I had this conversation with friends a few years ago. Now it seems more poignant, unfortunately.
I had argued, and still do, that Bowie’s reputation is likely to increase and bloom in the future. The “Current Conventional Wisdom” (CCW) has been that Elvis, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix and Michael Jackson are most likely to be the names discussed in a couple of hundred years. Other artists like Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, The Who, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Queen, Stevie Wonder, Prince, etc., are artists that are very close to that level and are the group most likely to swap spots over time with the group of the very few who get mentioned as representative of the era in a short-hand way.
Bowie has kinda been in that second group. But man, what didn’t he get correct when it comes to where the future was going? His enduring music (his songs have great bones - can be played in many ways and still sound great), his lyrics about feeling apart and outside, his gender fluidity, his approach to fashion, and the images we have of him over his career, etc. It all makes it easy for me to imagine him having greater influence over time and being discussed and remembered more vividly, perhaps even making the “short list.”
I suspect none of these names will be nearly as well-known, two hundred years from now, as their fans today imagine. But to the extent that late-20th-century pop-music acts are thought worth listening to and talking about, I think there will be a bunch of others in the discussion, like the Velvet Underground and Kraftwerk.
It’s hard to say what will happen over the next couple of hundred years since we’ve only been recording music for 100ish years and rock has only been around for about half of that (give or take).
But I think Bowie’s reputation will only increase. He was continuously making music right up to the end so now that he’s stopped people (casual fans/critics/journalists) will have a chance to listen to his b-sides and write about his albums as a whole instead of just his singles. Not that that hasn’t been done, I just think it’ll be done more now.
Yep - that is my point: Bowie straddled the space between the Big names and the Outsider Influences. He had both commercial popularity and cult/outsider popularity.
I appreciate that the Velvets and Kraftwerk have shadows that have grown well past their contemporary popularity. It will be interesting to see if that plays out. Many of Bowie’s songs still get a lot of play; the Velvets were inspiring, but I don’t hear “I am waiting for the Man” the same way I hear Heroes or Changes.
I am in NO way trying to diss or dismiss the Velvet Underground; just thinking about criteria that would lead to increased memorability…
Politically, if you are GLBT then he will always be everything - there is nothing before Bowie: Human history is a desert of innuendo, bribery, sleaze, etc. This man flaunted and celebrated GLBT 2,3, 4 years after it was officially legal.
Artistically, his frame of reference isn’t music; it’s Picasso, Harold Pinter, David Lean, etc.
Musically, for me there is The Beatles, a gap, and then a bunch. I dunno, Bowie can be where you want him to be.
Put all three together though and the man changed lives and sped the pace of socio-political chance.
And let me mention again, he refused the Queen’s pretty badges - so also a proper working class hero.
Actually, that;s kind of too narrow. If you read, for example, what Madonna last week said about him reaching out to her teenage self in suburban Detroit as a kid who didn’t fit in, who’s world didn’t make enough sense, then he was so important way beyond GLBT.
I agree with this, with one exception. Chuck Berry will be in the first group, don’t you think? He’s kind of the sine qua non for all the rest. Would George Harrison have sounded like George Harrison if not for Berry? Or Keith Richards? Or even Hendrix?
It depends on whether you’re talking about direct output or influence. How many average people listen to Chuck Berry nowadays, or even know who he is? Yet undoubtedly a lot of popular music can be traced back to his influence.
If you are asking me, I would swap Chuck Berry for Elvis as the single early-gen rock n’ roller that is cited. But I think Elvis still looms large in “pop culture history” as the breakthrough artist for rock n’ roll.
It depends on how much society decides to cling elements outside of their work.
Within days of his death you had people calling him a rapist because he had sex with girls who he knew were under 18. If the Bowie rapist narrative takes root then everything written about him or mentioning him will have to acknowledge it and eventually it could turn into “good music but you know he’s a rapist right?” And it could sway into nobody wanting to deal with it because --what’s the popular term now? ah, “nuanced”–situation.
Think of Bill Cosby… his albums and concert films are still hilarious… but can you disconnect that from “Bill serial rapist.” When talking about the great comedians of the 20th century, he’s eventually going to stop making the list.
I have to say, to speak in general, in a sample of 100 stories about the death of Bowie, maybe 50 have been about his music and general place in music, fashion and other art history; 48 on his influence on LGBT and other outsider groups; and maybe 2-3 about his time with groupies.
I just don’t see this as an issue for his legacy.
When Jimmy Page dies, if we went through the same conceptual exercise, my bet is that out of 100 sampled articles, 50 would be about the importance of Zep, 30 about his brilliance as a guitarist or a producer, and maybe 20 on ripping off older artists, shagging groupies and his other issues. I.e., a lot more attention at the issues he had in his career. IMHO.
That’s an excellent point and one that is often overlooked. We tend to think that the “great geniuses” of today will always be considered as such. But, to take an example from another media, how best-selling books from, say 1916, are remembered today, let alone read ?
With that huge caveat out of the way: I think Bowie’s status is going to improve as a new generation discovers his works. As for the more unpleasant aspects of his behaviour, well, he’s definitely not going to be the first great artist to be admired in spite of their very objectionable deeds, like it or not. Far from it.
I read a few books about the history of pop music recently, most notably Yeah Yeah Yeah and How the Beatles destroyed Rock and Roll. I highly recommend both for music fans.
One of the biggest takeaways from both of them is that we have an incredibly, often hilariously revisionist understanding of what was actually popular and when. There are figures from the past, even the recent past, who were HUGE in popularity, sales, critical acclaim, and influence but who you have never heard of. The attention economy is fickle, and ultimate canonization is the result of many intertwining factors beyond just how good or how popular someone is at the moment.
It’ll be interesting. There’s always going to be an angsty teen that doesn’t fit in and falls in love with David Bowie. But for every teen that does that, another one will love Alanis Morissette or Tori Amos or Nirvana or Smashing Pumpkins or NIN (or all of them) or whatever current music is ‘alternative’ at the time.
That’s part of what keeps music moving forward.
To be clear: yes, of course we have no clue what lens will be used in a couple of hundred years - we’ll have to see. Having said that, there are plenty of instances where the artists popular in their day remain the landmarks to this day, e.g., Mozart and Beethoven.
So I agree with the huge caveat, but it is still worth noodling on given the popularity of the day.
Push You Down - interesting. Is that still happening - are the issues still trending? I saw a lot more LGBT supporters tweeting about how he was a role model for them (i.e., saw lists of tweets pasted into articles on NBC, CNN etc. online).
Based solely on my personal observations of the reaction to his death – not my opinion of Bowie’s merits as a musician – I don’t think younger people know or care much about his work and I don’t see much reason to believe they will be interested in rediscovering it. People my age (30s) were saddened by his death, but he’s beloved by my age group mostly for having been in Labyrinth. I know a few real Bowie fans my age, but not many, and I doubt that many of my peers could name five Bowie songs aside from those on the Labyrinth soundtrack.
I work in academia, and as far as I could tell Bowie’s death went basically unnoticed by people of undergraduate age. I assume there are some serious Bowie fans in their teens and 20s, but again, I don’t think there are many of them. When he died I had expected to hear nothing but old Bowie songs on classic rock radio for at least a couple of days, but this didn’t happen on my local station. So even his death apparently didn’t do much to help expose younger classic rock listeners to his music.