Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search
 

Proserpina

(2,352 posts)
Fri Jan 15, 2016, 07:37 PM Jan 2016

Weekend Economists Mourn David Bowie 8 January 1947 – 10 January 2016 (1/15/16)

Where does one begin, regarding the passing of David Bowie, extraordinary man?

I begin with "The Labyrinth", my introduction to his art. We watched this film on laserdisk, my sister and I, so the entire visual and auditory effect was overwhelming. The producer thought to dumb it down enough for children, I suppose. Perhaps the idea was that the deeper stuff would go right over the heads of the younger kids; youngish teens would get more of the meaning. It wasn't like anything else (until the recent vampire and zombie movies and the Hunger Games). It was scarier than Wizard of Oz!

This film, released the year before I was born, was both very dark (when the people were talking) and very silly (when the Muppet-puppets were at it). The story was Freudian, and so was the Goblin King, as portrayed by Mr. Bowie. And that might just sum up his entire oeuvre: dark, silly, scary, deep. Bowie was no romantic lead in his public life.



He was born David Robert Jones, and was an English singer, songwriter, musician, record producer, painter and actor. He was a figure in popular music for over five decades, and was considered by critics and other musicians as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s.

Born and raised in south London, Bowie developed an interest in music while at Burnt Ash junior school and showed aptitude in singing and playing the recorder. When he left school he studied art, music and design, and became proficient on the saxophone, forming his first band that year at the age of 15. He embarked on a professional career as a musician in 1963, and received his first management contract shortly afterwards. "Space Oddity" became his first top five entry on the UK Singles Chart after its release in July 1969. After a period of experimentation, he re-emerged in 1972 during the glam rock era with his flamboyant and androgynous alter ego Ziggy Stardust. The character was spearheaded by his single "Starman" and album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. The relatively short-lived Ziggy persona proved to be one facet of a career marked by reinvention, musical innovation and visual presentation.

In 1975, Bowie achieved his first major American crossover success with the number-one single "Fame" and the album Young Americans, which the singer characterised as "plastic soul". The sound constituted a radical shift in style that initially alienated many of his UK devotees. He then confounded the expectations of both his record label and his American audiences by recording the electronic-inflected album Low (1977), the first of three collaborations with Brian Eno later known as the "Berlin Trilogy". "Heroes" (1977) and Lodger (1979) followed; each album reached the UK top five and received lasting critical praise. After uneven commercial success in the late 1970s, Bowie had UK number ones with the 1980 single "Ashes to Ashes", its parent album Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps), and "Under Pressure", a 1981 collaboration with Queen. He then reached a new commercial peak in 1983 with Let's Dance, which yielded several successful singles. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Bowie continued to experiment with musical styles, including industrial and jungle. He also had a successful but sporadic film career. His acting roles include the eponymous character in The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976), Major Celliers in Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983), the Goblin King Jareth in Labyrinth (1986), Pontius Pilate in The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), and Nikola Tesla in The Prestige (2006), among other film and television appearances and cameos.

Bowie's impact was enormous; he changed the nature of rock music, and changed his own approach repeatedly. During his career, he sold an estimated 140 million records worldwide. In the UK, he was awarded nine platinum album certifications, eleven gold and eight silver, and in the US received five platinum and seven gold certifications. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996. Bowie stopped concert touring after 2004, and last performed live at a charity event in 2006. In 2013, he returned from a decade-long recording hiatus, remaining musically active until his death from liver cancer three years later.

Rest in peace, Mr. Jones.



80 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Weekend Economists Mourn David Bowie 8 January 1947 – 10 January 2016 (1/15/16) (Original Post) Proserpina Jan 2016 OP
Interesting how he changed changed his name from Jones to Bowie due to Davey Jones of the Monkees Mnemosyne Jan 2016 #1
David Bowie: Early life Proserpina Jan 2016 #2
1962–67: Early career to debut album Proserpina Jan 2016 #3
1972–73: Ziggy Stardust Proserpina Jan 2016 #4
1974–76: Soul, funk and the Thin White Duke Proserpina Jan 2016 #5
1976–79: Berlin era Proserpina Jan 2016 #10
I attended this concert in 1972 wilsonbooks Jan 2016 #67
Re: Tyrannosaurus Rex (1968): "Debora": Ghost Dog Jan 2016 #23
Just trying to summarize David Bowie's life is exhausting Proserpina Jan 2016 #25
Thank you many things I did not know . Stay warm! Person 2713 Jan 2016 #39
Thanks for stopping in! Proserpina Jan 2016 #41
Neoliberal Capitalism, Its Crisis, and What Comes Next Proserpina Jan 2016 #6
Political Aspects of Full Employment1 by Michal Kalecki Proserpina Jan 2016 #7
YVES SMITH: I wanted to add a couple of thoughts... Proserpina Jan 2016 #8
Neoliberal Capitalism, Its Crisis, and What Comes Next Proserpina Jan 2016 #9
Bowie Bonds: How David Bowie Securitized His Royalties and Predicted the Future Ethan Wolff-Mann Proserpina Jan 2016 #11
Bowie: The Man Who Sold Royalties and Brought Music to Bonds Proserpina Jan 2016 #12
David Bowie Poised to Dethrone Adele on Album Sales Charts Proserpina Jan 2016 #18
David Bowie's 'back catalogue bonds' may have started the credit crunch from 2009 Proserpina Jan 2016 #75
Wal-Mart to Shut Hundreds of Stores Proserpina Jan 2016 #13
The New Strategy in the Auto Industry: Cars Nobody Will Buy Proserpina Jan 2016 #14
Retail Sales in U.S. Decrease to End Weakest Year Since 2009 Proserpina Jan 2016 #15
Economic Growth in U.S. Cracking Under Strain of Global Slowdown Proserpina Jan 2016 #16
Gross Says Markets Can't Prop Up Wealth Flimsy as Toilet Paper Proserpina Jan 2016 #17
With Liftoff Done, the Fed Revisits Its $4.5 Trillion Quandary Proserpina Jan 2016 #19
With Soylent Sales Up 300 Percent, Its Founders Have Eyes on Europe Proserpina Jan 2016 #20
How Labyrinth led me to David Bowie Proserpina Jan 2016 #21
Another Fan Gurl: My David Bowie, alive for ever Suzanne Moore Proserpina Jan 2016 #22
Bowie the film star: imaginative, daring and endlessly charismatic Proserpina Jan 2016 #24
For Those of Us Whose Identity Is Slippery, David Bowie Was a Secular Saint Proserpina Jan 2016 #27
The Cartoon version Proserpina Jan 2016 #28
The Berklee commencement speech Proserpina Jan 2016 #29
Solar and Wind Just Did the Unthinkable Proserpina Jan 2016 #26
Oil Prices Drive Stocks Rout: Dow Sheds Nearly 400 Points (Again) Proserpina Jan 2016 #30
Had never heard this particular version until a few days ago... MattSh Jan 2016 #31
ClubOrlov: Financial collapse leads to war MattSh Jan 2016 #32
BowieNet: how David Bowie's ISP foresaw the future of the internet Proserpina Jan 2016 #33
David Bowie was quite the artistic, musical, technology, financial contributor DemReadingDU Jan 2016 #34
The Elephant Man. westerebus Jan 2016 #35
Bowie got better with age. Fuddnik Jan 2016 #38
It was hokey with gliter on top. westerebus Jan 2016 #40
Some of my favorites from back then... Fuddnik Jan 2016 #80
Apple May Be on Hook for $8 Billion in Taxes in Europe Probe Proserpina Jan 2016 #36
World's Richest Down $305 Billion as Markets Extend Global Rout Proserpina Jan 2016 #37
A recession worse than 2008 is coming Proserpina Jan 2016 #42
The story continues: David Bowie 1980–88: New Wave and pop era Proserpina Jan 2016 #43
1989–91: Tin Machine Proserpina Jan 2016 #44
1992–98: Electronic period Proserpina Jan 2016 #45
The Financial David Bowie--his view Proserpina Jan 2016 #46
1999–2012: Neoclassicist Bowie Proserpina Jan 2016 #47
2013–16: Final years Proserpina Jan 2016 #48
The Death of David Bowie Proserpina Jan 2016 #49
The spider Heteropoda davidbowie is named in his honour. Proserpina Jan 2016 #50
Is David Bowie's Lazarus Headed to Broadway? antigop Jan 2016 #53
Musical interlude: Michael C. Hall and the cast of "Lazarus" perform antigop Jan 2016 #59
Great Tribute to a Great Artist !!!! orpupilofnature57 Jan 2016 #51
You are welcome, anytime Proserpina Jan 2016 #52
Thank you so much.... daleanime Jan 2016 #54
You're welcome! Drop in any weekend Proserpina Jan 2016 #57
National Association of Counties: Only three Michigan counties have recovered from Great Recession Proserpina Jan 2016 #55
Opinion: The stock market is freaking out about Trump and Sanders By Brett Arends Proserpina Jan 2016 #56
Obama proposes new unemployment insurance plan Proserpina Jan 2016 #58
This weeks WEE..... Hotler Jan 2016 #60
I'm blushing Proserpina Jan 2016 #62
Economic stuff- "Middle East stock markets crash..." bread_and_roses Jan 2016 #71
Video interview: "Lazarus" Director Ivo Van Hove On David Bowie's Death antigop Jan 2016 #61
The Heavy Price of Economic Policy Failures Proserpina Jan 2016 #63
Fear/Greed Index down to TEN Proserpina Jan 2016 #64
And the No. 1 Stock Fund of 2015 Was ... Hotler Jan 2016 #65
" You Drive like a demon from station to station " David Bowie orpupilofnature57 Jan 2016 #66
Lions, tigers and tornados, Oh My! Fuddnik Jan 2016 #68
David Bowie's last days: an 18-month burst of creativity Proserpina Jan 2016 #69
How David Bowie Helped Save Dolphins Proserpina Jan 2016 #70
Bowie was to the 70s what the Beatles were to the 60s Proserpina Jan 2016 #72
David Bowie: the man who thrilled the world Proserpina Jan 2016 #73
The last word: Proserpina Jan 2016 #74
A David Bowie Playlist Proserpina Jan 2016 #76
Rest in peace David Bowie. lovemydog Jan 2016 #77
Thank you for stopping in Proserpina Jan 2016 #78
David Bowie tops US album chart for the first time Proserpina Jan 2016 #79

Mnemosyne

(21,363 posts)
1. Interesting how he changed changed his name from Jones to Bowie due to Davey Jones of the Monkees
Fri Jan 15, 2016, 07:47 PM
Jan 2016

already using it. Can't remember how he chose, but Bowie was apparently a great choice.

He will be so missed...

 

Proserpina

(2,352 posts)
2. David Bowie: Early life
Fri Jan 15, 2016, 07:47 PM
Jan 2016


Bowie was born in Brixton, south London. His mother, Margaret Mary "Peggy" (née Burns), of Irish descent, was born in Kent, worked as a waitress, while his father, Haywood Stenton "John" Jones, from Yorkshire, a promotions officer for the children's charity Barnardo's, was of Welsh descent. The family lived at 40 Stansfield Road, near the border of the south London areas of Brixton and Stockwell. Bowie attended Stockwell Infants School until he was six years old, acquiring a reputation as a gifted and single-minded child—and a defiant brawler.

In 1953, Bowie moved with his family to the suburb of Bromley, where, two years later, he progressed to Burnt Ash Junior School. His voice was considered "adequate" by the school choir, and he demonstrated above-average abilities in playing the recorder. At the age of nine, his dancing during the newly introduced music and movement classes was strikingly imaginative: teachers called his interpretations "vividly artistic" and his poise "astonishing" for a child. The same year, his interest in music was further stimulated when his father brought home a collection of American 45s by artists including Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, the Platters, Fats Domino, Elvis Presley and Little Richard. Upon listening to "Tutti Frutti", Bowie would later say, "I had heard God".

Presley's impact on him was likewise emphatic: "I saw a cousin of mine dance to ... 'Hound Dog' and I had never seen her get up and be moved so much by anything. It really impressed me, the power of the music. I started getting records immediately after that."

By the end of the following year he had taken up the ukulele and tea-chest bass and begun to participate in skiffle sessions with friends, and had started to play the piano; meanwhile his stage presentation of numbers by both Presley and Chuck Berry—complete with gyrations in tribute to the original artists—to his local Wolf Cub group was described as "mesmerizing ... like someone from another planet." After taking his eleven plus exam at the conclusion of his Burnt Ash Junior education, Bowie went to Bromley Technical High School.

It was an unusual technical school, as biographer Christopher Sandford wrote:

Despite its status it was, by the time David arrived in 1958, as rich in arcane ritual as any English public school. There were houses, named after eighteenth-century statesmen like Pitt and Wilberforce. There was a uniform, and an elaborate system of rewards and punishments. There was also an accent on languages, science and particularly design, where a collegiate atmosphere flourished under the tutorship of Owen Frampton. In David's account, Frampton led through force of personality, not intellect; his colleagues at Bromley Tech were famous for neither, and yielded the school's most gifted pupils to the arts, a regime so liberal that Frampton actively encouraged his own son, Peter, to pursue a musical career with David, a partnership briefly intact thirty years later.


Bowie studied art, music and design, including layout and typesetting. After Terry Burns, his half-brother, introduced him to modern jazz, his enthusiasm for players like Charles Mingus and John Coltrane led his mother to give him a plastic alto saxophone in 1961; he was soon receiving lessons from a local musician.

Bowie received a serious injury at school in 1962 when his friend George Underwood punched him in the left eye during a fight over a girl. Doctors feared he would become blind in that eye. After a series of operations during a four-month hospitalisation, his doctors determined that the damage could not be fully repaired and Bowie was left with faulty depth perception and a permanently dilated pupil. Despite their altercation, Underwood and Bowie remained good friends, and Underwood went on to create the artwork for Bowie's early albums.




He didn't have different coloured eyes. They're both blue... http://uk.askmen.com/top_10/celebrity/david-bowie-facts_10.html
 

Proserpina

(2,352 posts)
3. 1962–67: Early career to debut album
Fri Jan 15, 2016, 08:03 PM
Jan 2016

In 1962 Bowie formed his first band at the age of 15. Playing guitar-based rock and roll at local youth gatherings and weddings, the Konrads had a varying line-up of between four and eight members, Underwood among them. When Bowie left the technical school the following year, he informed his parents of his intention to become a pop star. His mother promptly arranged his employment as an electrician's mate.

Frustrated by his band-mates' limited aspirations, Bowie left the Konrads and joined another band, the King Bees. He wrote to the newly successful washing-machine entrepreneur John Bloom inviting him to "do for us what Brian Epstein has done for the Beatles—and make another million." Bloom did not respond to the offer, but his referral to Dick James's partner Leslie Conn led to Bowie's first personal management contract.

Conn quickly began to promote Bowie. The singer's debut single, "Liza Jane", credited to Davie Jones and the King Bees, had no commercial success. Dissatisfied with the King Bees and their repertoire of Howlin' Wolf and Willie Dixon blues numbers, Bowie quit the band less than a month later to join the Manish Boys, another blues outfit, who incorporated folk and soul—"I used to dream of being their Mick Jagger", Bowie was to recall.

"I Pity the Fool" was no more successful than "Liza Jane", and Bowie soon moved on again to join the Lower Third, a blues trio strongly influenced by the Who. "You've Got a Habit of Leaving" fared no better, signalling the end of Conn's contract.

Declaring that he would exit the pop world "to study mime at Sadler's Wells", Bowie nevertheless remained with the Lower Third. His new manager, Ralph Horton, later instrumental in his transition to solo artist, soon witnessed Bowie's move to yet another group, the Buzz, yielding the singer's fifth unsuccessful single release, "Do Anything You Say". While with the Buzz, Bowie also joined the Riot Squad; their recordings, which included a Bowie number and The Velvet Underground material, went unreleased. Ken Pitt, introduced by Horton, took over as Bowie's manager.

