It was a soundbite that Bowie lived by, right from the start. Flying in the face of that overused \u2018chameleon\u2019 tag, after the release of his first batch of singles in 1966, the young songwriter forced the background to blend in with\u00a0him. Then, invariably, once it did, he shed his musical skin and set out in search of fresh inspiration.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Across his career, we watched Bowie repeat this thrilling pattern countless times, right up until the release of\u00a0Blackstar<\/a>\u00a0in 2016, which he recorded with long-time producer Tony Visconti and a troupe of previously unheralded New York jazzers. The catalogue he leaves behind is, quite simply, one of the boldest in rock’n’roll.<\/p>\n When young rock bands cite their \u2018experimental\u2019 new album, it typically means they\u2019ve learnt a new chord. Bowie\u2019s interpretation of the word was a bonfire of the old ways. When he reinvented himself, everything that went before was scattered to the winds.\u00a0<\/p>\n The musical direction might flip from crunching glam to breezy plastic soul. The production might trade sumptuous for scabrous. The persona could leap from visiting spaceman (aka Ziggy Stardust) to emaciated sieg-heiling provocateur (the Thin White Duke). Even Bowie\u2019s musicians \u2013 always a vital strand of each new era \u2013 had little job security, as the artist hired and fired according to his muse.<\/p>\n Bowie\u2019s flair for reinvention made him both irresistible and inconsistent. He ditched genres and collaborators when it seemed there was more gas in the tank. He hung around longer than we\u2019d have liked in dubious territories like electronica and dance. Now and then, his skin-shedding seemed contrived \u2013 and during his final quarter-century there\u2019s a case he missed the target more than he hit it.\u00a0<\/p>\n And yet, as he proved with 2002\u2019s excellent\u00a0Heathen, with 2013’s\u00a0The Next Day<\/a>\u00a0and with\u00a0Blackstar, you discounted David Bowie at your peril. While most bands settled into their groove, he refused to be tied down: one of the few marquee artists who shocked, innovated and kicked out against familiarity, right until the end.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While most of his peers softened into water-treading middle-age, David Bowie\u2019s view on art was that it was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51569,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[156,157,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-51568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51568\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"section](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/pTkxDA77EYeCAcEASAAeBV.png\")
\n<\/p>\n