Back in the day I had a Best Of Bowie DVD with all of these videos in chronological order. Disc 1 was pretty much his 70s stuff and live performances, but 2 had this, Absolute Beginners, Dancing In The Street, and so much more. If I was having people over for parties I'd just put it on in the background.

I should have posted this thought on one of the other Bowie posts.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm mourning the loss of great musicians... or feeling bad about what's been left behind and the general state of music today.

Don't mind me, I know I'm being stupid and melodramatic as hell, but part of me does fear that when the last of the great ones leave, there will have been no improvement, and no one worthy to carry the torch.

There's always someone to carry the torch.. 14 or so years ago I was trying to wrap my head around Elliott Smith, Vic Chestnutt, Mark Linkous Jay Reatard all within a 10-year span, all of which could've been something of the Bowie of their respective genres, and naw screw it I'm gonna kill myself. So when the classics go it's just sad to me but not tragic.

True. The complications of getting old are certainly better than a 20-30 something suicide. And Bowie is an example, at least in my opinions, of one that didn't fade away and become lame with age. You are right, 69 is a good run for almost anyone, nonetheless someone with such a consistently good body of work. Sad but not tragic.

But i don't think that wave of suicidal rock stars you mentions really counts because it their lives were so quick, and they were all mostly pre-social media explosion. I really don't think icons are going to continue to exist. Withing their subgenres, sure, but not in the universal, global way of the past.

Yeah I see what you're saying. Smith went from playing basement shows to performing at the Oscars and Sparklehorse was suddenly collaborating with David Lynch, so it was like "WHY GODDAMNIT" but nothing really compares to a presence like Bowie's in mainstream rock and roll, or at least one that still makes music up until his final days.

I was reading that Chuck Klosterman had been writing his obituary via e-mails since 2012, via a tip from someone that he was on his deathbed. That wasn't the case, but Bowie knew, so much like Zevon, the final album (and Lazarus) seems to be the swan song.

Here's the link if you're interested:

http://grantland.com/features/chuck-klosterman-alex-pappademas -david-bowie-career/

I don't know why but it made me smile, which is something I've been doing little of today.