Dissatisfied with his stage name as Davy (and Davie) Jones, which in the mid-1960s invited confusion with Davy Jones of the Monkees, Bowie renamed himself after the 19th-century American frontiersman Jim Bowie and the knife he had popularised. His April 1967 solo single, "The Laughing Gnome", using speeded-up thus high-pitched vocals, failed to chart. Released six weeks later, his album debut, David Bowie, an amalgam of pop, psychedelia, and music hall, met the same fate. It was his last release for two years.

1968–71: Space Oddity to Hunky Dory


Bowie met dancer Lindsay Kemp in 1967 and enrolled in his dance class at the London Dance Centre. He commented in 1972 that meeting Kemp was when his interest in image "really blossomed".

"He lived on his emotions, he was a wonderful influence. His day-to-day life was the most theatrical thing I had ever seen, ever. It was everything I thought Bohemia probably was. I joined the circus."


Studying the dramatic arts under Kemp, from avant-garde theatre and mime to commedia dell'arte, Bowie became immersed in the creation of personae to present to the world.

Satirising life in a British prison, meanwhile, the Bowie-penned "Over the Wall We Go" became a 1967 single for Oscar; another Bowie composition, "Silly Boy Blue", was released by Billy Fury the following year.

In January 1968 Kemp choreographed a dance scene for a BBC play The Pistol Shot in the Theatre 625 series, and used Bowie with a dancer, Hermione Farthingale; the pair began dating, and moved into a London flat together. Playing acoustic guitar, Farthingale formed a group with Bowie and bassist John Hutchinson; between September 1968 and early 1969 the trio gave a small number of concerts combining folk, Merseybeat, poetry and mime.

Bowie and Farthingale broke up in early 1969 when she went to Norway to take part in a film, Song of Norway; this had an impact on him, and several songs, such as "Letter to Hermione" and "Life on Mars?" reference her, and for the video accompanying "Where Are We Now?" he wore a T-shirt with the words "Song for Norway". They were last together in January 1969 for the filming of Love You till Tuesday, a 30-minute film, not released until 1984, intended as a vehicle to promote him, featuring performances from Bowie's repertoire, including an as yet unreleased "Space Oddity".

After the breakup with Farthingale, Bowie moved in with Mary Finnigan as her lodger. During this period he appeared in a Lyons Maid ice cream commercial, and was rejected for another by Kit Kat.



In February and March 1969, he undertook a short tour with Marc Bolan's duo Tyrannosaurus Rex, as third on the bill, performing a mime act.

On 11 July 1969, "Space Oddity" was released five days ahead of the Apollo 11 launch, and reached the top five in the UK.

Continuing the divergence from rock and roll and blues begun by his work with Farthingale, Bowie joined forces with Finnigan, Christina Ostrom and Barrie Jackson to run a folk club on Sunday nights at the Three Tuns pub in Beckenham High Street.

Influenced by the Arts Lab Movement, this developed into the Beckenham Arts Lab, and became extremely popular. The Arts Lab hosted a free festival in a local park, the subject of his song "Memory of a Free Festival".

Bowie's second album followed in November; originally issued in the UK as David Bowie, it caused some confusion with its predecessor of the same name, and the early US release was instead titled Man of Words/Man of Music; it was re-released internationally in 1972 by RCA as Space Oddity. Featuring philosophical post-hippie lyrics on peace, love and morality, its acoustic folk rock occasionally fortified by harder rock, the album was not a commercial success at the time of its release.

Bowie met Angela Barnett in April 1969. They married within a year. Her impact on him was immediate, and her involvement in his career far-reaching, leaving manager Ken Pitt with limited influence which he found frustrating.

Having established himself as a solo artist with "Space Oddity", Bowie began to sense a lacking: "a full-time band for gigs and recording—people he could relate to personally". The shortcoming was underlined by his artistic rivalry with Marc Bolan, who was at the time acting as his session guitarist. A band was duly assembled. John Cambridge, a drummer Bowie met at the Arts Lab, was joined by Tony Visconti on bass and Mick Ronson on electric guitar. Known as the Hype, the bandmates created characters for themselves and wore elaborate costumes that prefigured the glam style of the Spiders From Mars. After a disastrous opening gig at the London Roundhouse, they reverted to a configuration presenting Bowie as a solo artist. Their initial studio work was marred by a heated disagreement between Bowie and Cambridge over the latter's drumming style. Matters came to a head when an enraged Bowie accused the drummer of the disturbance, exclaiming "You're fucking up my album." Cambridge summarily quit and was replaced by Mick Woodmansey. Not long after, in a move that resulted in years of litigation, at the conclusion of which Bowie was forced to pay Pitt compensation, the singer fired his manager, replacing him with Tony Defries.

The studio sessions continued and resulted in Bowie's third album, The Man Who Sold the World (1970), which contained references to schizophrenia, paranoia and delusion. Characterised by the heavy rock sound of his new backing band, it was a marked departure from the acoustic guitar and folk rock style established by Space Oddity. To promote it in the US, Mercury Records financed a coast-to-coast publicity tour in which Bowie, between January and February 1971, was interviewed by radio stations and the media. Exploiting his androgynous appearance, the original cover of the UK version unveiled two months later depicted the singer wearing a dress: taking the garment with him, he wore it during interviews—to the approval of critics, including Rolling Stone '​s John Mendelsohn who described him as "ravishing, almost disconcertingly reminiscent of Lauren Bacall" — and in the street, to mixed reaction including laughter and, in the case of one male pedestrian, producing a gun and telling Bowie to "kiss my ass".

During the tour Bowie's observation of two seminal American proto-punk artists led him to develop a concept that eventually found form in the Ziggy Stardust character: a melding of the persona of Iggy Pop with the music of Lou Reed, producing "the ultimate pop idol". A girlfriend recalled his "scrawling notes on a cocktail napkin about a crazy rock star named Iggy or Ziggy", and on his return to England he declared his intention to create a character "who looks like he's landed from Mars".

Hunky Dory (1971) found Visconti, Bowie's producer and bassist, supplanted in both roles by Ken Scott and Trevor Bolder respectively. The album saw the partial return of the fey pop singer of "Space Oddity", with light fare such as "Kooks", a song written for his son, Duncan Zowie Haywood Jones, born on 30 May.[41] (His parents chose "his kooky name"—he was known as Zowie for the next 12 years—after the Greek word zoe, life.) Elsewhere, the album explored more serious themes, and found Bowie paying unusually direct homage to his influences with "Song for Bob Dylan", "Andy Warhol", and "Queen Bitch", a Velvet Underground pastiche. It was not a significant commercial success at the time.
 

Proserpina

(2,352 posts)
4. 1972–73: Ziggy Stardust
Fri Jan 15, 2016, 08:46 PM
Jan 2016

Dressed in a striking costume, his hair dyed reddish-brown, Bowie launched his Ziggy Stardust stage show with the Spiders from Mars—Ronson, Bolder and Woodmansey—at the Toby Jug pub in Tolworth on 10 February 1972.

The show was hugely popular, catapulting him to stardom as he toured the UK over the next six months and creating, as described by Buckley, a "cult of Bowie" that was "unique—its influence lasted longer and has been more creative than perhaps almost any other force within pop fandom."

The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972), combining the hard rock elements of The Man Who Sold the World with the lighter experimental rock and pop of Hunky Dory, was released in June. "Starman", issued as an April single ahead of the album, was to cement Bowie's UK breakthrough: both single and album charted rapidly following his July Top of the Pops performance of the song. The album, which remained in the chart for two years, was soon joined there by the 6-month-old Hunky Dory. At the same time the non-album single "John, I'm Only Dancing", and "All the Young Dudes", a song he wrote and produced for Mott the Hoople, were successful in the UK. The Ziggy Stardust Tour continued to the United States.



Bowie contributed backing vocals to Lou Reed's 1972 solo breakthrough Transformer, co-producing the album with Mick Ronson. His own Aladdin Sane (1973) topped the UK chart, his first number one album. Described by Bowie as "Ziggy goes to America", it contained songs he wrote while travelling to and across the US during the earlier part of the Ziggy tour, which now continued to Japan to promote the new album. Aladdin Sane spawned the UK top five singles "The Jean Genie" and "Drive-In Saturday".

Bowie's love of acting led his total immersion in the characters he created for his music. "Offstage I'm a robot. Onstage I achieve emotion. It's probably why I prefer dressing up as Ziggy to being David." With satisfaction came severe personal difficulties: acting the same role over an extended period, it became impossible for him to separate Ziggy Stardust—and, later, the Thin White Duke—from his own character offstage. Ziggy, Bowie said, "wouldn't leave me alone for years. That was when it all started to go sour ... My whole personality was affected. It became very dangerous. I really did have doubts about my sanity."

His later Ziggy shows, which included songs from both Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane, were ultra-theatrical affairs filled with shocking stage moments, such as Bowie stripping down to a sumo wrestling loincloth or simulating oral sex with Ronson's guitar. Bowie toured and gave press conferences as Ziggy before a dramatic and abrupt on-stage "retirement" at London's Hammersmith Odeon on 3 July 1973. Footage from the final show was released the same year for the film Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.

After breaking up the Spiders from Mars, Bowie attempted to move on from his Ziggy persona. His back catalogue was now highly sought after: The Man Who Sold the World had been re-released in 1972 along with Space Oddity. "Life on Mars?", from Hunky Dory, was released in June 1973 and made number three on the UK singles chart. Entering the same chart in September, Bowie's novelty record from 1967, "The Laughing Gnome", reached number six. Pin Ups, a collection of covers of his 1960s favourites, followed in October, producing a UK number three hit in "Sorrow" and itself peaking at number one, making David Bowie the best-selling act of 1973 in the UK. It brought the total number of Bowie albums concurrently on the UK chart to six.

 

Proserpina

(2,352 posts)
5. 1974–76: Soul, funk and the Thin White Duke
Fri Jan 15, 2016, 09:02 PM
Jan 2016

Bowie moved to the US in 1974, initially staying in New York City before settling in Los Angeles.

Diamond Dogs (1974), parts of which found him heading towards soul and funk, was the product of two distinct ideas: a musical based on a wild future in a post-apocalyptic city, and setting George Orwell's 1984 to music. The album went to number one in the UK, spawning the hits "Rebel Rebel" and "Diamond Dogs", and number five in the US. To promote it, Bowie launched the Diamond Dogs Tour, visiting cities in North America between June and December 1974. Choreographed by Toni Basil, and lavishly produced with theatrical special effects, the high-budget stage production was filmed by Alan Yentob. The resulting documentary, Cracked Actor, featured a pasty and emaciated Bowie: the tour coincided with the singer's slide from heavy cocaine use into addiction, producing severe physical debilitation, paranoia and emotional problems.



He later commented that the accompanying live album, David Live, ought to have been titled "David Bowie Is Alive and Well and Living Only in Theory". David Live nevertheless solidified Bowie's status as a superstar, charting at number two in the UK and number eight in the US. It also spawned a UK number ten hit in Bowie's cover of "Knock on Wood". After a break in Philadelphia, where Bowie recorded new material, the tour resumed with a new emphasis on soul.

The fruit of the Philadelphia recording sessions was Young Americans (1975). Biographer Christopher Sandford writes, "Over the years, most British rockers had tried, one way or another, to become black-by-extension. Few had succeeded as Bowie did now."



The album's sound, which the singer identified as "plastic soul", constituted a radical shift in style that initially alienated many of his UK devotees. Young Americans yielded Bowie's first US number one, "Fame", co-written with John Lennon, who contributed backing vocals, and Carlos Alomar. Lennon called Bowie's work "great, but it's just rock'n'roll with lipstick on". Earning the distinction of being one of the first white artists to appear on the US variety show Soul Train, Bowie mimed "Fame", as well as "Golden Years", his November single, which was originally offered to Elvis Presley, who declined it.



Young Americans was a commercial success in both the US and the UK, and a re-issue of the 1969 single "Space Oddity" became Bowie's first number one hit in the UK a few months after "Fame" achieved the same in the US. Despite his by now well established superstardom, Bowie, in the words of Sandford, "for all his record sales (over a million copies of Ziggy Stardust alone), existed essentially on loose change."



In 1975, in a move echoing Ken Pitt's acrimonious dismissal five years earlier, Bowie fired his manager. At the culmination of the ensuing months-long legal dispute, he watched, as described by Sandford, "millions of dollars of his future earnings being surrendered" in what were "uniquely generous terms for Defries", then "shut himself up in West 20th Street, where for a week his howls could be heard through the locked attic door."

Michael Lippman, Bowie's lawyer during the negotiations, became his new manager; Lippman in turn was awarded substantial compensation when Bowie fired him the following year.

Station to Station (1976) introduced a new Bowie persona, "The Thin White Duke" of its title track. Visually, the character was an extension of Thomas Jerome Newton, the extraterrestrial being he portrayed in the film The Man Who Fell to Earth the same year. Developing the funk and soul of Young Americans, Station to Station also prefigured the Krautrock and synthesiser music of his next releases.

The extent to which drug addiction was now affecting Bowie was made public when Russell Harty interviewed the singer for his London Weekend Television talk show in anticipation of the album's supporting tour. Shortly before the satellite-linked interview was scheduled to commence, the death of the Spanish dictator Franco was announced. Bowie was asked to relinquish the satellite booking, to allow the Spanish Government to put out a live newsfeed. This he refused to do, and his interview went ahead. In the ensuing lengthy conversation with Harty, Bowie was incoherent and looked "disconnected". His sanity—by his own later admission—had become twisted from cocaine; he overdosed several times during the year, and was withering physically to an alarming degree. Bowie's positive comments about Hitler, and Eric Clapton's about immigration in 1976 led to the establishment of Rock Against Racism.

Station to Station '​s January 1976 release was followed in February by a 3 1?2-month concert tour of Europe and North America. Featuring a starkly lit set, the Isolar – 1976 Tour highlighted songs from the album, including the dramatic and lengthy title track, the ballads "Wild Is the Wind" and "Word on a Wing", and the funkier "TVC 15" and "Stay". The core band that coalesced to produce this album and tour—rhythm guitarist Alomar, bassist George Murray, and drummer Dennis Davis—continued as a stable unit for the remainder of the 1970s. The tour was highly successful but mired in political controversy. Bowie was quoted in Stockholm as saying that "Britain could benefit from a Fascist leader", and was detained by customs on the Russian/Polish border for possessing Nazi paraphernalia.

Matters came to a head in London in May in what became known as the "Victoria Station incident". Arriving in an open-top Mercedes convertible, Bowie waved to the crowd in a gesture that some alleged was a Nazi salute, which was captured on camera and published in NME. Bowie said the photographer simply caught him in mid-wave. He later blamed his pro-Fascism comments and his behaviour during the period on his addictions and the character of the Thin White Duke.

"I was out of my mind, totally crazed. The main thing I was functioning on was mythology ... that whole thing about Hitler and Rightism ... I'd discovered King Arthur".


According to playwright Alan Franks, writing later in The Times, "he was indeed 'deranged'. He had some very bad experiences with hard drugs."
 

Proserpina

(2,352 posts)
10. 1976–79: Berlin era
Fri Jan 15, 2016, 09:39 PM
Jan 2016

Bowie moved to Switzerland in 1976, purchasing a chalet in the hills to the north of Lake Geneva. In the new environment, his cocaine use decreased and he found time for other pursuits outside his musical career. He devoted more time to his painting, and produced a number of post-modernist pieces. When on tour, he took to sketching in a notebook, and photographing scenes for later reference. Visiting galleries in Geneva and the Brücke Museum in Berlin, Bowie became, in the words of biographer Christopher Sandford, "a prolific producer and collector of contemporary art. ... Not only did he become a well-known patron of expressionist art: locked in Clos des Mésanges he began an intensive self-improvement course in classical music and literature, and started work on an autobiography."

Before the end of 1976, Bowie's interest in the burgeoning German music scene, as well as his drug addiction, prompted him to move to West Berlin to clean up and revitalise his career. There he was often seen riding a bicycle between his apartment on Hauptstraße in Schöneberg and Hansa Tonstudio, the recording studio he used, located on Köthener Straße in Kreuzberg, near the Berlin Wall.

