Bowie has been in my mind as someone who disappeared from the public for a long time and then emerged. A strange, exotic creature – he seems to inherit a tradition of enigma and exclusiveness.
I don’t know any Beatles songs. My dad never listened to Elvis or Sting or Bowie. Any band name that’s on a t-shirt, I probably won’t know their music, like AC/DC or whatever. I don’t know what that is. As a kid, I would sing along to artists like Tania Maria.
I had lovely boyfriends. For your first three boyfriends to be Mick Jagger, Todd Rundgren, and David Bowie, I don’t think anyone would have a problem with that.
I stole my first albums ‘Pin-Ups’ and ‘Hunky Dory’ by David Bowie from the first super-sized supermarket in Salford, which also sold tents and camping gear.
David Bowie and Boy George created a safely contained theatrical expression of gay style.
I didn’t even know about guys wearing makeup, like David Bowie and Boy George. When I was really young, I wasn’t into that – I was into Britney Spears.
I make an all right Bowie. Actually, I look more like Cilla Black with that wig.
David Bowie always told me how good I smelt. He said to me he had never smelt Chanel smell like that on anybody!
I loved the idea of Bowie as an artist, with his Burroughsian cut-up technique, creating these undecipherable, abstract songs, where we all projected our own meanings onto his jarring word choices and unexpected chord changes.
A lot of my male vocal influences are British – people like David Bowie, Freddie Mercury and Robert Plant.
David Bowie – I definitely knew some of his music as a teenager, but I didn’t actually listen to his music as much until I was in my 20s.
The press will naturally come and go as it has done with all artists, from David Bowie to Neil Young to U2.
When I was 8 years old, I made my own encyclopedia of American biography – Johnny Appleseed, Jim Bowie, Davy Crockett, Daniel Boone, Charles Lindbergh, my pantheon of favorite heroes. Then I would write my own things and sew them together and try to make my own book.
As suburbs go, Bromley’s not bad. But as David Bowie and Hanif Kureishi have observed, you do want to get out of there quickly.
I was brought up with beautiful music – Nat King Cole and Glen Miller from my dad, and my mum loved Judy Garland and Doris Day – brilliant stuff. Through my brothers and sisters I heard David Bowie and The Specials, The Carpenters, Meatloaf and The Rolling Stones.
Somebody like Bowie was so interesting because when you got him off stage, he was like a businessman. But on stage, he was just dazzling. It was like watching butterflies grow.
Like David Bowie, Madonna visualizes music so that her best work seems equally designed with the stage or screen in mind – not just the jukebox.
I think people are ‘just creative,’ and this can be expressed in a number of ways. Bob Dylan and David Bowie create both music and art.
I’d been a Bowie fan before punk and used to get no end of trouble. I was always getting knocked about and having to run up the street, getting chased by people. It was horrible.
I met David Bowie when I was 14, and he became a hero to me – because he was an artist, and because he was a genius who had the time to be kind. I’d never met such an extraordinary artist before, and I haven’t since – the world will be a greyer place without him.
When I was growing up in the early ’70s and really getting into music, waiting outside the record store for that 45, waiting for a single from The Dead, The Clash, David Bowie, or T-Rex or something to be there. There was something about that that was so special.
I like a lot of older rock ‘n’ roll artists, like legends like Freddie Mercury and David Bowie. They really influenced me to be very, very androgynous and very commanding, and very very – I wouldn’t say odd, but I would say eccentric.
I had joined Yes in 1971. I was a classically trained musician who had worked with numerous artists as a session musician. I played on David Bowie’s ‘Life On Mars,’ Cat Stevens’s ‘Morning Has Broken’ and even on some Des O’Connor records, though I kept that quiet.
I was doing some research and stuff and reading about Bowie. When he referred to his music as ‘plastic soul,’ I was like, ‘That is the coolest thing I’ve ever heard.’
Bowie’s obviously my biggest influence.
Bowie’s been a huge influence on me.
