Monday, January 11, 2016

Some thoughts on Bowie...

Just like Lemmy, this was an artist who did things on his own terms (most of the time!) - something of an innovator, with an inscrutable talent which came from a background of "whole-art" performance, as it were.

The music industry (such as it is!) doesn't have space to identify, nurture and promote this kind of Maverick any more (and hasn't for some time). That's something to be mourned.

Not so much that Bowie is gone - he's left behind decades of thought-provoking and interesting music, so we'll always have his emotional output, his essential humanity to listen to and think about, which is an epic legacy - no, no that he's gone, but that we now live in a world where music is so disposable, so instant, so cheap, that investment in an auteur is a non-starter.

Maybe Kickstarter might have something after all - if Bowie started today, would be develop a local following for his off-the-wall stuff, then launch a Kickstarter to do something bigger and manager his own entire career, living off nothing but YouTube ad revenues, pitiful streaming residuals and merchandise?

And if he did, would he have time to actually be an artist at all?

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