While working with Brian Eno and sharing an apartment with Iggy Pop, he began to focus on minimalist, ambient music for the first of three albums, co-produced with Tony Visconti, that became known as his Berlin Trilogy. During the same period, Iggy Pop, with Bowie as a co-writer and musician, completed his solo album debut The Idiot and its follow-up Lust for Life, touring the UK, Europe, and the US in March and April 1977.

The album Low (1977), partly influenced by the Krautrock sound of Kraftwerk and Neu!, evidenced a move away from narration in Bowie's songwriting to a more abstract musical form in which lyrics were sporadic and optional. Although he completed the album in November 1976, it took his unsettled record company another three months to release it.

It received considerable negative criticism upon its release—a release which RCA, anxious to maintain the established commercial momentum, did not welcome, and which Bowie's ex-manager, Tony Defries, who still maintained a significant financial interest in the singer's affairs, tried to prevent. Despite these forebodings, Low yielded the UK number three single "Sound and Vision", and its own performance surpassed that of Station to Station in the UK chart, where it reached number two. Leading contemporary composer Philip Glass described Low as "a work of genius" in 1992, when he used it as the basis for his Symphony No. 1 "Low"; subsequently, Glass used Bowie's next album as the basis for his 1996 Symphony No. 4 "Heroes". Glass has praised Bowie's gift for creating "fairly complex pieces of music, masquerading as simple pieces".



Echoing Low '​s minimalist, instrumental approach, the second of the trilogy, "Heroes" (1977), incorporated pop and rock to a greater extent, seeing Bowie joined by guitarist Robert Fripp. Like Low, "Heroes" evinced the zeitgeist of the Cold War, symbolised by the divided city of Berlin. Incorporating ambient sounds from a variety of sources including white noise generators, synthesisers and koto, the album was another hit, reaching number three in the UK. Its title track, though only reaching number 24 in the UK singles chart, gained lasting popularity, and within months had been released in both German and French. Towards the end of the year, Bowie performed the song for Marc Bolan's television show Marc, and again two days later for Bing Crosby's final CBS television Christmas special, when he joined Crosby in "Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy", a version of "The Little Drummer Boy" with a new, contrapuntal verse. Five years later, the duet proved a worldwide seasonal hit, charting in the UK at number three on Christmas Day, 1982.



After completing Low and "Heroes", Bowie spent much of 1978 on the Isolar II world tour, bringing the music of the first two Berlin Trilogy albums to almost a million people during 70 concerts in 12 countries. By now he had broken his drug addiction; biographer David Buckley writes that Isolar II was "Bowie's first tour for five years in which he had probably not anaesthetised himself with copious quantities of cocaine before taking the stage. ... Without the oblivion that drugs had brought, he was now in a healthy enough mental condition to want to make friends." Recordings from the tour made up the live album Stage, released the same year.

The final piece in what Bowie called his "triptych", Lodger (1979), eschewed the minimalist, ambient nature of the other two, making a partial return to the drum- and guitar-based rock and pop of his pre-Berlin era. The result was a complex mixture of new wave and world music, in places incorporating Hijaz non-Western scales.

Some tracks were composed using Eno and Peter Schmidt's Oblique Strategies cards: "Boys Keep Swinging" entailed band members swapping instruments, "Move On" used the chords from Bowie's early composition "All the Young Dudes" played backwards, and "Red Money" took backing tracks from "Sister Midnight", a piece previously composed with Iggy Pop. The album was recorded in Switzerland.

Ahead of its release, RCA's Mel Ilberman stated, "It would be fair to call it Bowie's Sergeant Pepper ... a concept album that portrays the Lodger as a homeless wanderer, shunned and victimized by life's pressures and technology." As described by biographer Christopher Sandford, "The record dashed such high hopes with dubious choices, and production that spelt the end—for fifteen years—of Bowie's partnership with Eno." Lodger reached number 4 in the UK and number 20 in the US, and yielded the UK hit singles "Boys Keep Swinging" and "DJ". Towards the end of the year, Bowie and Angela initiated divorce proceedings, and after months of court battles the marriage was ended in early 1980.

 

Proserpina

(2,352 posts)
25. Just trying to summarize David Bowie's life is exhausting
Fri Jan 15, 2016, 10:49 PM
Jan 2016

To say Bowie was driven is like saying water is wet. Or oil is slippery. It's amazing he didn't burn out completely, early on.


I can't finish the tale tonight. We'll pick it up in the morning. And if there's enough time and energy, maybe even some economic news.

Today was a raw, wet, windy day....the last time we will be above freezing here in the Great Lakes State for a week. I hope the rain drains off before the Big Freeze starts...

 

Proserpina

(2,352 posts)
6. Neoliberal Capitalism, Its Crisis, and What Comes Next
Fri Jan 15, 2016, 09:15 PM
Jan 2016
http://triplecrisis.com/neoliberal-capitalism-its-crisis-and-what-comes-next/

By Ed Walker, who wrote as masaccio at Firedoglake and now writes regularly at emptywheel... here’s his author page at Shadowproof: https://shadowproof.com/author/masaccio/

For a long time, and particularly since WWII, societies around the world have managed substantial parts of their productive activity in non-capitalist zones. In the UK, for example, health care is provided by the National Health Service. It operates in a market society, but it is not part of the process of capital accumulation. The education system is an example in the US. We can think of these non-capitalist enclaves as a social commons. We all share in them, and we all have a stake in seeing to it that they operate at a high level.

With the turn towards neoliberalism in the past 35 years, the rich have tried to colonize these non-capitalist sectors. Currently UK capitalists and the Tories are intent on privatizing the NHS for their personal gain. They look at the way the US medical/drug system works for the benefit of the rich and they want that for themselves. In the US, we have already turned over big chunks of the prison system to these people, with predictable results. The big push in the US is the effort to take over the education system for personal profit. In a larger perspective, the capitalists and their economists tell us constantly that European welfare states are impossibly expensive and must be privatized. Why? Why is this such a big deal? It might be easy to put this down to greed, or to the Great Man theory of economic progress, or creative destruction. But perhaps there is something in the nature of capitalism that can explain this better. Two books published in the wake of WWII examine a broad sweep of economic history to try to understand how that war happened. Karl Polanyi’s The Great Transformation sees the war as the end of the experiment with unrestrained free market capitalism, and offers the hope of a more socialist future. Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism offers a dark view of human nature and of the capitalist system, and is much less hopeful...

The Industrial Revolution created massive wealth for a few, who for clarity I will refer to as the Capitalists, a group which includes some of the hereditary rich, the aristocrats, as well as wealthy merchants and newly rich manufacturers. The Capitalists quickly found themselves unable to create profitable investments for their capital in their home countries. Arendt calls this superfluous wealth. It had no purpose, no utility in the home country, and little prospect of producing gain for the holder. This led to a decade in Europe in which there was massive financial and real estate fraud in the business sector, and corruption at the nation-state, leading to depressions and massive unemployment. Many of the victims of these frauds were artisans, tradesmen and small merchants, who, Arendt says, believed that they had to invest their small savings in these ventures or risk falling into the out of the middle class. Each round of new technology, each period of growth, was followed by a crisis, usually a financial collapse. Those crises led massive unemployment, the displacement of people from a role in the productive sector of their society. Arendt calls these superfluous people. They had as little utility to their society as the superfluous wealth. Similarly, Polanyi says that government and leading economic writers referred to two groups, the sick, the old and the weak who were the deserving poor, entitled to some assistance from the nation-state; and the able-bodied who could not find work, who were not deserving of assistance, and for whom hunger would serve as a lash to force them to work for any wage, or just for food and shelter...Arendt says that some Capitalists sought opportunities in foreign lands, but they experienced losses in those investments, as the foreigners didn’t play by the rules of the Capitalists. Beginning in the 1870s, the Capitalists demanded that the nation-states protect their investments by force. They wanted profits without risks, and the nation-states did as they demanded. Arendt claims that this served the interests of the nation-state in that that it enabled the productive use of superfluous capital, and the employment of superfluous men as soldiers and sailors, and supervisors or workers in the new colonies, or in the transportation of imports and exports.Arendt says that the driving force of capitalism, the demand for profits, means that capital can never stand still. It must always be in motion...It’s true that some capital accumulation takes place as Smith says, from frugality, skill, or luck. But it’s equally true that at the outset of the Industrial Revolution, most capital was held by nobles and aristocrats who took it by force, and the rest was owned by their bankers and a few merchants. It’s also true that much current capital accumulation takes place through monopoly, oligopoly, and fraud and corruption. Look no further than the Great Crash...


Three thoughts.

1. The imperative of capital to stay in motion is a force that underlies the expansionary motives of every capitalist. There’s a logic to capitalism. We won’t uncover that logic with the economic theories that teach that capitalism is natural and just.

2. The problem for decades has been superfluous capital, not a shortage of capital.

3. The problem with capitalism is that it creates superfluous people, people estranged from the productive life of their society. These people are fertile ground for authoritarian extremism.



there's a lot more to this piece...go read!
 

Proserpina

(2,352 posts)
7. Political Aspects of Full Employment1 by Michal Kalecki
Fri Jan 15, 2016, 09:17 PM
Jan 2016
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/kalecki220510.html

1. A solid majority of economists is now of the opinion that, even in a capitalist system, full employment may be secured by a government spending programme, provided there is in existence adequate plan to employ all existing labour power, and provided adequate supplies of necessary foreign raw-materials may be obtained in exchange for exports.

If the government undertakes public investment (e.g. builds schools, hospitals, and highways) or subsidizes mass consumption (by family allowances, reduction of indirect taxation, or subsidies to keep down the prices of necessities), and if, moreover, this expenditure is financed by borrowing and not by taxation (which could affect adversely private investment and consumption), the effective demand for goods and services may be increased up to a point where full employment is achieved. Such government expenditure increases employment, be it noted, not only directly but indirectly as well, since the higher incomes caused by it result in a secondary increase in demand for consumer and investment goods.

2. It may be asked where the public will get the money to lend to the government if they do not curtail their investment and consumption. To understand this process it is best, I think, to imagine for a moment that the government pays its suppliers in government securities. The suppliers will, in general, not retain these securities but put them into circulation while buying other goods and services, and so on, until finally these securities will reach persons or firms which retain them as interest-yielding assets. In any period of time the total increase in government securities in the possession (transitory or final) of persons and firms will be equal to the goods and services sold to the government. Thus what the economy lends to the government are goods and services whose production is 'financed' by government securities. In reality the government pays for the services, not in securities, but in cash, but it simultaneously issues securities and so drains the cash off; and this is equivalent to the imaginary process described above.

What happens, however, if the public is unwilling to absorb all the increase in government securities? It will offer them finally to banks to get cash (notes or deposits) in exchange. If the banks accept these offers, the rate of interest will be maintained. If not, the prices of securities will fall, which means a rise in the rate of interest, and this will encourage the public to hold more securities in relation to deposits. It follows that the rate of interest depends on banking policy, in particular on that of the central bank. If this policy aims at maintaining the rate of interest at a certain level, that may be easily achieved, however large the amount of government borrowing. Such was and is the position in the present war. In spite of astronomical budget deficits, the rate of interest has shown no rise since the beginning of 1940.

3. It may be objected that government expenditure financed by borrowing will cause inflation. To this it may be replied that the effective demand created by the government acts like any other increase in demand. If labour, plants, and foreign raw materials are in ample supply, the increase in demand is met by an increase in production. But if the point of full employment of resources is reached and effective demand continues to increase, prices will rise so as to equilibrate the demand for and the supply of goods and services. (In the state of over-employment of resources such as we witness at present in the war economy, an inflationary rise in prices has been avoided only to the extent to which effective demand for consumer goods has been curtailed by rationing and direct taxation.) It follows that if the government intervention aims at achieving full employment but stops short of increasing effective demand over the full employment mark, there is no need to be afraid of inflation.2

II

2. The above is a very crude and incomplete statement of the economic doctrine of full employment. But it is, I think, sufficient to acquaint the reader with the essence of the doctrine and so enable him to follow the subsequent discussion of the political problems involved in the achievement of full employment...

more
 

Proserpina

(2,352 posts)
8. YVES SMITH: I wanted to add a couple of thoughts...
Fri Jan 15, 2016, 09:19 PM
Jan 2016
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/01/capitalism-versus-social-commons.html

One reason capitalists wind up with profits that they do not adequately reinvest is that they set their return targets too high. This has been documented periodically. A recent example comes from Andrew Haldane of the Bank of England on short-termism and how it leads to underinvestment.

Second is that many projects are best undertaken by government, such as infrastructure that will serve as the foundation for growth, basic research, or other projects where the time frames are too long, the payoffs too ambiguous, or the resource mobilization too great to make sense for the private sector. In keeping with the Ed Walker’s use of writings from long ago to shed light on our supposedly modern problems, Michal Kalecki explained in Political Aspects of Full Employment why businessmen prefer to have lower employment and as a result, growth:

The reasons for the opposition of the ‘industrial leaders’ to full employment achieved by government spending may be subdivided into three categories: (i) dislike of government interference in the problem of employment as such; (ii) dislike of the direction of government spending (public investment and subsidizing consumption); (iii) dislike of the social and political changes resulting from the maintenance of full employment.
 

Proserpina

(2,352 posts)
9. Neoliberal Capitalism, Its Crisis, and What Comes Next
Fri Jan 15, 2016, 09:23 PM
Jan 2016
http://triplecrisis.com/neoliberal-capitalism-its-crisis-and-what-comes-next/

By David M. Kotz, a professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the author of The Rise and Fall of Neoliberal Capitalism (Harvard University Press, 2015).

Neoliberal capitalism had, at its core, a basic contradiction: Rising profits spurred economic expansion, but at the same time the source of the rising profits—the suppression of wage growth—created an obstacle to expansion. With wages stagnating, and with government spending rising more slowly, who would buy the output of an expanding economy? For a while, this simmering “demand problem” was forestalled, as risk-seeking financial institutions extended credit to the hard-pressed families whose wages were stagnating or falling. Debt-fueled consumer spending made long expansions possible despite the stagnation of wages and of government spending. Big asset bubbles provided the collateral enabling families to borrow to pay their bills.

The economic crisis of 2008 marked the end of the ability of the neoliberal form of capitalism to promote stable economic expansion. In the wake of the massive housing-bubble collapse and financial crash, the previous debt-and-bubble-based growth machine cannot be revived. The banks continue to find new speculative ventures and corporate profits remain high, but this process no longer brings normal economic expansion...

large edit

...If labor and other popular movements gain strength, however, that would also open the possibility of a move beyond capitalism. Continuing stagnation, along with the other problems that derive from capitalism, are likely to lead many to question whether capitalism can any longer meet the needs of the majority and to consider whether an alternative system might able to do so. That would mean a renewal of interest in socialism, which is the only comprehensive alternative to capitalism. There is evidence of a possible shift in that direction in public opinion surveys since 2009, which have consistently found that, in the United States, between one-third and 45% of people under age 30 have a positive view of (an undefined) “socialism.” The high level of popular support for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a self-declared democratic socialist, in his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination is also suggestive. In Latin America, a number of countries, such as Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador have elected leaders pledged to build some form of socialism. New leftist political movements in Europe, such as Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain, have been challenging the austerity policies that have generated mass unemployment (although the Syriza government elected in January 2015 has so far been unable to jettison the austerity program forced on Greece by the big powers in the European Union). Given the many negative features of twentieth-century Soviet-style socialism, advocates of a new socialism stress the need for democracy and widespread popular participation in both economic and political decision-making.

Change in this direction would be driven by the conviction that production for the profits of the minority can never adequately meet the needs of the majority, which instead requires an economy system that places the human needs of all at its center. Unlike capitalism of any variety, such a system in a highly developed country would not require a relentless increase in the production of goods, and therefore could build a sustainable relationship to nature. A socialism based on democracy, participation, cooperation, and sustainability could bring a promising future for all. Perhaps, in this period of pressure for institutional change, such an alternative path might emerge—but only if the 99% become active, organized, and determined to chart their own future.
 

