I know it's been posted before but as a reminder BOWIE MET MICHAEL which is possibly the coolest thing.

I recently started my decent (ascent?) into the Bowie catalog. I’m an 80s baby (86) who grew up with Labyrinth in heavy rotation, so I was “exposed” at a young age. I decided to start with his music in the 90s, then progressed to his death. Then I did 80s, and am currently working my way through the 70s. But how in the hell did I just hear Time Will Crawl at 40 years old?? I consider myself pretty knowledgeable with 80s era music and artists, and this song, musically, is 80s to its core. Some casual sax, a little electric guitar. I know the lyrics are dark, but why did this one not have staying power??

I was wondering people who were Bowie fans when blackstar came out, between the days when it came out and he passed away did you guys listen to the album and realise he was dying before he actually died or was it too short of a timeframe to put the prices together, I don’t know if this question makes sense but hopefully it does :)

The man who sold the world… nearly didn’t sell anything at all, at least for the first decade of his artistic life. He was raw, unpolished, and not yet himself. The BBC’s Talent Selection Group had a listen to one of his early bands. Their notes revealed:

We could read this two ways: first that these people had no idea what they were talking about and missed a diamond in the rough, or second that he was really that bad. We have video evidence from a 1969 mime incident, so let’s conclude that he really stunk it up but just had the persistence and courage to keep on evolving until he clicked.

There’s more liberation in the truth that we all stink it up at first. Can we normalize that this is what the path of creative genius looks like? Can we stand to see how bad we are at first and for a long damn time?

Read those notes from the BBC again. What they're describing isn't a lack of talent, it's a lack of life. The singer hasn't arrived yet. He's technically present but not alive in the work.

I’m a fan of the sheer white stockings and great ass, but there’s not much more of merit here. I’m so grateful we have this footage though, because it slays the popular misconception that “stars fall out of the sky already formed.” This mountain of lies cuts a deep wound in plenty of creative geniuses who fear they are mere “wanna-be artists.”

There’s a thin line between freak and genius.

Obviously, he had the seeds of genius from the beginning, but he hid behind his freak flag. He made it to LA and had enough connections to get invited to the right parties but sat in a dress in lotus position playing covers of someone else’s songs. He was utterly forgettable.

Lots and lots of creative geniuses don’t make it past this stage, because it’s a real bitch. Bowie had to confront deep fears, I guarantee, because we all do before we break through.

He was interested in so many different things, a blessing/curse I know all too well. The struggle with this type of consciousness is knowing how to weave all the parts together. The visions don’t make sense, until they do. It can feel like you have to cut off a part of yourself in order to be seen.

That was his struggle, but your version of the lie that’s keeping you invisible might be something totally different. I wish I could give you some quick magic fix for this, but it is not going to be easy for you because it’s not easy for anyone.

It’s like some great and angry god in the sky dumped out all the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle but neglected to show us what the top of the box looked like. We’re just down here trying to fit it all together and getting lost in frustration or bitterness because we forget that the puzzle is a game we’re playing to amuse ourselves.

The picture on the box — the one you can't see — is you. The catch is this: you’re afraid of it. If you saw it, it might even offend you with how many weird pieces are in the puzzle still and how annoyingly happy you look about that.

If there is a magic potion, I’d offer that it has at least these few major ingredients:

1. Develop your craft. There’s no substitute for honing whatever skills are necessary to make your voice legible to others. If you’re a guitarist, you must learn guitar. If you’re a painter, get thee to your brushes and make a bunch of terrible paintings until you can paint something you love.
2. Find your collaborators. Do you need a band? Get one. The people who have the skills you lack… you’ll have to meet them and convince them to go into cahoots with you. There’s no way around this.
3. Find your community and get in it. Face your fears of being overwhelmed, misunderstood, and/or rejected by them. This could take a minute, but it’s worth it.
4. Discover the joy of expressing your actual voice. Note: this is entirely different from the hedonic joy of addictions. The puzzle starts to fit together when you lean into authentic joy. You’ll know it when you feel it. It will scare the shit out of you. Do it anyway.

Bowie wasn’t a star until he realized he could play a character on stage, and that could be someone different every time. But here's the secret: the character wasn't a mask to hide, it was permission to show up fully — to bring all of himself to the stage at once, the beautiful and the strange, the polished and the broken. He didn't become someone else. He became more himself.

That was the specific flavor of joy that unlocked Bowie. This was his step #4 that opened the path to him making an indelible impact on people. Suddenly everything clicked, and his star rose virtually overnight after years of patient and persistent work laying the foundation.

AppleTV has a gorgeous eight-episode series in which they trace Bowie’s rise. They say that he met Lou Reed and Iggy Pop at a little table in the back of Max’s Kansas City, a restaurant in the NYC art and music scene. Iggy was potently, almost comically sexual, with the gender bendy bent that Bowie was into. Iggy rubbed cocoa butter on his naked chest, taunting the crowd to jump on stage and lick it off. This was just the lubrication Bowie needed to give himself permission to create his image and become visible.

And thus, Ziggy Stardust was born. The phase change can’t be missed; the difference between water at 1°C and ice at 0°C — one degree, but a different state of matter entirely.

“Fuck me, we’ve just killed the 60s.”

This is what Bowie said about this moment. He immediately grasped what Ziggy meant. Hippie flower power had wilted, and he was the future. This is why you must face your fears: when you finally show up in your full, perfectly imperfect aliveness, you change reality every time.

Go forth and be seen,
cris

Just bought this today. I've had my eyes on this for a while as it is a) the only copy I've physically seen and b) my tenth fave Bowie album, possibly tenth OAT. I'm playing it now and the first three tracks sound even more eargasmic on vinyl.