After my first time watching The Secret Life of Water Mitty, though the film didn’t make it to my list of favourites, I thoroughly enjoyed its calm and pleasant vibe, the breathtaking sceneries and the soundtrack, especially the use of David Bowie’s Space Oddity. Before this film, I have listened to one or two track by Bowie, but this was when I started to fall in love with his music.
By the time I began to dive into his catalog, Bowie’s music had already been around for half a century with hundreds of songs, many which has more than one version. Bowie was quite prolific throughout his life, consistently churning out materials up till the day he passed away. It was hard work going through his discography, but it was worth it all the way. He made art and lived art. From his promising self-titled debut album to Blackstar, his harrowing goodbye to the world, Bowie poured all of him into his art, his way of expressing himself. After so many years in the business, not everything he put out was perfect. In fact, I must confess that I, a self-proclaimed devoted fan, only truly like about 60% of his works. I knew for certain that I admire him greatly, but there’s quite a number of songs by him which I have only tried out once or twice. It wasn’t until a conversation I had with my brother did I fully understand why I love David Bowie so much. It was partly because of Bowie’s honesty, which I mentioned above, but then, as my brother pointed out for me, it was also due to Bowie being an experimentalist. It turned out that unconcicously, I have always appreciate his bold spirit and risk-taking, even if the end results didn’t always suit me.
Davie Bowie had a bit of everything everything, never afraid to experiment with his art. He’s been an alien, a duke, a goblin king, an astronaut, a prophet and many more. With each persona, Bowie brought out a different part of him to the world, chanelling the ‘him’ at different points of his career into the songs we came to know and love, like a method actor immersing himself into various roles, almost losing his self to that of his characters. It almost felt like he wasn’t only trying out different ways to expressing himself through his art, but he also trying out different versions of himself. For some persona, Bowie even gave them an introduction as well as a death. When we got to Blackstar, specially the track Lazarus, we can witness Bowie saying farewell to his last persona, the Blind Prophet, and to himself, David Bowie, the artist, the icon and the legend.
I don’t really have a favorite David Bowie track, for I enjoy each of them for very different reasons. I like the funky tune of Let’s Dance, the melancholic vibe of Ashes to Ashes, the raw and looming darkness of Station to Station as well as the simplicity of Come and Buy My Toys. If you haven’t tried out any of Bowie’s song, I think you need to give him a chance, starting from his early works and gradually moving up to his output in recent decades. One don’t have to like everything Bowie did to like him. In fact, it’s the adventurous and daring personality demontrated in him testing out different aspects of himself that made Bowie special.
A sleepy conscience 