Proserpina

(2,352 posts)
11. Bowie Bonds: How David Bowie Securitized His Royalties and Predicted the Future Ethan Wolff-Mann
Fri Jan 15, 2016, 09:43 PM
Jan 2016
http://time.com/money/4175086/david-bowie-bond-royalties-securitized/

He was a financial pioneer as well as a musical one.

Besides consistently releasing some of the best music ever heard, David Bowie was a financial pioneer.

In 1997, the late British (deservedly self-proclaimed) rock god decided to sell off all his royalty rights to his first 25 albums, which had lapsed back into his control. But in typical Bowie style, he did it in a rather unusual way: by turning them into an asset-backed security, which was obviously christened a “Bowie bond.”

Rallied by firms Fahnestock & Co. in New York and Prudential Insurance, investors bought rights from the Thin White Duke for $55 million, and promised annual returns of 7.9% over 10 years to customers.

“He has some songs going back twenty-five years that are still selling today, and they will still be selling [in the future],” David Pullman, the managing director of Fahnestock who was ran the securitization, told the UPenn Gazette at the time. On the underlying strength of Bowie’s appeal, and investing group, the bond earned an Aaa rating from Moody’s—the first time it had ever rated a security backed by musical royalty rights.

But while Pullman was absolutely spot on that Bowie’s popularity would remain as strong as ever—perhaps it even increased—he underestimated the changing landscape of the music industry. Streaming destroyed the Bowie bond, and Moody’s downgraded it to Baa3, which is dangerously close to junk status. However, they were paid off in the end, according to Bloomberg.

It’s easy to see Bowie’s innovative sale of his music as just another innovation in a career of many, but his prescience is not to be underestimated. Until the Internet put a hole in the music industry’s hull, music monetization was always on a beautiful incline—a period which spanned the first 35 years of his career. The man sold at an all-time high that may never be seen again.
 

Proserpina

(2,352 posts)
12. Bowie: The Man Who Sold Royalties and Brought Music to Bonds
Fri Jan 15, 2016, 09:47 PM
Jan 2016
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-11/bowie-bonds-drove-changes-in-markets-leading-to-esoteric-finance



The man behind “The Man Who Sold the World” was the first recording artist to go to Wall Street to tap the future earnings of his music, paving the way for a thriving market for esoteric securities backed by everything from racehorse stud rights to commercial washing machines.

David Bowie, who died from cancer at age 69 on Sunday, sold $55 million of bonds in 1997 that were tied to future royalties from hits including “Ziggy Stardust,” “Space Oddity” and “Changes.” Following his example were singers James Brown and Rod Stewart and the heavy-metal band Iron Maiden. Securities backed by royalties allow artists to raise money without selling the rights to their work or waiting years for payments to trickle in.
“Bowie’s bonds were as groundbreaking as his music,” said Rob Ford, a London-based money manager at TwentyFour Asset Management, which oversees 5.3 billion pounds ($7.7 billion). “Not only were they followed by a number of other artists, but they set the template for deals backed by a whole range of assets.”

The so-called Bowie bonds were sold privately to Prudential Insurance Co. of America. The securities were initially rated A3 rating by Moody’s Investors Service, the seventh-highest investment-grade rank. In the 2000s, Internet piracy led to a drop in sales and Moody’s cut the rating in 2004 to Baa3, one level above junk. The decline in worldwide recorded-music revenues slowed in 2014 as more people subscribed to streaming online services.

The Bowie bonds were paid off after 10 years and the ratings withdrawn, said Moody’s spokesman Thomas Lemmon. The New York-based company has also rated a music royalty transaction from the songwriting duo Ashford and Simpson, as well as a bond secured by a portfolio of Miramax films, including “Good Will Hunting” and “Bridget Jones’ Diary,” Lemmon said. John Chartier, a spokesman for Prudential in Newark, New Jersey, declined to comment on the performance of the notes.

***********************************************************

“David was extremely savvy and got things instantly,” David Pullman, the Los Angeles banker who arranged the Bowie bonds securitization, said in a phone interview Monday. “He heard what we were discussing and said why are we not doing this already?”

Underwriters in the U.S. led by Guggenheim Partners have helped expand the market for unusual securitization financing, which can provide issuers a lower cost of funds and achieve higher credit ratings than issuance of comparable company debt.

Comic Bonds

The market for securitizing intellectual property, which Bowie started, now includes film rights, pharmaceutical patents, restaurant franchises and the “Peanuts” comic strip.
It hasn’t always gone smoothly. Brown, “The Godfather of Soul” whose life and career was featured in the 2014 film “Get On Up,” sued to get out of his securitization arrangement in 2006, a year before his death.

Sales of esoteric securitizations made up 21 percent of all U.S. asset-backed issuance last year, and the sector grew faster than more traditional issuance, according to Barclays Plc data. Esoteric deal volume in the U.S. rose 16 percent to about $40 billion through November from a year earlier, Barclays analysts said in a November year-ahead outlook, forecasting at least $45 billion in sales in 2016.

While sales of esoteric deals have increased, they remain a small part of the wider asset-backed securities market. And bonds like Bowie’s remain limited by the number of artists able to reach the London-born singer-songwriter’s degree of success.

Bowie “changed the way people think about art and commerce," Pullman said.
 

Proserpina

(2,352 posts)
18. David Bowie Poised to Dethrone Adele on Album Sales Charts
Fri Jan 15, 2016, 09:59 PM
Jan 2016
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-15/david-bowie-poised-to-dethrone-adele-on-album-sales-charts



David Bowie’s “Blackstar,” released days before his death, is on track to knock Adele’s “25” out of the top spot on the Billboard 200. It would be the first No. 1 album in the U.S. for the British pop star.

Sales of “Blackstar” increased 10-fold after Bowie died Sunday at the age of 69, surpassing 120,000 through Tuesday, according to data from Nielsen Music. Digital sales account for 70 percent of those purchases, Nielsen said. Adele sold 163,792 copies of her album last week, her seventh at No. 1. Her record-breaking “25” made its debut in November.

Bowie’s death has lifted sales for more than his latest album, released by Sony Corp.’s Columbia Records. Purchases of past hits such as “Space Oddity” and “Under Pressure” surged on Monday, Nielsen said, while data analytics company BuzzAngle Music forecast three Bowie records would chart in the top 10 this week.

“Blackstar,” Bowie’s 25th studio album, has received strong reviews, earning an 86 rating from Metacritic based on 37 reviews. The New York Times’ Jon Pareles described it as “strange, daring” and “ultimately rewarding.”

more
 

Proserpina

(2,352 posts)
75. David Bowie's 'back catalogue bonds' may have started the credit crunch from 2009
Sun Jan 17, 2016, 10:23 AM
Jan 2016
http://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/david-bowies-back-catalogue-bonds-370719

He’s always been a trendsetter. But could David Bowie have caused the latest fad sweeping the nation – the credit crunch? It may sound like a ridiculous question, but it’s not as mad as it seems.

Even when it comes to finances Bowie leads the way – and back in 1997 he did something called “securitisation”. He thought, “I have a lot of money coming in over the next 10 years from my back catalogue, but I’d rather have the cash now and not have to wait”. He produced some bits of paper – Bowie Bonds – and said “whoever buys these gets my royalties”. It meant he no longer had the money coming in but instead had a lot up front. His investors were guaranteed a good income. It was a good deal all round.

And the banks were catching on to the idea. They thought, “We have billions out there in mortgages which are going to pay us back very slowly. Why don’t we sell those and get the money now?” So the banks started doing what Bowie had done – in a big way. It was a complete rebuilding of what a bank does. Normally a bank borrows from people like you and I, then lends it out. But now the bank was lending the money – and selling the loan on elsewhere...

The author is putting the horse behind the cart here...securitization started in the 1970's, long before his Bowie bonds...he got the idea from the banks, not the other way around!
 

Proserpina

(2,352 posts)
13. Wal-Mart to Shut Hundreds of Stores
Fri Jan 15, 2016, 09:50 PM
Jan 2016
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-15/wal-mart-to-shut-hundreds-of-stores-including-express-locations

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. plans to shutter 269 stores, the most in at least two decades, as it abandons its experimental small-format Express outlets and looks to streamline the chain.

The move by the largest private employer in the U.S. will affect about 10,000 jobs domestically at 154 locations, according to a statement Friday. Overseas, the effort will eliminate 6,000 jobs and includes the closing of 60 money-losing stores in Brazil, a country where Wal-Mart has struggled.

The plan will affect less than 1 percent of its total square footage and revenue, the company said.

Chief Executive Officer Doug McMillon took the step after reviewing the chain’s 11,600 stores, evaluating their financial performance and fit with its broader strategy. The move also marks the end of its pilot Wal-Mart Express program, a bid to create a network of small corner stores to compete with dollar-store chains and drugstores. Wal-Mart will continue its larger-size Neighborhood Markets effort, though 23 poor-performing stores in that chain also will be closed. The company is still expanding its footprint in the U.S., adding 69 new stores and 6,000 jobs in January alone.

“We invested considerable time assessing our stores and clubs and don’t take this lightly,” McMillon said. “We are supporting those impacted with extra pay and support, and we will take all appropriate steps to ensure they are treated well.”


more

 

Proserpina

(2,352 posts)
14. The New Strategy in the Auto Industry: Cars Nobody Will Buy
Fri Jan 15, 2016, 09:52 PM
Jan 2016
The new "Edsel"...they are going to call it the "Clinton"...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-15/the-new-strategy-in-the-auto-industry-cars-nobody-will-buy

The fancy-car selfie is a social media staple. And there will be a steady stream of them starting Saturday, when the masses pour into the annual North American International Auto Show in Detroit. But it will be difficult to picture people actually buying many of this year’s crop of fancy cars.

This is de rigueur at a vehicle convention where regular people with regular paychecks intersect with six-figure speed machines. But the disconnect between the cars and the commerce is more pronounced at this year’s show, because the newest vehicles aren’t really the kind of rides people are lusting after these days. They’re also quite expensive...
 

Proserpina

(2,352 posts)
15. Retail Sales in U.S. Decrease to End Weakest Year Since 2009
Fri Jan 15, 2016, 09:54 PM
Jan 2016
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-15/retail-sales-in-u-s-decrease-to-end-weakest-year-since-2009

Sales at U.S. retailers declined in December to wrap the weakest year since 2009, raising concern about the momentum in consumer spending heading into 2016.

The 0.1 percent drop matched the median forecast of 84 economists surveyed by Bloomberg and followed a 0.4 percent gain in November, Commerce Department figures showed Friday in Washington. For all of 2015, purchases climbed 2.1 percent, the smallest advance of the current economic expansion.



The slowdown, including electronics stores, clothing merchants and grocers, indicates Americans probably preferred to sock away the savings from cheaper fuel instead of splurging during the holiday season. While hiring has been robust in recent months, faster wage gains remain elusive, one reason household spending may have a tougher time accelerating as the new year gets under way....
 

Proserpina

(2,352 posts)
16. Economic Growth in U.S. Cracking Under Strain of Global Slowdown
Fri Jan 15, 2016, 09:55 PM
Jan 2016
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-15/economic-growth-in-u-s-cracking-under-strain-of-global-slowdown

The U.S. may not be immune from the global slowdown after all.

Figures on retail sales and manufacturing Friday showed the world’s largest economy ended the year on a weak note, and the start of 2016 wasn’t any better. The one saving grace was a pickup in consumer confidence, but that was mainly because households believed inflation will be low, making subdued wage gains look good by comparison...

more
 

Proserpina

(2,352 posts)
17. Gross Says Markets Can't Prop Up Wealth Flimsy as Toilet Paper
Fri Jan 15, 2016, 09:57 PM
Jan 2016
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-15/gross-says-markets-can-t-prop-up-wealth-flimsy-as-toilet-paper


“Markets are recognizing the limited tools they now have to prop up assets AND real economies,” Gross, who manages the $1.3 billion Janus Global Unconstrained Bond Fund, said in an e-mail.

Stocks fell around the world today, with U.S. equities trading at the lowest levels since August as oil plunged below $30 a barrel. Treasuries gained as U.S. economic data did little to ease concerns that global growth is slowing.

“Wealth effect constructed with paper - sometimes corrugated/strong, sometimes toilet/flimsy,” Gross said in a Tweet on Friday from the Janus Capital Group Inc. account. “Stay out of the bathroom.”


Gross warned in December that markets were headed for a fall and urged investors to de-risk their portfolios or “look around like Wile E. Coyote wondering how far is down,” a reference to the cartoon character whose schemes to catch the bird Road Runner always backfire, often with a plunge over a cliff.

In his e-mail, Gross said that zero-percent interest rates and quantitative easing created leverage that fueled a wealth effect and propped up markets in a way that now seems unsustainable. The wealth effect is "created by leverage based on QE’s and 0 % rates,” he wrote.
 

Proserpina

(2,352 posts)
19. With Liftoff Done, the Fed Revisits Its $4.5 Trillion Quandary
Fri Jan 15, 2016, 10:02 PM
Jan 2016
As Max Keiser often points out, you can't "taper" a Ponzi scheme...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-15/with-liftoff-done-the-fed-revisits-its-4-5-trillion-quandary

Federal Reserve officials who spent months debating their first interest-rate increase in almost a decade are turning next to the thorny question of what to do with a balance sheet equivalent to the size of Japan’s economy.

A month after liftoff, turmoil in global financial markets has pushed out expectations for more rate hikes and raised concern about what tools are available to fight the next downturn. Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer has suggested the $4.5 trillion balance sheet could be maintained as a way to hold down longer-term Treasury yields while the short-term policy rate was lifted.

Fischer’s idea -- discussed in a Jan. 3 speech partly on strategies for pulling the short-term rate away from zero -- was taken up in more practical terms by New York Fed President William C. Dudley Friday. Reinvesting maturing bonds and putting off a reduction in the balance sheet until the federal funds rate is raised somewhat higher “makes sense,” Dudley said.

“Having more ‘dry powder’ in the form of higher short-term interest rates seems more desirable than less dry powder and a smaller balance sheet,” he said.

more
 

Proserpina

(2,352 posts)
20. With Soylent Sales Up 300 Percent, Its Founders Have Eyes on Europe
Fri Jan 15, 2016, 10:05 PM
Jan 2016
soylent?

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-15/with-soylent-sales-up-300-percent-its-founders-have-eyes-on-europe

If you're into the whole “quantified self” movement (wear a FitBit, for one), you probably know Soylent’s oft-repeated origin story: Three years ago, Rob Rhinehart and his partners were a group of techies in San Francisco whose funding for cheap cell-phone towers had vanished. Still eager for success but struggling to pay the rent, they determined that food—both the time it took to prepare and consume it and the cost of purchasing it—was getting in their way. They set out to engineer an efficient food containing all the ingredients they need to live and costing less than the average meal. After tinkering with the formula and living on it for extended periods of time, they started selling it on the Internet.

They called it Soylent in homage to the 1973 science fiction film, Soylent Green, in which humanity has exhausted its ability to feed itself on anything other than the eponymous wafers. (Spoiler: They're made of "people," as star Charlton Heston famously screamed; this product isn't.) The team gained new venture-capital investors, started marketing its product, and by 2014 was shipping 30,000 units of commercially made Soylent a month, leaving everyone from dietitians to sociologists up in arms. Bloomberg Reserve's Peter Elliot spoke with Chief Executive Officer Rhinehart and Dave Renteln, chief marketing officer, at Bloomberg headquarters in New York. Comments have been edited and condensed...

seriously, soylent??

 

Proserpina

(2,352 posts)
22. Another Fan Gurl: My David Bowie, alive for ever Suzanne Moore
Fri Jan 15, 2016, 10:36 PM
Jan 2016
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/11/my-david-bowie-alive-forever?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+USA+-+Version+A&utm_term=149094&subid=9068680&CMP=ema_565a

Bowie was personal, for me and millions of others. As we were trying to become ourselves, he showed us endless possibilities. No one can take that away.

My David Bowie is not dead. Nor ever can be. What he gave to me is for ever mine because he formed me. I have absolute clarity about that, I need no lamentations from politicians or TV presenters with their dim memories of his “hits”. I need no ranking of whether he was up there with Dylan or Lennon because I just know that is a dumb question. I simply know. He was my lodestar: in the years when I was trying to become myself, he showed me the endless possibilities. He extended out into the new spaces, metaphorically and physically. That man could move.

