David Bowie died.

[Fly320s]

Everyone is talking about his music.  No one is talking about the great knives. 

That was his brother, Jim. Duh. 

[roo_ster]

That was his brother, Jim. Duh. 

No, that was his cousin George Hamilton.

[HeroHog]

https://youtu.be/ADbJLo4x-tk

This always gives me chills...

Bing Crosby & David Bowie - Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy 1977

The song was recorded on 11 September for Crosby's 1977 television special, Bing Crosby's Merrie Olde Christmas. The pair exchanged dialogue about what they do for Christmas before singing "Little Drummer Boy" with a new counterpoint with original lyrics written for the special, "Peace on Earth". Bowie's appearance has been described as a "surreal" event, undertaken at a time that he was "actively trying to normalise his career" Crosby died on October 14, just over a month after recording the special. In the U.S., the show aired on 30 November 1977 on CBS.

[MechAg94]

Looking at a couple of the older youtube videos from the 80's, the make up and girly look was the common style for rock and roll entertainers.  The exception was the band who didn't do it.  That didn't really change until 80's heavy metal died out and "alternative" came around in the early 90's. 

[K Frame]

Looking at a couple of the older youtube videos from the 80's, the make up and girly look was the common style for rock and roll entertainers.  The exception was the band who didn't do it.  That didn't really change until 80's heavy metal died out and "alternative" came around in the early 90's. 

DING DING DING!

Wondered when someone was going to bring that up.

For whatever reason, make up and androgynous looks were in in the 1980s.

For the most part it wasn't a comment on personal sexual orientation, but a marketing gimmick designed to push a distinctive, memorable look in a very crowded field.

OK, for Gary Glitter and Boy George it was a comment on personal sexual orientation...

[HeroHog]

Androgynous then glam rock, yeah, it was a thing.

[BlueStarLizzard]

Also, as far as the bisexual/homosexual, Dad can't remember Bowie himself coming out and saying those things. I'd like to find the direct quotes on those things, since it could be possible that those were rumors of things, but not any actual thing he said.

As far as the glitter, he and Marc Bolan pretty much are the originator's of the genre, and yes, make up and high heels on boys, but it wasn't some sort of early gay pride thing, and no worse than the hippies and free love in terms of encouraging sexual experimentation. Plus, the US never did glitter like the Brits, so the full impact wasn't really seen here, but think teenage girls lined up to see the likes of NSync and The Backstreet Boys, not gay orgys in the streets.

[wmenorr67]

Sexuality

Buckley writes, "If Ziggy confused both his creator and his audience, a big part of that confusion centred on the topic of sexuality."[200] Bowie declared himself gay in an interview with Michael Watts in the 22 January 1972 issue of Melody Maker,[201] a move which coincided with the first shots in his campaign for stardom as Ziggy Stardust.[52] In a September 1976 interview with Playboy, Bowie said: "It's true—I am a bisexual. But I can't deny that I've used that fact very well. I suppose it's the best thing that ever happened to me."[202] According to Angie, Bowie had a relationship with Mick Jagger.[203][204]

In a 1983 interview with Rolling Stone, Bowie said his public declaration of bisexuality was "the biggest mistake I ever made" and "I was always a closet heterosexual."[205] On other occasions, he said his interest in homosexual and bisexual culture had been more a product of the times and the situation in which he found himself than his own feelings; as described by Buckley, he said he had been driven more by "a compulsion to flout moral codes than a real biological and psychological state of being."[206][207]

Asked in 2002 by Blender whether he still believed his public declaration was the biggest mistake he ever made, he replied:


Interesting. [Long pause] I don't think it was a mistake in Europe, but it was a lot tougher in America. I had no problem with people knowing I was bisexual. But I had no inclination to hold any banners nor be a representative of any group of people. I knew what I wanted to be, which was a songwriter and a performer, and I felt that bisexuality became my headline over here for so long. America is a very puritanical place, and I think it stood in the way of so much I wanted to do.[208]

Buckley's view of the period is that Bowie, "a taboo-breaker and a dabbler ... mined sexual intrigue for its ability to shock",[209] and that "it is probably true that Bowie was never gay, nor even consistently actively bisexual ... he did, from time to time, experiment, even if only out of a sense of curiosity and a genuine allegiance with the 'transgressional.'"[210] Biographer Christopher Sandford says that according to Mary Finnigan, with whom Bowie had an affair in 1969, the singer and his first wife Angie "lived in a fantasy world ... and they created their bisexual fantasy."[211] Sandford tells how, during the marriage, Bowie "made a positive fetish of repeating the quip that he and his wife had met while '*expletive deleted*ing the same bloke' ... Gay sex was always an anecdotal and laughing matter. That Bowie's actual tastes swung the other way is clear from even a partial tally of his affairs with women."[211]

From Wiki but there are notes linking to articles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bowie

[roo_ster]

Buckley's view of the period is that Bowie, "a taboo-breaker and a dabbler ... mined sexual intrigue for its ability to shock",[209] and that "it is probably true that Bowie was never gay, nor even consistently actively bisexual ... he did, from time to time, experiment...

