{"id":134072,"date":"2016-01-11T16:03:51","date_gmt":"2016-01-11T21:03:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/?p=134072"},"modified":"2016-01-19T10:40:36","modified_gmt":"2016-01-19T15:40:36","slug":"rock-history-remembers-david-bowie-134072","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/rock-history-remembers-david-bowie-134072\/","title":{"rendered":"Rock history remembers David Bowie"},"content":{"rendered":"

by John Covach, Director<\/em>
\nUniversity of Rochester Institute for Popular Music<\/em><\/p>\n

David Bowie changed rock music in the 1970s in a significant way.\u00a0 He will probably be best remembered by music historians for his album, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust<\/em>.\u00a0 Released in the summer of 1972, the album only rose to number 75 on the U.S. charts, though it hit number 5 in the U.K.\u00a0 While later Bowie music had far greater commercial success, the distinctiveness on the Ziggy<\/em> album was that Bowie adopted the persona of Ziggy Stardust. He wasn\u2019t the first performer or artist to create an alter ego, and there were others who would also do so in the 1970s.\u00a0 The difference was that Bowie\u2019s personas over the years would change, and sometimes shifting drastically.<\/p>\n

More from John Covach on CNN.com: An artist who wouldn’t let himself be penned in<\/a><\/div>\n

As Bowie refashioned his creative and performing persona from album to album and from tour to tour, he also transformed his music in ways that fans might not have embraced in other artists.\u00a0 As a result, Bowie\u2019s music displays a wide stylistic range over the years, and such artistic license helped him to keep his career vital over four decades.\u00a0 Such opportunity for change would not have led to success, however, had Bowie not been very talented.\u00a0 When opportunity and talent meet, the results can be magical\u2014and Bowie provided many magic moments over the years.<\/p>\n

Bowie\u2019s career late in life was the model for how a pop musician can age without becoming a shadow of his or her younger self.\u00a0 He remained engaged and creative until the very end, releasing his last album, Blackstar<\/em>, on January 8, just two days before his passing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David Bowie, who died Sunday at the age of 69, wasn’t the first performer to create an alter ego. But as music professor and director of the Institute for Popular Music John Covach explains, the difference with Bowie was how his personas would change over the years, sometimes shifting drastically. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":134082,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[456],"tags":[4626,5436,5426],"class_list":["post-134072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-society-culture","tag-featured-post","tag-institute-for-popular-music","tag-john-covach"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nRock history remembers David Bowie<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/rock-history-remembers-david-bowie-134072\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Rock history remembers David Bowie\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"David Bowie, who died Sunday at the age of 69, wasn't the first performer to create an alter ego. 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