Those possibilities never end though of course he knew they would. He has gone “just like that bluebird” as he soars and sings on his latest single Lazarus. Well he knew things we didn’t, as he had all his life. He departs with Blackstar which I found terrifying without knowing why. What can I do now but listen and weep?

Or find your own Bowie. You will have it somewhere. That first play of Ziggy. That time you put food colouring in your hair. The night when lust became utterly confused with a different kind of longing. A longing to be in one of the worlds he told us about. It is still with me. Taking Station to Station around to a mate’s flat. He had to hear it. We treated these albums as religious artifacts. We worked hard studying the sleeve notes. We wanted to know some of what Bowie knew. He was our university. He was the one who could open up the world.

From a small town and what my teachers called “a broken home” Bowie would guide us. We could give up trying to be normal now that we entrusted ourselves to him. He sang of space and drugs and floating above the world. He could be so tender (Letter to Hermione) and then swagger like a brute. He was tapped right into something mystical that we recognised but could not grasp as we were too busy preening and dancing and wanting...

more
 

Proserpina

(2,352 posts)
24. Bowie the film star: imaginative, daring and endlessly charismatic
Fri Jan 15, 2016, 10:39 PM
Jan 2016
http://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2016/jan/11/david-bowie-film-star-appreciation-man-who-fell-to-earth-labyrinth-prestige

In terms of drama and characterisation David Bowie put his genius into his music, not his movie work, although his film career was as imaginative, daring and eclectic as everything else about him. Space Oddity is, in its way, a perfectly formed sci-fi mini-masterpiece of the 60s, charting in tiny, brilliant narrative leaps Major Tom’s excitement at blast-off, his ascent to celebrity status, his “space birth” outside the capsule, the disaster of the mission, and his epiphanic acceptance of love, mortality and man’s insignificance in the vastness of space. A film might take 120 minutes to tell the same story — less well.

Pop singers from Sinatra to Elvis to Madonna have dabbled in the movies, with varying results, but David Bowie always convinced his public that every role he accepted was an artistic decision and an artistic experiment, governed by his own idealism.

His orchidaceous strangeness made Bowie perfect casting for Nic Roeg’s 1976 movie The Man Who Fell To Earth — his film debut, in fact — based on the Walter Tevis novel, about the extraterrestrial creature who comes to Earth looking for water and natural resources for his own stricken planet. Bowie himself, the exotic exquisite, was to all intents and purposes an extraterrestrial himself; and unlike all the other heroes of 70s glam, it seemed as if his eerie beauty would not come off with the make-up.

Bowie’s style and his line readings were not those of a trained actor, and he continued to be mocked, affectionately and otherwise, for a certain space-oddity in his performance. But watched again, what is striking in The Man Who Fell to Earth is Bowie’s utter calmness, self-possession and poise. This is not stunt casting: it is event casting. Bowie endows the movie with his own extraordinary charisma and prestige, as if appearing in an installation or art happening...



more movies at link
 

Proserpina

(2,352 posts)
27. For Those of Us Whose Identity Is Slippery, David Bowie Was a Secular Saint
Fri Jan 15, 2016, 11:08 PM
Jan 2016
a fan boy

http://www.alternet.org/culture/those-us-whose-identity-slippery-david-bowie-was-secular-saint?akid=13877.227380.2t2QKX&rd=1&src=newsletter1048858&t=19

...So that’s my Bowie story. It still feels private, a highly personal moment of aesthetic shock that determined much of what happened to me afterwards. Even before I’d heard the extraordinary, otherworldly voice, or spent hours failing to unpick the elliptical lyrics, Bowie’s visual image breached my defenses and began to issue challenges. Yet, as an adult, I know that this experience doesn’t just belong to me. In fact, it is almost laughably common. Friends – writers, artists, musicians, and others whose strangeness or wildness is expressed in non-artistic ways – have frequently recounted stories that have the same shape, are animated by the same feeling that Bowie reached inside them and began to offer directions towards a fiercer and brighter world.

So when I say that I used to be able to make myself cry by mouthing the words to Heroes with my eyes screwed up tight, or that I find it almost impossible not to conduct an imaginary cinema orchestra when I hear the words “sailors fighting on the dancefloor” and the sound of descending violins, I know I’m recounting something mundane, that the depth of my emotion is shared by millions of others around the world, each with their connections to Bowie’s work as profound and personal as mine.

For those of us whose identity (sexual, racial, national or otherwise) is involuntarily ambiguous, who have to make the best of our inauthenticity, David Bowie has been a kind of secular saint. As I began to understand that the alien figure in the phonebox was only one in a series of mutations that would continue until yesterday, with the terrible news of his death, it dawned on me that Bowie’s slipperiness was a riposte to the kind of hostile questions that dog the inauthentic, that dogged me as a teenager, that still, come to think of it, dog me today. Questions meant to fix and crush. What are you? Where are you from? Bowie taught me that when they demanded your identity papers, you didn’t have to comply. Or if you wanted, you could invent your own papers, tell whatever damn story you pleased. His bravery and breadth will not be seen again in the world. Nor his exalted sensibility or his beauty or his voice. We will miss him.
 

Proserpina

(2,352 posts)
26. Solar and Wind Just Did the Unthinkable
Fri Jan 15, 2016, 11:05 PM
Jan 2016
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-14/solar-and-wind-just-did-the-unthinkable

Renewables just finished another record-breaking year, with more money invested ($329 billion) and more capacity added (121 gigawatts) than ever before, according to new data released Thursday by Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

This wasn't supposed to happen. Oil, coal and natural gas bottomed out over the last 18 months, with bargain prices not seen in a decade. That's just one of a handful of reasons 2015 should have been a rough year for clean energy. But the opposite was true.

Another reason investment in clean power could have declined: Europe. Once the world leader in new-energy spending, Europe's investments have fallen off amid economic stagnation. Last year, Europe had its smallest investment in renewables since 2006.

Europe has been supplanted by China as the new global giant pushing renewables forward. China spent a record $111 billion on deployment of clean energy infrastructure last year. That's 17 percent more than it spent the prior year, and almost as much as the U.S. and Europe combined. Spending in the U.S. rose 7.5 percent in 2015 to $56 billion, the most since federal stimulus spending peaked in 2011...

more
 

Proserpina

(2,352 posts)
30. Oil Prices Drive Stocks Rout: Dow Sheds Nearly 400 Points (Again)
Fri Jan 15, 2016, 11:55 PM
Jan 2016

Source: NBC NEWS/AP

Plunging oil prices pounded U.S. stock markets again on Friday, with the Dow Jones industrial average closing down nearly 400 points, or more than 2 percent, and the other indices taking similar beatings.

The Dow closed down 390.90 points, or 2.39 percent. The Standard & Poor's 500 index and Nasdaq Composite both also lost more than 2 percent of their value, with the former shedding 41.55 points, or 2.16 percent, and the latter closing down 126.59 points or 2.74 percent.

Earlier the Dow had been down nearly 537 points.

The Dow and S&P 500 have now fallen about 8 percent this year, while the Nasdaq is off more than 10 percent.

Oil prices, which provided the markets with a respite by rallying on Thursday, were again the catalyst for sellers on Friday, as fears grew that Iranian oil would add to the worldwide glut.

Read more: http://www.nbcnews.com/business/markets/u-s-stock-market-dow-plunges-oil-prices-spiral-lower-n497276

MattSh

(3,714 posts)
32. ClubOrlov: Financial collapse leads to war
Sat Jan 16, 2016, 04:29 AM
Jan 2016

Scanning the headlines in the western mainstream press, and then peering behind the one-way mirror to compare that to the actual goings-on, one can't but get the impression that America's propagandists, and all those who follow in their wake, are struggling with all their might to concoct rationales for military action of one sort or another, be it supplying weapons to the largely defunct Ukrainian military, or staging parades of US military hardware and troops in the almost completely Russian town of Narva, in Estonia, a few hundred meters away from the Russian border, or putting US “advisers” in harm's way in parts of Iraq mostly controlled by Islamic militants.

The strenuous efforts to whip up Cold War-like hysteria in the face of an otherwise preoccupied and essentially passive Russia seems out of all proportion to the actual military threat Russia poses. (Yes, volunteers and ammo do filter into Ukraine across the Russian border, but that's about it.) Further south, the efforts to topple the government of Syria by aiding and arming Islamist radicals seem to be backfiring nicely. But that's the pattern, isn't it? What US military involvement in recent memory hasn't resulted in a fiasco? Maybe failure is not just an option, but more of a requirement?

Let's review. Afghanistan, after the longest military campaign in US history, is being handed back to the Taliban. Iraq no longer exists as a sovereign nation, but has fractured into three pieces, one of them controlled by radical Islamists. Egypt has been democratically reformed into a military dictatorship. Libya is a defunct state in the middle of a civil war. The Ukraine will soon be in a similar state; it has been reduced to pauper status in record time—less than a year. A recent government overthrow has caused Yemen to stop being US-friendly. Closer to home, things are going so well in the US-dominated Central American countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador that they have produced a flood of refugees, all trying to get into the US in the hopes of finding any sort of sanctuary.

Looking at this broad landscape of failure, there are two ways to interpret it. One is that the US officialdom is the most incompetent one imaginable, and can't ever get anything right. But another is that they do not succeed for a distinctly different reason: they don't succeed because results don't matter. You see, if failure were a problem, then there would be some sort of pressure coming from somewhere or other within the establishment, and that pressure to succeed might sporadically give rise to improved performance, leading to at least a few instances of success. But if in fact failure is no problem at all, and if instead there was some sort of pressure to fail, then we would see exactly what we do see.

In fact, a point can be made that it is the limited scope of failure that is the problem. This would explain the recent saber-rattling in the direction of Russia, accusing it of imperial ambitions (Russia is not interested in territorial gains), demonizing Vladimir Putin (who is effective and popular) and behaving provocatively along Russia's various borders (leaving Russia vaguely insulted but generally unconcerned). It can be argued that all the previous victims of US foreign policy—Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, even the Ukraine—are too small to produce failure writ large enough to satisfy America's appetite for failure. Russia, on the other hand, especially when incentivized by thinking that it is standing up to some sort of new, American-style fascism, has the ability to deliver to the US a foreign policy failure that will dwarf all the previous ones.

Analysts have proposed a variety of explanations for America's hyperactive, oversized militarism. Here are the top three:

-----> http://cluborlov.blogspot.ru/2016/01/financial-collapse-leads-to-war.html

 

Proserpina

(2,352 posts)
33. BowieNet: how David Bowie's ISP foresaw the future of the internet
Sat Jan 16, 2016, 06:41 AM
Jan 2016
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jan/11/david-bowie-bowienet-isp-internet?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+USA+-+Version+A&utm_term=149094&subid=9068680&CMP=ema_565a

Always a step ahead of the curve, he spotted the potential of the internet as a venue in which to make, share and expand upon art...In the summer of 1998, a strange press release made its way out to technology and music publications throughout the world. David Bowie, the legendary musician and cultural provocateur, would be launching his own internet service provider, offering subscription-based dial up access to the emerging online world. At a time when plenty of major corporations were still struggling to even comprehend the significance and impact of the web, Bowie was there staking his claim. “If I was 19 again, I’d bypass music and go right to the internet,” he said at the time. He understood that a revolution was coming.

Bowie had always appreciated the interplay between pop music and technology, but the explosion of web usage in the mid-1990s offered entirely new communication possibilities. In 1996, Bowie became the first major artist to distribute a new song – Telling Lies – as an online-only release, selling over 300,000 downloads. By then, like many other music artists, he had his own website and was exploring interactive CD-ROM technology – notably through the 1994 release of Jump, a PC CD that let users create their own video for the track Jump, They Say as well as watch interviews with Bowie and music videos from the Black Tie White Noise album. In 1997 he arranged an ambitious live ‘cybercast’ of his Earthling concert in Boston – although the limits of internet access at the time meant that capacity was quickly reached, and most viewers received only stuttering images and error messages.

But his true ambitions were more profound. Throughout 1997 and 1998 he worked with the web and interactive entertainment pioneers Robert Goodale and Ron Roy to explore the deeper possibilities of the internet as a means of reaching fans and distributing music. The result, on 1 September 1998, was the launch of BowieNet, initially in North America, but later worldwide – an ISP offering “uncensored” access to the internet attached to a dedicated David Bowie website. Subscribers could browse a vast archive of Bowie’s photographs, videos and interviews, as well as a blog, career chronology and news feed. The artist also promised further exclusive tracks and webcasts, including footage from the Earthling tour. Most enticingly for many fans, users also got their own BowieNet email address – a strange, exciting new way to declare their affinity with the artist.

More importantly though, Bowie conceived of this service as a visual, interactive community for music fans. Through his Ultrastar company he negotiated deals to give users access to music services like the Rolling Stone Network, which livestreamed concerts, and Music Boulevard, one of the first companies to offer paid-for downloadable music tracks. The ISP provided every user with 5MB of web space, encouraging them to create and share their own websites; there were also forums and live chat sections where Bowie himself conducted live web chats. This was in effect a music-centric social network, several years before the emergence of sector leaders like Friendster and Myspace. The site was also technologically ambitious. At a time when most homepages were simple constructs of text and still images on a default grey background, BowieNet used emerging plug ins like Flash and RealAudio to provide animating graphics and downloadable music clips. Newcomers were told they’d need at least a 28k, but preferably 56k modem connection – this was demanding at a time when the commercial WWW infrastructure was still in its infancy. Parts of the front page of BowieNet remain available on the Internet Archive... In January 2000 he co-launched his own branded online bank, BowieBanc, which put his image on a credit card and, naturally, offered customers a free subscription to BowieNet. It was a controversial move at the time, and shortlived, but it was a hint at the way music artists would soon be controlling and marketing their images in a variety of seemingly unrelated sectors – it spoke of the entrapreneural spirit that would come to define pop stardom in the digital era. BowieNet was over as an ISP by 2006, the technology had moved on – as had Bowie himself. But he retained an understanding of the web as a platform of subversion. On 8 January 2013, Bowie put a video for his new single Where Are They Now on his website, without any fanfare. The song, heralding his first new album in a decade, was immediately available on iTunes in 119 countries. It was a stealthy act of digital anti-promotion that would prove massively successful, relying on news sites and social media to spread the word. The word duly spread...

more

DemReadingDU

(16,000 posts)
34. David Bowie was quite the artistic, musical, technology, financial contributor
Sat Jan 16, 2016, 08:52 AM
Jan 2016

I never paid any attention to him before. Now I get to read about all his creativity. Thanks for all these links.


westerebus

(2,976 posts)
35. The Elephant Man.
Sat Jan 16, 2016, 09:34 AM
Jan 2016

That was one of my favorite memories of Bowie.

The '73 concert at Radio City Music Hall was psychedelic. In more ways than one.

The economy sucked.

But, over a weekend, you might see Savoy Brown, King Crimson, Bowie, Lead Zeppelin, Grateful Dead and on and on.

Not just in the City.

Radical years.

Fuddnik

(8,846 posts)
38. Bowie got better with age.
Sat Jan 16, 2016, 09:56 AM
Jan 2016

I went to probably his first US tour, Ziggy Stardust, and thought the whole thing was hokey. Then the whole glitter schtick. But, over the years I started liking him more and more.

westerebus

(2,976 posts)
40. It was hokey with gliter on top.
Sat Jan 16, 2016, 12:03 PM
Jan 2016

It was over the top.

The circus had come to town and the freaks were there to party!

If you were to pick a concert, way back in time, who would it be? Pick a couple.

For me:

Janis Joplin. Rory Gallagher.

Bob Marley. The Band.

Spirit. Santana.

Allman Brother's.

CSNY.

Fuddnik

(8,846 posts)
80. Some of my favorites from back then...
Mon Jan 18, 2016, 11:38 AM
Jan 2016

Pink Floyd several times (including first tour)

CSNY

Santana, and another time Santana and Clapton. Santana was the opener, and they did a 30 minute encore together.