I sure hope everyone was using good lab technique and the proper PPE, what with all this "experimenting" going on.



Thing is, I really must fault their methodology.  Before conducting experiments, it is generally best to consult the literature.  I am sure most of this "experimenting" could have been avoided, had everyone involved taken a bit of time to read up on buggery, drug use, and hedonism in general.  It is not as if they were the first to approach the subject matter.

[K Frame]

I knew Bowie had claimed, and declaimed, and relclaimed, and unclaimed, and denied, etc., all that over the years. I still think it was largely a way for him to generate buzz and less life choices.

[BlueStarLizzard]

I knew Bowie had claimed, and declaimed, and relclaimed, and unclaimed, and denied, etc., all that over the years. I still think it was largely a way for him to generate buzz and less life choices.

Yeah, that's what it looks like to me, especially with it first coming out with the Ziggy character.

I have this feeling that Bowie almost never did anything public that wasn't a part of his act, which is supported by the fact that as he grew older, he grew much more circumspect. For a guy that was famous for being an outrageously outrageous rock star, he really didn't get nailed by tabloids doing to much outrageous *expletive deleted*it, which is NOT the norm for those kinds of rock stars.
I mean, look at Iggy Pop, who was one of Bowie's dearest friends and actually got his second chance because of Bowie. Iggy is just *expletive deleted*ing crazy and I wouldn't be surprised if he was still using upon occasion.

[Monkeyleg]

I'd always hoped the very publicized rumor of a tryst between Bowie and Mick Jagger wasn't true, but it was acknowledged in one of their biographies.

I thought Bowie's music was good, but the emphasis on homosexuality ticked me off. I was in college at the time, and the whole gay movement was getting started, aided by pop culture players like Bowie, who wrote "All the Young Dudes" and other gay-related songs.  The pressure from gay guys on straight guys to "come out of the closet" was more than annoying.

[BlueStarLizzard]

I'd always hoped the very publicized rumor of a tryst between Bowie and Mick Jagger wasn't true, but it was acknowledged in one of their biographies.

I thought Bowie's music was good, but the emphasis on homosexuality ticked me off. I was in college at the time, and the whole gay movement was getting started, aided by pop culture players like Bowie, who wrote "All the Young Dudes" and other gay-related songs.  The pressure from gay guys on straight guys to "come out of the closet" was more than annoying.

oh, did Bowie know that?

Bowie himself once claimed that the song was not intended to be an anthem for glam, that it actually carried a darker message of apocalypse. According to an interview Bowie gave to Rolling Stone magazine in 1973, the boys are carrying the same news that the newscaster was carrying in the song "Five Years" from Ziggy Stardust; the news being the fact that the Earth had only five years left to live. Bowie explains: "All the Young Dudes' is a song about this news. It's no hymn to the youth, as people thought. It is completely the opposite."[4] 

[MechAg94]

Yeah, that's what it looks like to me, especially with it first coming out with the Ziggy character.

I have this feeling that Bowie almost never did anything public that wasn't a part of his act, which is supported by the fact that as he grew older, he grew much more circumspect. For a guy that was famous for being an outrageously outrageous rock star, he really didn't get nailed by tabloids doing to much outrageous *expletive deleted*it, which is NOT the norm for those kinds of rock stars.
I mean, look at Iggy Pop, who was one of Bowie's dearest friends and actually got his second chance because of Bowie. Iggy is just *expletive deleted*ing crazy and I wouldn't be surprised if he was still using upon occasion.

I think most all Hollywood/Entertainment people almost never do anything public that isn't part of their act.  The bigger names have armies of publicists and managers running the show. 

[roo_ster]

oh, did Bowie know that?

Heh.

And Ozzy's "Suicide Solution" was in reference to mixing different chemicals, sure enough, and not suicide being the solution to one's problems:

A spontaneously forming homogeneous mixture of two or more substances..., retaining its constitution in subdivision to molecular volumes, displaying no settling, and having various possible proportions of the constituents, which may be solids, liquids, gases, or intercombinations. b. Formation of such a mixture. c. The state of being dissolved.

What are we to believe?  Our ears or after-the-fact, self-serving explanations?

FTR, I would be more likely to believe Bowie had some more sophisticated purpose in mind than Ozzy.  Given hte period in which he wrote & recorded it (Ziggy/Aladdin), it is entirely reasonable to think Bowie intended folk to impute bentery into the lyrics.

