His final studio album, You Want It Darker, hints are death and mortality with unfiltered frankness and wit. In my view, the second-best songwriter the world has seen (behind Dylan) was also someone who kind of suspected he would not live too long. It was not just David Bowie and Prince who died this year but Leonard Cohen too.
Prince, like Bowie, was/is a hugely innovative and staggering musician that cannot be compared with any one human and created shockwaves around the world. Despite not being a huge fan of either musician, I recognise their status and excellence: I have been retrospectively falling in love with their finest songs and realising, a bit too late, what mavericks and peerless leaders they were. I’d say he is even more influential than Bowie when it comes to inspiring the new generation and leaving a mark. We must not ignore the influence and affect Prince has had on modern music. Like Bowie, Prince has delivered such an extraordinary body of work that will live in infamy.
Again, we were delivered the news without warning and were forced to face a future without new Prince music. Dying alone at his Paisley Park ranch/studio overdosing on pain medication in a lift – such a harrowing and upsetting image. That news was perhaps even more of a shock: the fact Prince’s death was self-inflicted (albeit accidental) made it extra poignant and unexpected. The fact Bowie has gone should not cause sadness but remind us of what an artist we have – someone who, nearly a year after his death, has more music in the vaults for us.įollowing Bowie’s death, nobody would have expected Prince to be the nex big musician to die. There has not been a Bowie album, since his last golden period of the 1980s, when there was such universal consensus: a work of genius and a startling insight into a human ailing and tackling mortality. The album was recognised for a Mercury Prize and was met with huge critical acclaim. Arriving from a man who knew there was nothing he could do to prolong his life: Blackstar is surprisingly brave, focused and accomplished – few of us, in the same situation, would retain the strength and fortitude to produce music let alone anything as stunning. Luckily, Blackstar was released days before his death and, many would argue, the biggest and most ambitious album of his career. Nobody expected David Bowie to leave us for a couple more decades at least so it seems like we have been robbed of many more years of music. I remember waking up to the news and not being able to comprehend or understand it at all – he wasn’t reported as being ill so how does he just die?! We all know the truth now – the fact Bowie was keeping his cancer fate hidden from the media – so it kind of seems explicable and rationale. It is almost a year since David Bowie died: perhaps the starkest event that has afflicted music in 2016. Of course, we all remember how badly this year started. I’ll start with the ‘bad’ side of thing: The Devil that has been hovering on the shoulders of the divine and making sure things are not as smooth and happy as they should be. The reason I wanted to write this was to document the loss we have suffered in the music world whilst balancing it with the joy and pleasures. In terms of politics and separation we have seen the worst of it this year I cannot imagine a year quite as spectacular and world-changing as 2016 happening for a very long time. I am not sure why 2016 has been so ill-balanced and sadness-heavy but the one thing we can take from it is that 2017 will be a lot smoother and less fraught – that is the intention anyway. When musicians get to a certain age, there is always the risk they will die diseases like cancer are still rife and take no prisoners when selecting its subjects. Many are saying there’s conspiracy afoot and a bad aura: the fact is, people die and it is a bad year. That is true of music that has seen its Grim Reaper equivalent be especially cruel and elitist. Whether it is the continuing – slowing but still occurring – disruption and bloodshed in Aleppo the strange rise of the bloated demagogue Donald Trump or the upset we see reported on the news- nary a day elapses without something sobering unfolding that reminds us how fragile and capricious humanity is. Every time you switch on the news we are reminded of the conflict and hatred that is pervading society. How much heartache and loss have defined it. THE one thing people keep saying about this year is.
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