Moody Blues (Have tickets to see them again in a couple of weeks. Seems they play Clearwater every March, and I go every March)

And several others that I don't much remember for various reasons.

 

Proserpina

(2,352 posts)
36. Apple May Be on Hook for $8 Billion in Taxes in Europe Probe
Sat Jan 16, 2016, 09:49 AM
Jan 2016
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-15/apple-may-be-on-hook-for-8-billion-in-taxes-after-europe-probe

The world’s largest company could owe more than $8 billion in back taxes as a result of a European Commission investigation into its tax policies, according to an analysis by Matt Larson of Bloomberg Intelligence. Apple, which has said it will appeal an adverse ruling, is being scrutinized by regulators who have accused the iPhone maker of using subsidiaries in Ireland to avoid paying taxes on revenue generated outside the U.S. The probe dates back to 2014 and a decision could come as soon as March.

The European Commission contends that Apple’s corporate arrangement in Ireland allows it to calculate profits using more favorable accounting methods. Apple calculates its tax bill using low operating costs, a move that dramatically decreases what the company pays to the Irish government. While Apple generates about 55 percent of its revenue outside the U.S., its foreign tax rate is about 1.8 percent. If the Commission decides to enforce a tougher accounting standard, Apple may owe taxes at a 12.5 percent rate, on $64.1 billion in profit generated from 2004 to 2012, according to Larson, a litigation analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence.

Apple is perhaps the highest-profile case of U.S. companies facing scrutiny from officials in Europe. Starbucks Corp., Amazon.com Inc. and McDonalds Corp. also have had its tax policies questioned.

Several senators came to the defense of U.S. companies on Friday. In a letter to U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, bipartisan members of the Senate Finance Committee asked the administration to make sure that European regulators won’t impose retroactive penalties like those that would hit Apple. The senators said the companies may be facing "discriminatory taxation" and that the U.S. government should consider retaliatory measures if European tax authorities follow through with their actions against Apple and others.

"Predictable tax policy fosters a fair and stable environment for business and investment," the senators wrote in a letter to Lew. "Going back in time to penalize taxpayers under a new law, or a new interpretation of an existing law without notice, runs counter to that objective."

more

Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook has denied that the company uses tricks to avoid paying taxes. In a recent interview on CBS Corp.’s "60 Minutes," he called the criticism the company has faced from U.S. lawmakers "political crap." He said the tax system is outdated and needs to be updated for a digital economy.
 

Proserpina

(2,352 posts)
37. World's Richest Down $305 Billion as Markets Extend Global Rout
Sat Jan 16, 2016, 09:54 AM
Jan 2016
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-15/world-s-richest-down-305-billion-as-markets-extend-global-rout

The 400 richest people have lost $305 billion from their combined net worth this month as global equities tumbled for the worst start to a year on record as concern mounts that global growth is faltering.

The billionaires lost more than $115 billion this week, with 76 taking hits of at least $1 billion in January, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Seven shed more than $1 billion on Friday alone as the Dow Jones Industrial Average sank 391 points, European stocks fell into a bear market and the Shanghai Composite Index wiped out gains from an unprecedented state-rescue campaign.



Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos led decliners on the Bloomberg index, losing $8.9 billion since Jan. 1 and $1.9 billion Friday when the Internet retailer declined 3.85 percent. Bill Gates, the world’s richest person, has lost $6.8 billion of his net worth this year and Wang Jianlin, China’s richest person, is down $6.4 billion.

...Only nine of the 400 billionaires have increased their net worth in 2016, led by Indian oil billionaire Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Mumbai-based Reliance Industries Ltd., who’s added $620 million.

The combined net worth of the 400 billionaires is $3.6 trillion, a 16 percent decline from their peak of $4.3 billion on May 18, 2015.
 

Proserpina

(2,352 posts)
42. A recession worse than 2008 is coming
Sat Jan 16, 2016, 12:33 PM
Jan 2016
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/01/15/a-recession-worse-than-2008-is-coming-commentary.html



The S&P 500 has begun 2016 with its worst performance ever. This has prompted Wall Street apologists to come out in full force and try to explain why the chaos in global currencies and equities will not be a repeat of 2008. Nor do they want investors to believe this environment is commensurate with the dot-com bubble bursting. They claim the current turmoil in China is not even comparable to the 1997 Asian debt crisis.

Indeed, the unscrupulous individuals that dominate financial institutions and governments seldom predict a down-tick on Wall Street, so don't expect them to warn of the impending global recession and market mayhem.

But a recession has occurred in the U.S. about every five years, on average, since the end of WWII; and it has been seven years since the last one — we are overdue.

Most importantly, the average market drop during the peak to trough of the last 6 recessions has been 37 percent. That would take the S&P 500 down to 1,300; if this next recession were to be just of the average variety.

But this one will be worse.



The market will drop 20% in 2016: Pento

 

Proserpina

(2,352 posts)
43. The story continues: David Bowie 1980–88: New Wave and pop era
Sat Jan 16, 2016, 12:50 PM
Jan 2016

Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) (1980) produced the number one hit "Ashes to Ashes", featuring the textural work of guitar-synthesist Chuck Hammer and revisiting the character of Major Tom from "Space Oddity". The song gave international exposure to the underground New Romantic movement when Bowie visited the London club "Blitz"—the main New Romantic hangout—to recruit several of the regulars (including Steve Strange of the band Visage) to act in the accompanying video, renowned as one of the most innovative of all time. While Scary Monsters utilised principles established by the Berlin albums, it was considered by critics to be far more direct musically and lyrically. The album's hard rock edge included conspicuous guitar contributions from Robert Fripp, Pete Townshend and Chuck Hammer. As "Ashes to Ashes" hit number one on the UK charts, Bowie opened a three-month run on Broadway on 24 September, starring in The Elephant Man.





&list=PLlHewiZAyv54sThoOFxlPed0E5HOFC9WY



Bowie paired with Queen in 1981 for a one-off single release, "Under Pressure". The duet was a hit, becoming Bowie's third UK number one single.



Bowie was given the lead role in the BBC's 1982 televised adaptation of Bertolt Brecht's play Baal. Coinciding with its transmission, a five-track EP of songs from the play, recorded earlier in Berlin, was released as David Bowie in Bertolt Brecht's Baal. In March 1982, the month before Paul Schrader's film Cat People came out, Bowie's title song, "Cat People (Putting Out Fire)", was released as a single, becoming a minor US hit and entering the UK top 30.



Bowie reached a new peak of popularity and commercial success in 1983 with Let's Dance. Co-produced by Chic's Nile Rodgers, the album went platinum in both the UK and the US. Its three singles became top twenty hits in both countries, where its title track reached number one. "Modern Love" and "China Girl" made number two in the UK, accompanied by a pair of acclaimed promotional videos that, as described by biographer David Buckley, "were totally absorbing and activated key archetypes in the pop world. 'Let's Dance', with its little narrative surrounding the young Aborigine couple, targeted 'youth', and 'China Girl', with its nude (and later partially censored) beach lovemaking scene (a homage to the film From Here to Eternity), was sufficiently sexually provocative to guarantee heavy rotation on MTV. Stevie Ray Vaughan was guest guitarist playing solo on "Let's Dance", although the video depicts Bowie miming this part. By 1983, Bowie had emerged as one of the most important video artists of the day. Let's Dance was followed by the Serious Moonlight Tour, during which Bowie was accompanied by guitarist Earl Slick and backing vocalists Frank and George Simms. The world tour lasted six months and was extremely popular.

Tonight (1984), another dance-oriented album, found Bowie collaborating with Tina Turner and, once again, Iggy Pop. It included a number of cover songs, among them the 1966 Beach Boys hit "God Only Knows". The album bore the transatlantic top ten hit "Blue Jean", itself the inspiration for a short film that won Bowie a Grammy Award for Best Short Form Music Video, "Jazzin' for Blue Jean".

Bowie performed at Wembley in 1985 for Live Aid, a multi-venue benefit concert for Ethiopian famine relief. During the event, the video for a fundraising single was premièred, Bowie's duet with Mick Jagger. "Dancing in the Street" quickly went to number one on release.

The same year, Bowie worked with the Pat Metheny Group to record "This Is Not America" for the soundtrack of The Falcon and the Snowman. Released as a single, the song became a top 40 hit in the UK and US.

Bowie was given a role in the 1986 film Absolute Beginners. It was poorly received by critics, but Bowie's theme song rose to number two in the UK charts.

He also appeared as Jareth, the Goblin King, in the 1986 Jim Henson film Labyrinth, for which he wrote five songs.

His final solo album of the decade was 1987's Never Let Me Down, where he ditched the light sound of his previous two albums, instead offering harder rock with an industrial/techno dance edge. Peaking at number six in the UK, the album yielded the hits "Day-In, Day-Out" (his 60th single), "Time Will Crawl", and "Never Let Me Down". Bowie later described it as his "nadir", calling it "an awful album". Supporting Never Let Me Down, and preceded by nine promotional press shows, the 86-concert Glass Spider Tour commenced on 30 May. Bowie's backing band included Peter Frampton on lead guitar. Critics maligned the tour as overproduced, saying it pandered to the current stadium rock trends in its special effects and dancing.
 

Proserpina

(2,352 posts)
44. 1989–91: Tin Machine
Sat Jan 16, 2016, 12:53 PM
Jan 2016

Bowie shelved his solo career in 1989, retreating to the relative anonymity of band membership for the first time since the early 1970s. A hard-rocking quartet, Tin Machine came into being after Bowie began to work experimentally with guitarist Reeves Gabrels. The line-up was completed by Tony and Hunt Sales, whom Bowie had known since the late 1970s for their contribution, on bass and drums respectively, to Iggy Pop's 1977 album Lust For Life.

Although he intended Tin Machine to operate as a democracy, Bowie dominated, both in songwriting and in decision-making. The band's album debut, Tin Machine (1989), was initially popular, though its politicised lyrics did not find universal approval: Bowie described one song as "a simplistic, naive, radical, laying-it-down about the emergence of neo-Nazis"; in the view of biographer Christopher Sandford, "It took nerve to denounce drugs, fascism and TV ... in terms that reached the literary level of a comic book." EMI complained of "lyrics that preach" as well as "repetitive tunes" and "minimalist or no production". The album nevertheless reached number three in the UK.

Tin Machine's first world tour was a commercial success, but there was growing reluctance—among fans and critics alike—to accept Bowie's presentation as merely a band member. A series of Tin Machine singles failed to chart, and Bowie, after a disagreement with EMI, left the label. Like his audience and his critics, Bowie himself became increasingly disaffected with his role as just one member of a band. Tin Machine began work on a second album, but Bowie put the venture on hold and made a return to solo work. Performing his early hits during the seven-month Sound+Vision Tour, he found commercial success and acclaim once again.

In October 1990, a decade after his divorce from Angela, Bowie and Somali-born supermodel Iman were introduced by a mutual friend. Bowie recalled, "I was naming the children the night we met ... it was absolutely immediate." They married in 1992.

Tin Machine resumed work the same month, but their audience and critics, ultimately left disappointed by the first album, showed little interest in a second. Tin Machine II '​s arrival was marked by a widely publicised and ill-timed conflict over the cover art: after production had begun, the new record label, Victory, deemed the depiction of four ancient nude Kouroi statues, judged by Bowie to be "in exquisite taste", "a show of wrong, obscene images", requiring air-brushing and patching to render the figures sexless. Tin Machine toured again, but after the live album Tin Machine Live: Oy Vey, Baby failed commercially, the band drifted apart, and Bowie, though he continued to collaborate with Gabrels, resumed his solo career.
 

Proserpina

(2,352 posts)
45. 1992–98: Electronic period
Sat Jan 16, 2016, 12:58 PM
Jan 2016


On 20 April 1992, Bowie appeared at The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert, following the Queen singer's death the previous year. As well as performing "Heroes" and "All the Young Dudes", he was joined on "Under Pressure" by Annie Lennox, who took Mercury's vocal part; during his appearance, Bowie knelt and recited the Lord's Prayer at Wembley Stadium.

Four days later, Bowie and Iman were married in Switzerland. Intending to move to Los Angeles, they flew in to search for a suitable property, but found themselves confined to their hotel, under curfew: the 1992 Los Angeles riots began the day they arrived. They settled in New York instead.

In 1993, Bowie released his first solo offering since his Tin Machine departure, the soul, jazz and hip-hop influenced Black Tie White Noise. Making prominent use of electronic instruments, the album, which reunited Bowie with Let's Dance producer Nile Rodgers, confirmed Bowie's return to popularity, hitting the number one spot on the UK charts and spawning three top 40 hits, including the top 10 song "Jump They Say". Bowie explored new directions on The Buddha of Suburbia (1993), a soundtrack album of incidental music composed for the TV series adaptation of Hanif Kureishi's novel. It contained some of the new elements introduced in Black Tie White Noise, and also signalled a move towards alternative rock. The album was a critical success but received a low-key release and only made number 87 in the UK charts.

Reuniting Bowie with Eno, the quasi-industrial Outside (1995) was originally conceived as the first volume in a non-linear narrative of art and murder. Featuring characters from a short story written by Bowie, the album achieved UK and US chart success, and yielded three top 40 UK singles. In a move that provoked mixed reaction from both fans and critics, Bowie chose Nine Inch Nails as his tour partner for the Outside Tour. Visiting cities in Europe and North America between September 1995 and February 1996, the tour saw the return of Gabrels as Bowie's guitarist. On 7 January 1997 Bowie celebrated his half century with a 50th birthday concert at Madison Square Garden, New York, at which he was joined in playing his songs and those of his guests, Lou Reed, Dave Grohl and the Foo Fighters, Robert Smith of the Cure, Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins, Frank Black of the Pixies and Sonic Youth.

Bowie was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on 17 January 1996.

Incorporating experiments in British jungle and drum 'n' bass, Earthling (1997) was a critical and commercial success in the UK and the US, and two singles from the album became UK top 40 hits. Bowie's song "I'm Afraid of Americans" from the Paul Verhoeven film Showgirls was re-recorded for the album, and remixed by Trent Reznor for a single release. The heavy rotation of the accompanying video, also featuring Reznor, contributed to the song's 16-week stay in the US Billboard Hot 100. The Earthling Tour took in Europe and North America between June and November 1997.

In November 1997, Bowie performed on the BBC's Children in Need charity single "Perfect Day", which reached number one in the UK. Bowie reunited with Visconti in 1998 to record &quot Safe in This) Sky Life" for The Rugrats Movie. Although the track was edited out of the final cut, it was later re-recorded and released as "Safe" on the B-side of Bowie's 2002 single "Everyone Says 'Hi'". The reunion led to other collaborations including a limited-edition single release version of Placebo's track "Without You I'm Nothing", co-produced by Visconti, with Bowie's harmonised vocal added to the original recording.
 

Proserpina

(2,352 posts)
46. The Financial David Bowie--his view
Sat Jan 16, 2016, 01:01 PM
Jan 2016

Last edited Sat Jan 16, 2016, 01:40 PM - Edit history (1)

Bowie Bonds

Bowie Bonds, an early example of celebrity bonds, were asset-backed securities of current and future revenues of the 25 albums (287 songs) that Bowie recorded before 1990.

Bowie Bonds were pioneered by rock and roll investment banker David Pullman. Issued in 1997, the bonds were bought for US$55 million by the Prudential Insurance Company of America. The bonds paid an interest rate of 7.9% and had an average life of ten years, a higher rate of return than a 10-year Treasury note (at the time, 6.37%).

Royalties from the 25 albums generated the cash flow that secured the bonds' interest payments. Prudential also received guarantees from Bowie's label, EMI Records, which had recently signed a $30m deal with Bowie.

By forfeiting ten years worth of royalties, Bowie received a payment of US$55 million up front. Bowie used this income to buy songs owned by his former manager.

Bowie's combined catalogue of albums covered by this agreement sold more than 1 million copies annually at the time of the agreement. By March 2004, Moody's Investors Service lowered the bonds from an A3 rating (the seventh highest rating) to Baa3, one notch above junk status. The downgrade was prompted by lower-than-expected revenue "due to weakness in sales for recorded music" and that an unnamed company guaranteed the issue. Nonetheless, the bonds liquidated in 2007 as originally planned, without default, and the rights to the income from the songs reverted to Bowie.