Wine is fine but whiskey's quicker
Suicide is slow with liquor
Take a bottle and drown your sorrows
Then it floods away tomorrows

Evil thoughts and evil doings
Cold, alone you hang in ruins
Thought that you'd escape the reaper
You can't escape the Master Keeper

'Cause you feel like you're living a lie
Such a shame who's to blame and you're wondering why
Then you ask from your cask us there life after birth
What you sow can mean Hell on this earth

Now you live inside a bottle
The reaper's traveling at full throttle
It's catching you but you don't see
The reaper is you and the reaper is me

Breaking laws, knocking doors
But there's no one at home
Made your bed, rest your head
But you lie there and moan
Where to hide, Suicide is the only way out
Don't you know what it's really about

Wine is fine but whiskey's quicker
Suicide is slow with liquor
Take a bottle and drown your sorrows
Then it floods away tomorrows

Well Billy rapped all night about his suicide
How he kick it in the head when he was twenty-five
Speed jive don't want to stay alive
When you're twenty-five
And Wendy's stealing clothes from marks and sparks
And Freedy's got spots from ripping off the stars from his face
Funky little boat race
Television man is crazy saying we're juvenile delinquent wrecks
Oh man I need TV when I got T. Rex
Oh brother you guessed
I'm a dude dad
All the young dudes (hey dudes)
Carry the news (where are ya)
Boogaloo dudes (stand up come on)
Carry the news
All the young dudes (I want to hear you)
Carry the news (I want to see you)
Boogaloo dudes (and I want to talk to you all of you)
Carry the news

Now Lucy looks sweet 'cause he dresses like a queen
But he can kick like a mule it's a real mean team
But we can love oh yes we can love
And my brother's back at home with his Beatles and his Stones
We never got it off on that revolution stuff
What a drag too many snags
Now I've drunk a lot of wine and I'm feeling fine
Got to race some cat to bed
Oh is there concrete all around
Or is it in my head
Yeah
I'm a dude dad
All the young dudes (hey dudes)
Carry the news (where are ya)
Boogaloo dudes (stand up)
Carry the news
All the young dudes (I want to hear ya)
Carry the news (I want to see you)
Boogaloo dudes (and I want to relate to you)
Carry the news
All the young dudes (what dudes)

Carry the news (let's hear the news come on)
Boogaloo dudes (I want to kick you)
Carry the news
All the young dudes (hey you there with the glasses)
Carry the news (I want you)
Boogaloo dudes (I want you at the front)
Carry the news (now you all his friends)
All the young dudes (now you bring him down 'cause I want him)
Carry the news
Boogaloo dudes (I want him right here bring him come on)
Carry the news (bring him here you go)
All the young dudes (I've wanted to do this for years)
Carry the news (there you go)
Boogaloo dudes (how do you feel)
Carry the news...

[BlueStarLizzard]

https://play.google.com/music/preview/Tvu65bte6t3s5ubfncpgq3rx3ke?lyrics=1&utm_source=google&utm_medium=search&utm_campaign=lyrics&pcampaignid=kp-lyrics

Plus, All The Young Dudes is pretty depressing sounding for an anthem for rebels, not to mention states that revolution is something the older brother likes, not the young dudes.

[freakazoid]

I've never heard the song, but going by the lyrics it sounds to me like Suicide Solution is actually about someone with a drinking problem who is slowly killing themselves because of it.
Also never heard All The Young Dudes, but even reading the lyrics I have no idea what it could be about.

[Monkeyleg]

If any here had been around at the time, he/she might have a different take on it. Sort of like Mick Jagger saying now that 'Brown Sugar" was written as an ode to a black backup singer he was fond of, when the song is clearly about the rape of black slave women just off the boat. (Especially considering the original line "whipping all the women" that was changed).

Even if it wasn't an anthem, there were a lot of people treating it as such.

[BlueStarLizzard]

I've never heard the song, but going by the lyrics it sounds to me like Suicide Solution is actually about someone with a drinking problem who is slowly killing themselves because of it.
Also never heard All The Young Dudes, but even reading the lyrics I have no idea what it could be about.

Try reading the lyrics to a Trex song sometime. That'll really confuse you. 

[Sergeant Bob]

Diamond Dogs! Nuff Said!

[Mannlicher]

Doesn't share my tastes?

Um, no, by his own admission he knows nothing about Bowie or Bowie's music, yet "gender confused drug user"?

I don't say he has to love Bowie. I can outright say there is stuff in Bowie's (insanely prolific) career that I don't care for. However, because I actually know something about the man, I respect him, even when I don't want to listen to certain songs.
His influence on rock and roll and music in general is massive and that's why Bowie should be respected, even if you personally don't like him.

Furthermore, who the hell goes to someone's funeral and mouths off about how much the dead person sucks? Which would be the anolagy here.

laughing at the intensity of feeling.    :)