Bowie is probably my favorite all-around songwriter and performer and personality. His ability to change over the years is such an inspiration. I love ‘Young Americans’ and ‘Fame.’
I didn’t love David Bowie. Sure, I loved a lot of his songs, like everybody else, and, like everybody else, I had an incarnation of Bowie that I loved best – in my case, the solemn ‘art-rock’ Bowie of the late Seventies.
When I was younger, I was fascinated by David Bowie, for example. he had created an entire myth around himself. It was as important as his music.
Bowie is a musician, but he works like a painter. Thom always thought that we should aspire to that.
Elvis Presley, The Rolling Stones, David Bowie and The Sex Pistols may come and go, but rebellion remains a key part of the rock n’ roll experience. However, that rebellion – the outgrowth of a youthful search for independence and identity – doesn’t always take the same form.
I guess my style is a cross between David Bowie and Clint Eastwood.
I know every Bowie song backward.
My music diet growing up was lots of sugar. Lots of retro-pop sugar. Motown, disco. A lot of English rock, like the Turtles, the Zombies, Bowie and stuff like that.
As a songwriter, I was influenced by David Bowie – a great writer. A class above everybody in so many ways. Lennon and McCartney, of course. Class stuff. David Cousins was my favorite lyricist.
Now U2’s not my favorite band, but I do respect them, and in the same way I respect Bowie: They change without fear of change.
I can make music out of anything. Even that phone ringing, I could sample that. I grew up listening to Missy, Britney, Kelis, Lil Kim, Grace Jones, all the eccentric, out-there women. And men like Freddie Mercury, David Bowie. Those are my peopledem.
From a musical standpoint, I was inspired by ’90s hip hop, with a lot of drums and the tempos. I’m always inspired by David Bowie and Prince.
David Bowie has always been my vocal inspiration ever since I was a child.
It’s fun to look at people that are so good at acting that aren’t actors, like David Bowie creating a mystique about rock n’ roll.
I was always just blown away by David Bowie and how mannered the guy was willing to be. It was so far from what I imagined someone with my confidence to be capable of.
One month I’ll be completely obsessed with Bob Dylan and the next Arcade Fire. I like early Elton John and David Bowie, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen. I listen to a lot of American bands. But I like listening to new bands, too.
As I always said: I fell in with David Jones. I did not fall in love with David Bowie.
Music, for me, is as important as fashion. The first visuals I remember are Elvis Presley, David Bowie, New Romantics, and different punk bands.
In my creative life, David Bowie is definitely an enormous influence on me, being one of rock’s greatest shapeshifters.
How could 30 years be the blink-of-the-eye it felt? It was the difference between black-and-white footage of the Second World War and David Bowie on ‘Top of the Pops’ singing ‘Life on Mars.’
David Bowie’s my favorite musician. I love him above all, but I’m really into rap a lot right now.
I do not use the word ‘genius’ lightly, but if David Bowie is not a genius, then there is no such thing.
If David Bowie wants, I’ll put him in my phone book.
I once went through the dustbin outside David Bowie’s house.
I’m a massive Bowie fan, always have been.
I’ve been a big believer in musicians turned actor, going back to Sinatra winning the Oscar for ‘From Here To Eternity.’ David Bowie in ‘Man Who Fell to Earth,’ Kris Kristofferson’s been great in a bunch of films. Liza Minnelli, Barbra Streisand, Mariah Carey, I thought was great in ‘Precious.’
David Bowie and Elvis Presley are my style icons.
One of my biggest influences of all time would be somebody like Tom Waits. David Bowie is another huge influence. I’m also a big fan of St. Vincent and Leslie Feist.
I definitely take influences from my idols David Bowie and Billy Joel. I’ve combined them with the Frankie Grande-isms that I’ve cultivated over singing every night for two shows a week for four years on Broadway.
I grew up as a kid looking at artists like David Bowie and Prince; I really admired them.
I went through a pretty big David Bowie period when I was younger, and that has affected me profoundly in my life and my work.
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