I decided to post this on the Roxy Music section here rather than General Discussion as Bowie is up there with Roxy Music and comes from a similar musical DNA

http://vivaroxymusic.com/news.php?n=522

A very sad J.O'B.

Great to read the Bowie/Roxy connection in Blackstar reviews.

Rolling Stone:
Bowie's gauzy vocal prayer and wordless spectral harmonies hover over drum seizures; saxophonist Donny McCaslin laces the stutter and chill like Andy Mackay in early-Seventies Roxy Music.

All Music Guide:
Fittingly, the music itself is suspended in time, sometimes recalling the hard urban gloss of '70s prog -- Bowie's work, yes, but also Roxy Music and, especially, the Scott Walker of Nite Flights...

A sad day - David Bowie was never afraid to push his musical boundaries.

Blackstar is a fitting finale for the great man

RIP Sir

Admirable that he had the strength to finish his album.

Btw I knew he had a connection with Buddhism, but I didn't know it was that strong....

http://www.lionsroar.com/that-time-david-bowie-almost-became-a-buddhist-monk/

P.S. Lama Chime Rinpoche published this on youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7j9AX85ERsA

Thanks to JO'B per usual for leading a well scribed testimonial to David Bowie and the associations with Roxy and Bryan.

Here's a cover of If There Is Something performed by Tin Machine circa '91 that may put a smile on a few faces.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=091BZfPnIEk

The stars look very different today indeed.

I'm fairly sure many of us have been reflecting on our own mortality over the last 2 days. I listened to the Blackstar album in its entirety on Saturday and again on Sunday... and its been said enough times that the signs of what was coming are there on the album. I'd have to concur, Bowie was undoubtedly preparing himself and us for his own passing. I didn't see it coming so quickly.

As an added observation, of all the coverage of his music and the music of his times, I saw no mention of Roxy Music or Ferry , amongst mentions of other artists from the Beatles and the Stones to Suede and , erm, glam rock. I can't explain that.

Regarding AE's comment about a dearth of Roxy/Ferry references in the wake of DB's passing, I did catch one reference here in The States.

On the Monday edition of the very popular National Public Radio show "Fresh Air with Terry Gross" they played 20 minutes of an interview between Bowie and Gross taped in 2002. The original interview was spurred by the release of the 30th Anniversary edition of the Ziggy Stardust movie and in it Bowie makes direct reference to how he and Roxy Music were leading the way towards a new music in the early 1970s.

So I did hear of the Roxy/Bowie connection in the wake of his death, and it was spoken by none other than Bowie himself.

But other than that, my sense is that the USA coverage of Bowie's death stuck to a pretty narrow groupthink in which Roxy/Ferry languished far afield... But plenty of Space Oddity that's for sure!!!