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David Bowie Dies At Age 69 (bbc.co.uk)
echo-e writes: Renowned singer David Bowie has died after an 18-month battle with cancer. His latest album, Blackstar, was only just released on Friday — his birthday. His last live show was in 2006. Bowie rose to fame in the 1970s, and he is known for hits such as Under Pressure, Let's Dance, and Space Oddity. He also appeared in handful of films, such as Labyrinth in 1986.
Bowie was also notable for being one of the few musicians to immediately see the value and staying power of MP3s and the digital distribution of music. If anything, he was overly optimistic about it. In 2002, he said, "I don't even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years, because I don't think it's going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way. The absolute transformation of everything that we ever thought about music will take place within 10 years, and nothing is going to be able to stop it. I see absolutely no point in pretending that it's not going to happen. I'm fully confident that copyright, for instance, will no longer exist in 10 years, and authorship and intellectual property is in for such a bashing."
I'll miss him and his excellent music.
Send his ashes to Mars.
Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
I think that's what it was, this was a good 20 years ago. It wasn't really a CD+G, it was a CD+LD, you could see the analog part of the CD that would play in a LaserDisc. The disc got stolen, who knows what it's worth today.
Oh well, RIP imaginative dude.
Mostly random stuff.
It seems they're being rather tight lipped about what type of cancer it was, but rumors prior to his death (and prior to the public admission he even had cancer) claim it was lung cancer.
Whether you like his music or not, there is no denying that David Bowie was a true artist, a real entertainer. There was nothing fake about him. Nowadays, we don't see real artists like him very often.
It doesn't have to be like this. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking.
and the spiders from Mars will be the pallbearers.
He just released an album, its good, but bleak.
He must have recorded knowing his death was imminent. You'd think why he didn't say he had cancer, but if you watch the videos he did say.
Blackstar, is full of lonely candles and a Dead Major Tom.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kszLwBaC4Sw
Love is lost,
http://prostheticknowledge.tumblr.com/post/137078250186/prostheticknowledge-love-is-lost-hello-steve
But for me, the best track he's never remembered for is "Andy Warhol"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4sANPkk3ys
Goodbye David.
So far the articles I saw made no mention of his adventure as a banker and alternative currencies.
Bowie was a more interesting person than your typical rock star.
I'm fully confident that copyright, for instance, will no longer exist in 10 years, and authorship and intellectual property is in for such a bashing.
Indeed... if only it were true David, going to miss this guy, grew up with his music and strangeness
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
The guy was razor sharp, and at times almost prescient.
From around 6 minutes in this interview, he talks re. the music industry's rot, and predicts much of the internet's climb over the last decade and a half. All to Paxman's skepticism...
We have an emptier world today
Still one of my favorite albums. I was just listening to it last night, it always hits me how well the theme of the album works.. are there any album themes anymore?
Just spent the weekend listening to the new album and trying to figure out the meaning behind the Blackstar video. It suddenly all makes sense.
He will be missed, but it's nice to know he left at the top of his game.
..now where did that
There's only 27 mentions of "David Bowie" on their main page. Is that normal for the BBC?
That is all
Bowies eccentricities aside, Ive never understood why his kidnapping charge wasnt investigated? Sure, he certainly as a monarch reserved diplomatic immunity but his 13 hour standoff over the child was completely uncalled for.
Now that hes gone, what of his estate? I certrainly hope someone does something with the bog of eternal stench he was so enamoured with...and that horrible room full of staircases? certainly someones complained of trip hazards and safety violations...Rest in peace Goblin King.
Good people go to bed earlier.
People with real music playback software only have to type "David Bowie" in the search field.
The dude played fucking Nikola Tesla in the movies. Because of course he did. That's how cool he was.
You are welcome on my lawn.
How is this tech news?
How is it that you don't know what are the topics at the top of the slashdot web page? It says:
Topics: Devices Build Entertainment Technology Open Source Science YRO
This article is about Davis Bowie, so it concerns
1) entertainment; music
2) technology; digital distribution of music
3) YRO; copyright issues
I had no idea David Bowie died until I read it here on Slashdot! How come the mainstream media didn't report on this at all in the last 16 hours since it was formally announced?
Because Benghazi!
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt04...
Don't waste your time with the American series.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Gosh. On /. I would have figured that some people would have chimed in that he played Nikola Tesla in the film "The Prestige." Bonus: his lab assistant was played by Andy Serkis, in one of his few live-action roles.
"Copyright isn't a black and white issue and unless you make your way on copyrighted works then your opinion matters little."
BULL FUCKING SHIT. Copyright is a SOCIAL BARGAIN. Copyright is a bargain between the public and the artist. Every single citizen has skin in this game. For the last 100 years the artists (and their proxies) have been steadily altering the bargain in their favor. We The People grant copyright, its not an inherent right. WE could stop granting it tomorrow if we so choose (would require an amendment, but it could be done). Art would still be made even without copyright. We are in an Information Age, the old ideas of copyright make no sense when everything is trivially copy-able. Copyright holds us back more than it pushes us forwards now.
Good-bye
I won't miss him and his awful music.
Both Hunky Dory and Ziggy Stardust are true masterpieces. If you grew up listening to his post-seventies work, you can be forgiven your opinion.
-- sudon't
Air-ride Equipped
I like his music, but as a human being I liked him even more. He turned down British knighthood by saying "I would never have any intention of accepting anything like that, I seriously don't know what it's for. It's not what I spent my life working for."
Considering Bowie's contributions to digital music distribution, and he being one of the first people to recognize just what the Internet was going to mean to the music industry, I'd say that alone justifies a Slashdot article. The guy wasn't just a very good artist, he was also an extraordinarily canny businessman who foresaw how the business he was a part of was going to be shaken to the core even when "high speed Internet" meant a 14.4k modem.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Bowie did as much to encourage space travel as Carl Sagan.
RIP Starman
Well, he is arguably the nerdiest pop singer/artist that could ever be.
I'd argue that point. Compared to the likes Weird Al, They Might Be Giants, OK Go, Frank Zappa, Talking Heads, Beck, Thomas Dolby, Weezer, GWAR, The Mountain Goats, Ben Folds, Elvis Costello... Bowie probably isn't even in the top 20 nerdiest pop artists. I didn't even bother with indie acts like Jonathan Coulton, niche acts like The Aquabats, or nerds who were only incidentally pop artists like Brian Cox.
My vote for the nerdiest pop superstar would be Brian May. He built his own guitar and helped build his own amplifier, he has a PhD in astrophysics, and wrote a song about the effect of space travel at relativistic speeds.
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