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Planet Earth Remembers David Bowie
Planet Earth Remembers David Bowie

Planet Earth Remembers David Bowie

Planet Earth Remembers David Bowie

David Bowie returned to stardust last night, passing at the age of 69 after an 18-month-long bout with cancer. He retired to hisBlackstar just two days after his birthday, which also served as the release date for his latest and tragically final album. In his wake, Bowie leaves a heroic half-century legacy of innovation and daring, blazing countlesstrails, both musically and aesthetically, on our terrestrial plane and well beyond.He is survived by his wife, Iman, his son, Duncan, and daughter,Alexandria, all of whom have enjoyed close and loving relationships with the rock icon.

In music, Bowie was an alien writing songs for the alienated. His compositions range from heavy, conceptual space-aged rock mythologies likeZiggy Stardustto more grounded post-disco and funk treatments likeLet's Dance,which roped Nile Rodgers for production and introduced the world to guitar hero, Stevie Ray Vaughan. His latest,Blackstar,drew influence from the jazz-tinged frequencies ofTo Pimp A Butterfly, but with each of the man's 27 studio albums, there lays a challenge to the listener; to dream so much bigger than this world, this galaxy, this universe could allow.In film, he took equally daring liberties, paving the way for androgyny as power in the grey and always refusing to labelhimself in any sense. His was an image as transcendent and iconic as any that walked this blue earth.

Here's a man that indicted MTV for not playing black music in the '80s, predicted the shift towards a digital landscape in the early 2000s (and warned of its symptoms,) and forced the world to confront itself with every howl. Bowie was a once-in-a-millennium artist, gone far too soon. But if the legend of Ziggy Stardust holds true, the man can never die. This is just another transformation.

Scroll down to see your favorite artists sound off on the passing of the legend, including Questlove, Kanye West, Pharrell and more. But first, a song for the ages.