Obituaries

 It’s really hard for me to believe that David Bowie is dead because I never really considered the fact that an icon like him would someday be gone. He was such an enigma, so unreal that he grew to be something greater than human and somehow I unconsciously equated that to mean immortality. I owe David Bowie everything, I really do. I grew up with him. There’s a reason that I tell people that I would not be me if my mom didn’t play me her Modern Love 45 on my grandparent's old record player when I was a kid. I truly believe David Bowie was the greatest artist ever for his visionary brilliance and originality. He redefined what it meant to be a musician and what it meant to perform, combining his music with fashion, theater, and visual art. Although he borrowed from everyone from Chuck Berry to Japanese Kabuki theater actors, he was always completely unique. He also influenced so many people, myself included and not just in the way of music. He told us it was cool to be strange and even cooler to just be yourself, especially if that meant dying your mullet bright red and parading yourself around as a space alien rock 'n' roll star called Ziggy. Musically speaking, we now have so many musicians who have been inspired by him and strive to follow in his footsteps but while many musicians have sprung from the seeds that he sowed, no one can ever replicate him, no one can ever replace him, and no one can ever parallel his genius.