Bowie - The Man Who Changed The World
NME|January 15 2016

On Monday January 11, it was announced that one of the greatest talents music has ever seen was dead. Mark Beaumont celebrates the magnificence of David Bowie.

Mark Beaumont
Bowie - The Man Who Changed The World

When he leaned seductively on the shoulder of Mick Ronson in 1972, waggled his finger down the Top Of The Pops camera lens and cooed: “I had to phone someone so I picked on you,” the teenagers watching at home felt a bolt of pop stardom from his fingertip. When he stood in the shadow of the Berlin Wall and sang: “We could be heroes, just for one day,” in 1987, the new wave generation rallied to his battlements. And when he writhed in a hospital bed in the video for brand new single ‘Lazarus’, none of us knew we were playing a part in his final, provocative performance.

Leader. Visionary. Genius. Icon. Legend. Few musicians deserve such accolades, but David Bowie does. His influence on popular culture, arguably rivalled only by The Beatles, can’t be overstated. From mod to folk to glam, from plastic soul to ambient to avant-garde and beyond, Bowie’s relentless innovation and reinvention was one of the great driving forces of modern music, impacting on fashion, performance art, film and sexual politics too. While his songs inspired countless musicians, his shape-shifting nature – which Bowie put down to restlessness and boredom – laid the blueprint of what a pop star should be: enigmatic, sexy, untouchable.

Born David Robert Jones on January 8 1947 in Brixton, London, Bowie’s talents first emerged at Burnt Ash Junior School at the age of nine, where his interpretive dance was described as “vividly artistic” and “astonishing” by his teachers.

This story is from the January 15 2016 edition of NME.

Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.

This story is from the January 15 2016 edition of NME.

Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.

MORE STORIES FROM NMEView All
The Ultimate Guide to Apple Music Festival 10
NME

The Ultimate Guide to Apple Music Festival 10

Since 2007, Apple Music Festival has made it its mission to bring massive artists to an intimate and iconic corner of London – and the line-up for its 10th anniversary, at the Roundhouse in Camden, is the best yet…

time-read
10+ mins  |
September 16 2016
Red Nose Day
NME

Red Nose Day

Shawn Crahan – AKA Slipknot’s Clown – talks killer clowns and his directorial debut

time-read
2 mins  |
November 25,2016
A Letter From Lana
NME

A Letter From Lana

Back in September, we optimistically emailed Lana Del Rey a bunch of questions about life, love, Twin Peaks, Courtney Love and “intergalactic possibilities”. Three months later the answers turned up. Interrogation by Al Horner. Introduction by Dan Stubbs.

time-read
10+ mins  |
December 11 2015
Bowie - The Man Who Changed The World
NME

Bowie - The Man Who Changed The World

On Monday January 11, it was announced that one of the greatest talents music has ever seen was dead. Mark Beaumont celebrates the magnificence of David Bowie.

time-read
7 mins  |
January 15 2016
Kanye West - Making A Masterpiece
NME

Kanye West - Making A Masterpiece

In 2013, Kanye West became a father. In 2014, he got married. In 2015, he announced he’d be running for President. Now he’s calling his brand-new LP “the greatest album of all time”. Larry Bartleet asks how he got there.

time-read
10 mins  |
February 12 2016
Idris Elba: How to Win at Everything!
NME

Idris Elba: How to Win at Everything!

Actor, DJ, musician and all-round righteous badass, Idris Elba makes doing everything look easy. As The Jungle Book, in which he plays tiger Shere Khan, opens in cinemas, he tells Olly Richards about the secrets to his success.

time-read
10 mins  |
April 15 2016
Rihanna: Pop's Biggest Rebel
NME

Rihanna: Pop's Biggest Rebel

Rihanna is more than a superstar. She's the ultimate icon of the digital age. She's had more Number One singles in 10 years than Madonna has managed in three decades, and she's now the First Lady of the new free NME. Peter Robinson went to LA to hang out with pop's biggest rebel.

time-read
10+ mins  |
September 18 2015
Why The Big Bang Theory Is The New Friends
NME

Why The Big Bang Theory Is The New Friends

The Big Bang Theory is the biggest show in the solar system. With the cliffhanger-charged ninth season set to drop on September 21, Joe Madden tots up the parallels between the Central Perk gang and the Cheesecake Factory crew.

time-read
4 mins  |
September 18 2015
Sound track of my Life
NME

Sound track of my Life

Adventurer, man of the great outdoors

time-read
3 mins  |
September 23 2016
Good Things Come to Those Who Wait
NME

Good Things Come to Those Who Wait

It’s been four years since London Grammar’s hugeselling and aptly titled debut album ‘If You Wait’. Now, as 2017 promises world domination for the trio, they talk about the long journey to album number two

time-read
2 mins  |
March 03 2017