjective.
My favorite band is The Smashing Pumpkins and Billy Corgan’s voice is certainly an acquired taste, and despite them being my favorite music act of all time, I understand if people can’t stand them. It just is what it is.