On Bowie
4/5
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About this ebook
From the New York Times bestselling author of Love Is a Mix Tape, a thoughtful and loving meditation on the life of the late David Bowie that explores his creative legacy and the enduring and mutual connection he enjoyed with his fans.
Innovative. Pioneering. Brave. Until his death in January 2016, David Bowie created art that not only pushed boundaries, but helped fans understand themselves and view the world from fantastic new perspectives.
When the shocking news of his death on January 10, 2016 broke, the outpouring of grief and adulation was immediate and ongoing. Fans around the world and across generations paid homage to this brilliant, innovate, ever evolving artist who both shaped and embodied our times.
In this concise and penetrating book, featuring color photographs, highly regarded Rolling Stone critic, bestselling author, and lifelong Bowie fan Rob Sheffield shares his own feelings about the passing of this icon and explains why Bowie’s death has elicited such an unprecedented emotional outpouring from so many lives.
Rob Sheffield
Rob Sheffield is a columnist for Rolling Stone, where he has been writing about music, TV, and pop culture since 1997. He is the author of the national bestsellers Love Is a Mix Tape: Love and Loss, One Song at a Time; Talking to Girls About Duran Duran: One Young Man’s Quest for True Love and a Cooler Haircut; Turn Around Bright Eyes: The Rituals of Love & Karaoke: On Bowie; and Dreaming the Beatles: The Love Story of One Band and the Whole World. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Read more from Rob Sheffield
On Bowie Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Turn Around Bright Eyes: The Rituals of Love & Karaoke Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
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Reviews for On Bowie
26 ratings4 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Personal reflection/biography of Bowie by a Rolling Stone journalist, written in a month after his death. Sheffield's knowledge of, and passion for, Bowie and his music shines through, but there's not a lot that's new here - even as only a moderately interested fan I knew most of this stuff. On the negative side, unsurprisingly it doesn't go deep into the darker side of Bowie's life (no mention of allegations that he slept with underage girls, the fascist comments/"salute" are brushed aside). And Sheffield's insistence on incorporating lyrical quotes into almost every page (along the lines of "My mind was blown by Bowie on TOTP. Hey that's far out, so you heard it too?") starts to grate. OK, but I'm sure there are better Bowie books out there.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The thing I like about Rob Sheffield's music writing is that he eschews the distanced approach of music critics, and while he's writing as a fan, he's not writing a hagiography of his musical heroes. Instead, Sheffield writes about how fans engage with music and the artists that create it. This is particularly significant in Bowie's case as Bowie himself was a fan who never hid his influences, collaborated with many of his favorite musicians, offered support to young up and coming artists, and even on his final album took some inspiration from the much younger artist Kendrick Lamar. Bowie also engaged directly with his fans, treating them as special people, and encouraging their creativity. The funny thing is that Sheffield presents Bowie fans as the outcasts of society whereas I came to Bowie later in my life because when I was young I never felt cool enough to listen to Bowie. Regardless of how you come to Bowie, this is a great book with stories of his life and how he created his music.Favorite Passages:"Nobody enjoyed laughing at his humiliations more than he did.""That's one of the things David Bowie came to show us -- we go to music to hear ourselves change."
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I love Bowie and I always enjoy Sheffield's writing. He's a true fan of music and it's a pleasure to read his thoughts on the topic. This short volume on the man and his many incarnations is no exception.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Really? A Bowie freak couldn't get a ticket to the '83 Boston show? Jeez, I managed three that year Vancouver, Tacoma, & Vancouver again. Oddly, no mention at all about the 'Bowie Bonds’, the 'RykoDisc' remastering deal or the accompanying (& the calculated financially successful) 'Sound & Vision’ Tour 1990. Nothing about the MSG 50th birthday concert? I managed to attend, did he?