BowieNet


In September 1998, Bowie launched his own Internet service provider, BowieNet, developed in conjunction with Robert Goodale and Ron Roy. Subscribers to the dial-up service were offered exclusive content, as well as a BowieNet email address and regular Internet access. The service was closed by 2006.
 

Proserpina

(2,352 posts)
47. 1999–2012: Neoclassicist Bowie
Sat Jan 16, 2016, 01:12 PM
Jan 2016

Bowie created the soundtrack for Omikron, a 1999 computer game in which he and Iman also appeared as characters. Released the same year and containing re-recorded tracks from Omikron, his album 'Hours...' featured a song with lyrics by the winner of his "Cyber Song Contest" Internet competition, Alex Grant. Making extensive use of live instruments, the album was Bowie's exit from heavy electronica.

Sessions for the planned album Toy, intended to feature new versions of some of Bowie's earliest pieces as well as three new songs, commenced in 2000, but the album was never released. Bowie and Visconti continued their collaboration, producing a new album of completely original songs instead: the result of the sessions was the 2002 album Heathen.

On 25 June 2000, Bowie made his second appearance at the Glastonbury Festival in England, playing 30 years after his first. On 27 June, Bowie performed a concert at BBC Radio Theatre in London, which was released in the compilation album Bowie at the Beeb, which also featured BBC recording sessions from 1968 to 1972.

Bowie and Iman's daughter was born on 15 August 2000.

In October 2001, Bowie opened the Concert for New York City, a charity event to benefit the victims of the 11 September attacks, with a minimalist performance of Simon & Garfunkel's "America", followed by a full band performance of "Heroes".



2002 saw the release of Heathen, and, during the second half of the year, the Heathen Tour. Taking place in Europe and North America, the tour opened at London's annual Meltdown festival, for which Bowie was that year appointed artistic director. Among the acts he selected for the festival were Philip Glass, Television and the Dandy Warhols. As well as songs from the new album, the tour featured material from Bowie's Low era.

Reality (2003) followed, and its accompanying world tour, the A Reality Tour, with an estimated attendance of 722,000, grossed more than any other in 2004.

Onstage in Oslo, Norway, on 18 June, Bowie was hit in the eye with a lollipop thrown by a fan; a week later he suffered chest pain while performing at the Hurricane Festival in Scheeßel, Germany. Originally thought to be a pinched nerve in his shoulder, the pain was later diagnosed as an acutely blocked coronary artery, requiring an emergency angioplasty in Hamburg. The remaining 14 dates of the tour were cancelled. That same year, his interest in Buddhism led him to support the Tibetan cause by performing at a concert to support the New York Tibet House.

In the years following his recuperation from the heart attack, Bowie reduced his musical output, making only one-off appearances on stage and in the studio. He sang in a duet of his 1972 song "Changes" with Butterfly Boucher for the 2004 animated film Shrek 2.

During a relatively quiet 2005, he recorded the vocals for the song &quot She Can) Do That", co-written with Brian Transeau, for the film Stealth. He returned to the stage on 8 September 2005, appearing with Arcade Fire for the US nationally televised event Fashion Rocks, and performed with the Canadian band for the second time a week later during the CMJ Music Marathon. He contributed backing vocals on TV on the Radio's song "Province" for their album Return to Cookie Mountain, made a commercial with Snoop Dogg for XM Satellite Radio and joined with Lou Reed on Danish alt-rockers Kashmir's 2005 album No Balance Palace.

Bowie was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award on 8 February 2006.

In April, he announced, "I'm taking a year off—no touring, no albums." He made a surprise guest appearance at David Gilmour's 29 May concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London. The event was recorded, and a selection of songs on which he had contributed joint vocals were subsequently released. He performed again in November, alongside Alicia Keys, at the Black Ball, a New York benefit event for Keep a Child Alive, a performance marking the last time Bowie performed his music on stage.



Bowie was chosen to curate the 2007 High Line Festival, selecting musicians and artists for the Manhattan event, and performed on Scarlett Johansson's 2008 album of Tom Waits covers, Anywhere I Lay My Head. On the 40th anniversary of the July 1969 moon landing—and Bowie's accompanying commercial breakthrough with "Space Oddity"—EMI released the individual tracks from the original eight-track studio recording of the song, in a 2009 contest inviting members of the public to create a remix. A Reality Tour, a double album of live material from the 2003 concert tour, was released in January 2010.

In late March 2011, Toy, Bowie's previously unreleased album from 2001, was leaked onto the internet, containing material used for Heathen and most of its single B-sides, as well as unheard new versions of his early back catalogue.
 

Proserpina

(2,352 posts)
48. 2013–16: Final years
Sat Jan 16, 2016, 01:16 PM
Jan 2016


On 8 January 2013 (his 66th birthday), his website announced a new album, to be titled The Next Day and scheduled for release 8 March for Australia, 12 March for the United States and 11 March for the rest of the world. Bowie's first studio album in a decade, The Next Day contains 14 songs plus 3 bonus tracks. His website acknowledged the length of his hiatus.[163] Record producer Tony Visconti said 29 tracks were recorded for the album, some of which could appear on Bowie's next record, which he might start work on later in 2013. The announcement was accompanied by the immediate release of a single, "Where Are We Now?", written and recorded by Bowie in New York and produced by longtime collaborator Visconti.

A music video for "Where Are We Now?" was released onto Vimeo the same day, directed by New York artist Tony Oursler. The single topped the UK iTunes Chart within hours of its release, and debuted in the UK Singles Chart at No. 6, his first single to enter the top 10 for two decades (since "Jump They Say" in 1993).

A second video, "The Stars (Are Out Tonight)", was released 25 February. Directed by Floria Sigismondi, it stars Bowie and Tilda Swinton as a married couple. On 1 March, the album was made available to stream for free through iTunes. The Next Day debuted at No. 1 on the UK Albums Chart, his first since Black Tie White Noise (1993), and was the fastest-selling album of 2013 at the time. The music video for the song "The Next Day" created some controversy, initially being removed from YouTube for terms-of-service violation, then restored with a warning recommending viewing only by those 18 or over.

According to The Times, Bowie ruled out ever giving an interview again. An exhibition of Bowie artefacts, called "David Bowie Is", was shown at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 2013. Later that year the exhibition began a world tour, starting in Toronto and including stops in Chicago, Paris, Melbourne, and Groningen (the Netherlands). Bowie was featured in a cameo vocal in the Arcade Fire song "Reflektor".

A poll carried out by BBC History Magazine, in October 2013, named Bowie as the best-dressed Briton in history.

At the 2014 Brit Awards on 19 February, Bowie became the oldest recipient of a Brit Award in the ceremony's history when he won the award for Best British Male, which was collected on his behalf by Kate Moss. His speech read: "I'm completely delighted to have a Brit for being the best male – but I am, aren't I Kate? Yes. I think it's a great way to end the day. Thank you very, very much and Scotland stay with us." Bowie's reference to the forthcoming Scottish independence referendum garnered a significant reaction throughout the UK on social media. On 18 July, Bowie indicated that future music would be forthcoming, though he was vague about details.

New information was released in September 2014 regarding his next compilation album, Nothing Has Changed, which was released in November. The album featured rare tracks and old material from his catalogue in addition to a new song titled "Sue (Or in a Season of Crime)". In May 2015, "Let's Dance" was announced to be reissued as a yellow vinyl single on 16 July 2015 in conjunction with the "David Bowie is" exhibition at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image in Melbourne.

In August 2015, it was announced that Bowie was writing songs for a Broadway musical based on the SpongeBob SquarePants cartoon series. Bowie wrote and recorded the opening title song to the television series The Last Panthers, which aired in November 2015. The theme that was used for The Last Panthers was also the title track for his January 2016 release Blackstar which is said to take cues from his earlier krautrock influenced work. According to The Times: "Blackstar may be the oddest work yet from Bowie".

Blackstar was released on 8 January 2016, Bowie's 69th birthday, and was met with critical acclaim. Following his death on 10 January, producer Tony Visconti revealed that Bowie had planned the album to be his swan song, and a "parting gift" for his fans before his death. Several reporters and critics subsequently noted that most of the lyrics on the album seem to revolve around his impending death, with CNN noting that the album "reveals a man who appears to be grappling with his own mortality". Visconti later said that Bowie had been planning a post-Blackstar album, and had written and recorded demo versions of five songs in his final weeks, suggesting that Bowie believed he had a few months left. The day following his death, online viewing of Bowie's music skyrocketed, breaking the record for Vevo's most viewed artist in a single day. On 15 January, Blackstar debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart, nineteen of his albums were in the UK Top 100 Albums Chart, and thirteen singles were in the UK Top 100 Singles Chart
 

Proserpina

(2,352 posts)
49. The Death of David Bowie
Sat Jan 16, 2016, 01:22 PM
Jan 2016

On 10 January 2016, two days after his 69th birthday and the release of the album, Blackstar, Bowie died from liver cancer in his New York City apartment. He had been diagnosed 18 months earlier but had not made the news of his illness public.

Belgian theatre director Ivo van Hove, who had worked with the singer on his Off-Broadway musical Lazarus, explained that Bowie was unable to attend rehearsals due to the progression of the disease. He noted that Bowie had kept working during the illness.

Bowie's producer Tony Visconti wrote:

He always did what he wanted to do. And he wanted to do it his way and he wanted to do it the best way. His death was no different from his life — a work of art. He made Blackstar for us, his parting gift. I knew for a year this was the way it would be. I wasn't, however, prepared for it. He was an extraordinary man, full of love and life. He will always be with us. For now, it is appropriate to cry.


Following Bowie's death, fans gathered at impromptu street shrines. At the mural of Bowie in his birthplace of Brixton, south London, which shows him in his Aladdin Sane character, fans laid flowers and sang his songs. Other memorial sites included Berlin, Los Angeles and outside his apartment in New York. Bowie was cremated in New York on 14 January.

antigop

(12,778 posts)
53. Is David Bowie's Lazarus Headed to Broadway?
Sat Jan 16, 2016, 01:45 PM
Jan 2016
http://www.playbill.com/news/article/is-david-bowies-lazarus-headed-to-broadway-379880

Lazarus, the Off-Broadway musical with a score by the late David Bowie and book by Enda Walsh, is being considered by producers for a Broadway transfer, according to The New York Post.

The musical is currently running at New York Theatre Workshop. Inspired by Walter Tevis' best-selling 1963 novel "The Man Who Fell to Earth," the story follows Thomas Newton – played by Michael C. Hall – a human-looking and lovelorn alien who has been abandoned on the planet.


Is the David Bowie musical ‘Lazarus’ headed to Broadway?
http://nypost.com/2016/01/14/is-the-david-bowie-musical-lazarus-headed-to-broadway/

“Lazarus” was already sold out at the New York Theatre Workshop before the news of creator David Bowie’s death this week. But now it’s giving “Hamilton” a run for its sky-high ticket prices.

Three performances have been added, extending the show’s run till Jan. 20, and tickets, if you can get them, are going for north of $1,300 on the scalper’s market. NYTW is charging $1,000 to $2,500 a ticket for the final performance, with its sticker-shocker prices benefiting the theater’s education department.
 

Proserpina

(2,352 posts)
52. You are welcome, anytime
Sat Jan 16, 2016, 01:41 PM
Jan 2016

It's a sad time, but there's strength in numbers. Next WEE will salute Alan Rickman.

 

Proserpina

(2,352 posts)
57. You're welcome! Drop in any weekend
Sat Jan 16, 2016, 02:39 PM
Jan 2016

and see the Stock Market Watch posted here daily (it's not all boring, at all!) We try to make real news and education painless...

 

Proserpina

(2,352 posts)
55. National Association of Counties: Only three Michigan counties have recovered from Great Recession
Sat Jan 16, 2016, 02:31 PM
Jan 2016
These counties are DeVos territory...the heart of the redneck fundie power structure



If county economies are the building blocks of state economies and ultimately the national economy, 2015 brought reasons to celebrate and reasons for concern.

The good news is "close to half the counties saw growth across all indicators in 2015, a 15 percent increase over the previous," wrote Dr. Emilia Istrate, research director for the National Association of Counties, and Dr. Brian Knudsen, research analyst, the authors of a new study of county economic wellbeing.

The bad news is that only 7 percent of all counties in the United States have returned to pre-recession levels of economic vibrancy.

In Michigan, only three counties have bounced back from the Great Recession of 2009 – all of them clustered around Grand Rapids...
 

Proserpina

(2,352 posts)
56. Opinion: The stock market is freaking out about Trump and Sanders By Brett Arends
Sat Jan 16, 2016, 02:36 PM
Jan 2016
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-stock-market-is-freaking-out-about-trump-and-sanders-2016-01-15?siteid=YAHOOB

Political uncertainty and the prospect of outsider candidates are panicking Wall Street..Donald Trump wants to slap tariffs on China — and maybe Japan. He’d build a wall with Mexico. He promises a more pugnacious American posture in the world, and probably a lot more unilateralism. Bernie Sanders wants to jack up the federal minimum wage, tax short-term stock market trading, and probably raise other taxes and regulations as well.

Both men are rising in the polls. And as they’re going up, the stock market is going down.

Surprised? Don’t be. Stock markets hate three things in this world. The first is anyone who dissents from the orthodoxy of MBA economics. The second is anyone they can’t control. The third is uncertainty. And both Trump and Sanders are offering all three. We’re talking Wall Street Nightmare Bingo. It may be no coincidence that the Dow Jones Industrial Average tanked on Friday, the day after another Republican debate. Trump confirmed his commanding lead in the race, while Jeb Bush went under for the third and, surely, final time.

Yes, of course, there are lots of reasons why stock markets are down so far this year. People are worried about the slowing Chinese economy. They’re worried about falling oil prices, rising interest rates and the dangers of overpriced stocks. But as a money manager explained to me over lunch this week, he and his clients are also focusing now on a fifth worry: politics.

Even in Wall Street’s best-case scenario, the parties will only pick establishment candidates after months of bruising primary battles. In a worst-case scenario (for investors, at any rate): They’ll pick one or two heterodox outsiders who will threaten to turn everything upside down. The political establishment — in places like New York, Washington and Los Angeles — has been waiting for months for the Trump movement to flame out of its own accord. In the past few weeks they have finally woken up to the shock that this may not happen. Voting begins in Iowa and New Hampshire in a few months.


and again, Bernie gets slighted....sigh
 

Proserpina

(2,352 posts)
58. Obama proposes new unemployment insurance plan
Sat Jan 16, 2016, 02:53 PM
Jan 2016
I'm afraid to look...I don't need him ensuring we are all unemployed...

http://news.yahoo.com/obama-proposes-unemployment-insurance-plan-110055169--politics.html

President Barack Obama on Saturday proposed changes to the U.S. unemployment insurance system that he says would offer more security to the jobless and encourage experienced workers to rejoin the workforce, even if it means taking a pay cut.

"We shouldn't just be talking about unemployment; we should be talking about re-employment," Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address.


The president's proposal would require states to provide wage insurance to workers who lose their jobs and find new employment at lower pay. The insurance would replace half of the lost income, up to $10,000 over two years. It would be available to workers who were with their prior employer for three years and make less than $50,000 in their new job.

The proposal also would require states to make unemployment insurance available to many part-time and low-income workers, and it would mandate that states provide at least 26 weeks of unemployment insurance. Nine states fall short of the benchmark, the White House said.

The proposal comes as U.S. businesses, outside the manufacturing sector, are experiencing strong demand and adding employees. A recent government employment report showed that employers added a net 292,000 jobs in December as the unemployment rate held at 5 percent...

an infrastructure/jobs program and a decent minimum wage are just too much to ask for...just as universal single payer is too much to ask for....how I wish Bernie had run against him! We'd be 8 years further into recovery if he had.
 

