You may have seen this David Bowie interview before. I’ve been drawn to it again and again. It’s been on my mind this week as 10th January is the anniversary of his death.
I don’t think we’ve even seen the tip of the iceberg. I think the potential for what the internet is going to do to society, both good and bad, is unimaginable.
I think we’re actually on the cusp of something exhilarating and terrifying.
David Bowie interviewed on BBC Newsnight, 1999.
Bowie is a towering cultural figure in my life. The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders from Mars was the first album I remember buying. I asked a friend at secondary school what I should be listening to. She turned to her extra-cool classmate with the question, and Bowie came back as the answer.
I soon knew all the words by heart, singing them out loud in my room when I was supposed to be doing my homework. Years later, I chose Rock ‘N’ Roll Suicide, from the same album, to be one of the first musical references in Rockstar Ending.
One of the things I most admire about Bowie was that he devoured books, films and all manner of artistic experience. He was a painter and art collector as well as a musician. When the internet began to flex its muscles in the late 1990s, he was among the first to recognise its potential.
This video clip says it all.
