Simon Reynolds, considered to be music reporter most influential in world, talks about Spanish edition of an essay on revolution raised by David Bowie and T. Rex: ‘a lightning strike’.
“I Was writing end of book, last or second-to-last page, perhaps something about Lady Gaga, and died.” Simon Reynolds (London, 1963) says that his answer to question ‘Where were you when he died Bowie?’ is not very ‘glamorous’. But Reynolds, who speaks quietly and shy, despite being considered to be music reporter most influential in world, you ignore curious coincidence at that doom: book that I was writing was ‘Like a lightning strike. The glam and his legacy, from 70s to TWENTY-first century’, which saw light shortly after and published in English argentine publishing Black Box. Precisely, on musical genre with which Bowie became a superstar.
“he Was very tired after writing a book too long, and didn’t want to write anything more. But my wife told me I had to do something,” recalls Reynolds. “So, I took a couple of days of rest and I did this essay on Bowie, who is one of best things that I have written, truth.” The author refers to epilogue that appears in volume, in which he says: “The hope here is that se intense moments shared are somehow immune to decline. This is maximum to what any of us can aspire: to have lived with so much intensity, glory, and love some of molecules of time as to make m so radiant that simply must be eternal. perhaps that is anor possible definition of ‘glamour’: most enduring images generated by organic beings and perishable linger in memory, personal and collective, even after disappearance of its source“.
Bowie did not want to hold a public funeral in his honor, but that he was cremated in solitude and her family were commissioned to scatter her ashes in a ceremony buddhist meeting in Bali. “The absence of a farewell public seems to say: se remains are not ‘David Bowie’. is The person that y loved and admired is everywhere, everywhere except here, living in millions of records and images, echoes and reflections“.
And that reflection on immortality is one of ideas articulated in book, like reflection on falsehood, mask, who guided careers of Bowie, T. Rex, Mott Hoople and Gary Glitter, among or stars of time. “Is this idea of being what you want to be. I don’t know if it is a good philosophy of life, because I am a little fatalistic. But y tried to start it up, but you never could escape from what y really were,” notes Reynolds in La Casa Encendida in Madrid, shortly before his talk on ‘glam’ within Festival First Person.
“that desire to reinvent itself, that conviction that identity is malleable arose to great music,” admits Reynolds, though condemning certain attitude of ir authors. “I find Not in m ‘lie’, in sense that according to Oscar Wilde, although his life was full of lies. The question is up to where you can live in a fantasy world”. For some people “life is so horrible, living in a fantasy is only way to survive”, granted while shrugging his shoulders: “I have a passion for true old-fashioned”.
But this exaltation of false (“Alice Cooper had; ors like. And advertising campaign of Bowie in US consisted of him as a star much larger than it actually was”) is precisely what makes glam something so familiar, even in our days. Because Reynolds argues that, in same way that, in era in which arose glam ” politicians began to be popstars” and were conscious that “what really mattered was image on television”, music of time was carried away by fever for drill. The post-truth ‘trumpiana’, he argues, has a lot of that fever by fantasy.
But, as in book, everything was more convoluted and complex. For example, in case of David/Ziggy, “I had a strange relationship and ambivalent with fame, with this desire to be a success, care. We loved it because, like so many stars, I wanted to continue to live after your death”. However, “for him it was very difficult to cope with ir different experiences with fame. Hated it after his first hit with ‘Space Oddity’ and tried to hide in world of pop.
But he came back to her, she turned to get tired and he took refuge in Berlin, and so on. He was addicted and, at same time, he wanted to escape“.
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