Proserpina

(2,352 posts)
62. I'm blushing
Sat Jan 16, 2016, 04:00 PM
Jan 2016

I'm also running out of material. Anybody seen any economic stuff?

Before I forget:



bread_and_roses

(6,335 posts)
71. Economic stuff- "Middle East stock markets crash..."
Sun Jan 17, 2016, 08:43 AM
Jan 2016
https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/iran-sanctions-middle-east-stock-102835505.html

Middle East stock markets crash as Tehran enters oil war

Prospect of the Islamic Republic pumping an additional 500,000 barrels a day sends stock markets in Dubai and Saudi Arabia into tailspin

Stock markets across the Middle East collapsed as the lifting of economic sanctions against Iran threatened to unleash a fresh wave of oil onto global markets that are already drowning in excess supply.

All seven stock markets in Gulf states tumbled as panic gripped traders. Dubai's DFM General Index slumped 4.8pc to 2,682.56, while Saudi Arabia's Tadawul All Share Index collapsed by 7pc to 5,409.35, its lowest level in almost five years.

The Iranian stock index gained 1pc, making it one of the best performing markets in the world with gains of 6pc since the start of the year.
 

Proserpina

(2,352 posts)
63. The Heavy Price of Economic Policy Failures
Sat Jan 16, 2016, 04:37 PM
Jan 2016
By Jayati Ghosh, Professor of Economics and Chairperson at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

http://triplecrisis.com/the-heavy-price-of-economic-policy-failures/

A lot of the media discussion on the global economy nowadays is based on the notion of the “new normal” or “new mediocre” – the phenomenon of slowing, stagnating or negative economic growth across most of the world, with even worse news in terms of employment generation, with hardly any creation of good quality jobs and growing material insecurity for the bulk of the people. All sorts of explanations are being proffered for this state of affairs, from technological progress, to slower population growth, to insufficient investment because of shifts in relative prices of capital and labour, to “balance sheet recessions” created by the private debt overhang in many economies, to contractionary fiscal stances of governments that are also excessively indebted...Yet these arguments that treat economic processes as the inevitable results of some forces outside the system that follow their own logic and are beyond social intervention, are hugely misplaced. Most of all, they let economic policies off the hook when attributing blame – and this is massively important because then the possibility of alternative strategies that would not result in the same outcomes are simply not considered.

In an important new book, Failed: What the “experts” got wrong about the global economy (Oxford University Press, New York 2015), Mark Weisbrot calls this bluff effectively and comprehensively. He points out that “Behind almost every prolonged economic malfeasance there is some combination of outworn bad ideas, incompetence and the malign influence of powerful special interests.” (page 2) Unfortunately, such nightmares are prolonged and even repeated in other places, because even if the lessons from one catastrophe are learned, they are typically not learned – or at least not taken to heart – by “the people who call the shots”. The costs of this failure are indeed huge for the citizenry: for workers who face joblessness or very fragile insecure employment at low wages; for families whose access to essential goods and social services is reduced; for farmers and other small producers who find their activities are simply not financially viable; for those thrown by crisis and instability into poverty or facing greater hunger; for almost everyone in the society when their lives become more insecure in various ways. Many millions of lives across the world have been ruined because of the active implementation of completely wrong and unnecessary economic policies. Yet, because the blame is not apportioned where it is due, those who are culpable for this not only get away with it, but are able to continue to impose their power and their expertise on economic policies and on governing institutions. For them, there is no price to be paid for failure.

Weisbrot illustrates this with the telling example of the still unfolding economic tragedy in the eurozone. He describes the design flaws in the monetary union that meant that the European Central Bank (ECB) did not behave like a real central bank to all the member countries, because when the crisis broke in 2009-10 it did not behave as a lender of last resort to the countries in the European periphery that faced payment difficulties. Instead the most draconian austerity measures were imposed on these countries, which simply drove these countries further into economic decline and made their debt burdens even more burdensome and unpayable. It took two years of this, at a point when the crisis threatened to engulf the entire EU and force the monetary union to collapse, for the ECB Governor Mario Draghi to promise to “do whatever it takes to save the euro”. And then, when the financial bleeding was stemmed, it became glaringly evident that the European authorities, and the ECB, could have intervened much earlier to reduce the damage in the eurozone periphery, through monetary and fiscal policies. In countries with their own central banks, like the US and the UK, such policies were indeed undertaken, which is why the recovery also came sooner and with less pain than still persists in parts of Europe.

Why could this not have been done earlier? Why were the early attempts at restructuring Greek debt not more realistic so as to reduce the debt levels to those that could feasibly be repaid by that country? Why was each attempt to solve the problem so tardy, niggardly and half-hearted that the problem progressively got worse and even destroyed the very fabric of social life in the affected countries? Why was the entire burden of adjustment forced upon hapless citizens, with no punishment for or even minor pain felt by the financial agents who had helped to create the imbalances that resulted in the crisis? Weisbrot notes that this entire episode “should have been a historic lesson about the importance of national and democratic control over macroeconomic policy – or at the very least, not ceding such power to the wrong people and institutions”. (page 4) Unfortunately, the opposite seems to be the case, with the lessons being drawn by the media and others still very much in terms of blaming the victim. Indeed, Weisbrot makes an even stronger point, that this crisis was used by vested interests (including those in the IMF) to force governments in these countries to implement economic and social reforms that would otherwise be unacceptable to their electorates.

more

Hotler

(11,353 posts)
65. And the No. 1 Stock Fund of 2015 Was ...
Sat Jan 16, 2016, 06:38 PM
Jan 2016

To end up in the Winners’ Circle in the final quarter of 2015, you needed a healthy set of FANGs. Or, to be more precise, you needed to load up your portfolio with all four FANG stocks that did well, bucking the trend in a year when the Dow Jones Industrial Average slumped 2.2% and the S&P 500 fell 0.7%. Facebook Inc. (the “F”) rose 34%; Amazon.com Inc. (“A”) soared 118%; and Netflix Inc. (“N”) gained 134%. Google (“G”, renamed Alphabet Inc. in the final quarter as part of the company’s reorganization, but whose stock still trades under the old GOOG and GOOGL symbols), climbed a relatively modest 44% and 47%, depending on which class of stock you

The winner: Polen Growth Fund (POLIX), managed by Daniel Davidowitz and Damon Ficklin, which repeated its third-quarter winning performance in the final quarter. The $850 million fund ended the full year with a 14.6% gain, beating its closest rivals by more than 2 percentage points. (A separate retail share class, POLRX, posted a 14.35% gain for the year; the portfolios are identical except for fee structures, which account for the different returns.)

POLIX: The investment seeks to achieve long-term growth of capital. The fund typically invests in a focused portfolio of common stocks of large capitalization companies (market capitalizations greater than $5 billion at the time of purchase) that, in the Adviser's opinion, have a sustainable competitive advantage. Although it may not "concentrate" (invest 25% or more of its net assets) in any industry, the fund may focus its investments from time to time in one or more sectors of the economy or stock market. It is non-diversified.

Their website says you need at least a hundred thousand to play. Another example of selfishness by the rich. While the 1% were making "a relatively modest 44% and 47%" You and I were making less than 1% on our savings that is if we had enough to save.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/mutualfunds/and-the-no-1-stock-fund-of-2015-was/ar-CCoGzQ

Fuddnik

(8,846 posts)
68. Lions, tigers and tornados, Oh My!
Sun Jan 17, 2016, 03:18 AM
Jan 2016

Thunderstorms now, with a tornado watch until 8:00am.

And 14 foot waves in the Gulf. Maybe I'll go surfing!

 

Proserpina

(2,352 posts)
70. How David Bowie Helped Save Dolphins
Sun Jan 17, 2016, 05:53 AM
Jan 2016
http://www.alternet.org/environment/how-david-bowie-helped-save-dolphins?akid=13886.227380.ZJ-wP0&rd=1&src=newsletter1048995&t=14

David Bowie is being remembered as a musical genius, a gifted artist, and a fashion icon. But to whale and dolphin activists, he was nothing short of a hero. Bowie’s hauntingly moving song “Heroes,” the title track of his 1977 album, has become a rallying cry for people around the world working to end the killing and capture of whales and dolphins at the cove in Taiji, Japan. The song, which includes the lyrics “I, I wish you could swim / Like the dolphins, like dolphins can swim,” accompanies the closing credits of the 2009 documentary The Cove, which brought global attention to the annual slaughter in Taiji.

Most people don’t know that Bowie, a quiet but generous supporter of animal welfare causes who died on Sunday at 69, personally intervened to make sure the song could be licensed for a minimal fee. Cove director Louie Psihoyos said the movie’s producer, Fisher Stevens, knew Bowie’s wife, Iman. “That’s how we got through to him,” he said. “If we’d had to go through record-company channels, it never would’ve happened.” According to Psihoyos, the cost of licensing a rock song for commercial films starts at about $25,000 and can reach six figures. After hearing about the film, Bowie insisted that RCA Records make “Heroes” available for $3,000.

“They had to charge something so they weren’t giving it away,” Psihoyos said. “It was hardly worth the time for the record label to write up the contract.” A licensing employee for Sony Music Entertainment, which owns RCA Records, confirmed that the fee was reduced but said the amount paid “is confidential.” The song, reportedly about an East German and West German couple who meet at the Berlin Wall—“I, I can remember (I remember) / Standing, by the wall (by the wall) / And the guns, shot above our heads (over our heads)”—became a powerful anthem for the anti-whaling movement.

“I didn’t know at the time about his support for animal rights,” Psihoyos said of Bowie. “But it turns out he had a huge heart.”

Ric O’Barry, star of The Cove and founder of Ric O’Barry’s Dolphin Project, said that during the film’s closing credits, “people jump out of their seats and want to do something. That song reenergizes people and helps keep the issue alive. Sometimes I meet people, and when they recognize me, they start singing ‘Heroes.’ ”

“There is nothing to galvanize a community around a movement like a movie, and with every social movement, you always needed songs,” Psihoyos said. “This was a song for that moment.”


more

 

Proserpina

(2,352 posts)
72. Bowie was to the 70s what the Beatles were to the 60s
Sun Jan 17, 2016, 10:14 AM
Jan 2016
http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2016/jan/13/david-bowie-was-to-the-70s-what-the-beatles-were-to-the-60s?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+USA+-+Version+A&utm_term=149839&subid=9068680&CMP=ema_565a

If the Beatles captured a 60s of optimism and love, Bowie was the signature artist of the 70s – distilling paranoia and confusion into pop both euphoric and terrifying...David Bowie had no feel for the 1960s. No wonder he floundered. Neither flower-power optimism nor insurrectionary bravado really turned him on: as he wrote in All the Young Dudes: “We never got it off on that revolution stuff.” Even Space Oddity fixated on the loneliness of space travel rather than the pioneer spirit.

The 1970s, though: there was a decade that spoke to his anxieties. A decade of cults, terrorists, scandals, recessions, defeats, environmental panic and a sense of constant crisis – what Francis Wheen described in his book Strange Days Indeed: The Golden Age of Paranoia as “a pungent melange of apocalyptic dread and conspiratorial fervour”. Bowie was to the 70s what the Beatles were to the 60s: a lightning rod, a tuning fork, a mirror. With his mastery of dread, and the excitements of dread, the man who described himself as “an awful pessimist” understood the decade’s strange energies like no other musician.

For Bowie, the 70s started a little late. He described 1970 as “a waste of a year” because the delayed release of The Man Who Sold the World enhanced his sense of depression and pointlessness; the unreleased Tired of My Life presented him as a typical victim of post-60s malaise. He only began to survey the new decade with confidence on Hunky Dory (1971) and what he saw was an exhausted landscape of fallen icons and sunken dreams, crying out for change. Life on Mars? was his tour of the cultural ruins, with a teenage heroine who deserved better. Bowie saw “a leadership void” in rock and felt that the hungry new generation he described in Changes and Oh! You Pretty Things needed a new kind of rock star, attuned to the chaotic vibrations of the time: someone like David Bowie...

more
 

Proserpina

(2,352 posts)
73. David Bowie: the man who thrilled the world
Sun Jan 17, 2016, 10:16 AM
Jan 2016
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/jan/11/david-bowie-man-who-thrilled-the-world-appreciation

From glam to neo-soul to his mysterious final album, David Bowie remained one step ahead throughout a prophetic career that pushed sexual and social boundaries. Alexis Petridis salutes a brilliant enigma...When David Bowie’s final album, Blackstar, was released on 8 January, a great deal of energy was expended trying to unpick the lyrics. As on its predecessor, 2013’s The Next Day, or any number of classic Bowie albums from Hunky Dory to Station to Station, they were frequently dense and allusive: much attention was focused on the title track, which one of Blackstar’s backing musicians, saxophonist Donny McCaslin, claimed was about the rise of Isis, a suggestion Bowie’s spokesperson subsequently denied. Now, with the knowledge that Bowie was terminally ill during its making, the most striking thing about the album is how elegiac it frequently sounds. “If I never see the English evergreens I’m running to, it’s nothing to me,” he sang on Dollar Days. “Saying no, but meaning yes, this is all I ever meant, that’s the message that I sent,” ran the closing I Can’t Give Everything Away. Most arresting of all is Lazarus: “Look at me, I’m in heaven. I’ve got scars that can’t be seen, I’ve got drama can’t be stolen; everybody knows me now.”

Most people assumed that Lazarus was written from the viewpoint of Thomas Newton, the alien Bowie portrayed in Nicolas Roeg’s The Man Who Fell to Earth: it was the title track of an off-Broadway musical based on the 1976 film. Now it feels suspiciously like Bowie writing his own epitaph, asserting his own fame, vast artistic importance and inimitability – for decades, other artists tried to copy David Bowie, but none of them were really anything like him – while wryly pointing out that, after nearly 50 years in the spotlight, he’d somehow managed to retain a sense of mystery.

Dozens of books have been written about him, some of them hugely illuminating, but something unknowable lurked at the centre. Almost from the start, Bowie’s career raised questions to which a definitive answer seemed elusive. If he was, as he loudly claimed in 1971, gay, then what was the deal with the very visible wife and the son he’d just written a touching little song about? If he was, as he dramatically announced from the stage of the Hammersmith Odeon in July 1973, retiring – either from music, or from live performance, or from the character of Ziggy Stardust – then what was he doing back onstage in London three months later, belting out The Jean Genie in full Ziggy drag? How does anyone in the state Bowie was, by all accounts, in by 1975 – ravaged by cocaine to the point where he seemed to have genuinely gone insane; paranoid and hallucinating – make an album like Station to Station: not a messily compelling document of a mind unravelling, like the solo albums of his great idol Syd Barrett, but a work of precision and focus and exquisitely controlled power that’s arguably his best? In a world of cameraphones and social media, how could anyone as famous as Bowie disappear from public view as completely as he seemed to between 2008 and 2013: moreover, how could anyone as famous as Bowie record a comeback album in the middle of Manhattan without anyone noticing or leaking details to the media? How does anyone stage-manage their own death as dramatically as Bowie appears to have done: releasing their most acclaimed album in decades, filled with strange, enigmatic songs whose meaning suddenly became apparent when their author dies two days later?

more
 

Proserpina

(2,352 posts)
74. The last word:
Sun Jan 17, 2016, 10:19 AM
Jan 2016


"No matter how weird and alien you felt, you couldn’t be as weird and alien as Bowie and his bandmates"
 

Proserpina

(2,352 posts)
79. David Bowie tops US album chart for the first time
Mon Jan 18, 2016, 09:15 AM
Jan 2016

David Bowie has reached number one in the American album charts for the first time with Blackstar, released two days before his death on 10 January.It sold the equivalent of 181,000 albums knocking Adele's 25 off the top spot.His highest-charting US album previously had been The Next Day, which peaked at number two in 2013.

Nineteen of his albums entered the UK album charts last week, after fans sought out his classic hits.

Blackstar is the first posthumous number one album in the US since Michael Jackson's This Is It soundtrack topped the chart in November 2009.

Nine other Bowie albums also made the Billboard 200 this week with the Best of Bowie reaching number four and The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars at number 21.

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-35340033

Latest Discussions»Issue Forums»Economy»Weekend Economists Mourn ...