14 January 2016
Falling to Earth
by J.R.Thomas
David Cameron shares with his forerunner Anthony Charles Lysander Blair a finger on the pulse of modern times and a ready quote to suit. Last night on Sky Television he was asked his feelings about the death of David Bowie. Our Prime Minister looked suitably sombre. “Genius” he said “is a much over used word, but David Bowie was ….a genius”. At least half of that statement is right, and whether all of it is depends on your view of Mr Bowie’s contribution to pop music, the importance of pop music, and your view of fame, society, and culture in our times.
But the television companies had no doubt; an approach shared with the popular prints. “Hold the Front Page!!!” editors would have shouted in the days when the print tray would have to be pulled off the press; maybe they still do even when all it involves is pounding a keyboard. London’s Evening Standard, beating the big dailies for once by the timing of Mr Bowie’s demise in New York, devoted the entire contents of its first five pages to his death. Sky TV had the story as its lead item, and treated it at such length that when the tributes and eulogies were finally over the newsreader turned to camera and said “And other news…”
The Times, the newspaper of record, carried the death as its second item on the front page, with pages six to nine entirely devoted to the sad event and then a two page formal obituary. And then a further four pages on Bowie’s style. And a further four with the words of his main hits, carefully illustrated. Fourteen and one third pages. Oh, and a personal tribute from Tony Blair. It is hard to imagine they would do as much for the Prime Minister himself. The engagement of one Rupert Murdoch, proprietor of The Times, to Ms Jerry Hall made it to an article on page three, but without setting out the somewhat complex previous relationships of Ms Hall, Sir M Jagger, and Mr Bowie.
We do live in strange times. Few would argue that David Bowie was a gifted musician with an original mind and a hugely imaginative creativity. Even in financial circles he is highly regarded – the arcane practitioners of mysterious arts in the City of London may like his music (or not care one jot about it) but they certainly admire the creativity of a man who securitised his back catalogue of hits and sold the resultant bonds for £37m. They admired him still more so when the bond market dived, leaving Mr Bowie with the money and the bond holders with the losses – and hopefully a few LP’s to give them consolation. We live in times when pop music is a massively popular and admired art form all around the world; and Britain is a major centre of music, both pop and classical. Indeed it is one of the areas of life in which Britain can be said to be a world leader. It is right to praise such practitioners of creative art as Bowie; but always in these things, a sense of proportion is helpful.
There is a whole generation of pop stars who came to fame in the 1960’s and those who have survived the pleasures of success and creativity are now collecting their pensions and metaphorically moving into bungalows. Many are original in their work, fascinating in their lifestyles, and of enormous popular appeal, still capable of filling stadiums for concerts even if they have to be helped onto the stage, with tea and nurses replacing bourbon and groupies. How many of them are geniuses? Or deserving of fourteen (and one third) pages of coverage in the Times when they finally shuffle towards the celestial stage?
This writer is not qualified to opine on the merits of modern music or on pop musicians of any age or genre (much independent verification of that can be readily provided) but he does muse on fame. Is David Bowie so important to the world that he merits this degree of coverage; the level, or way beyond the level, which would be given to a serving national leader, a head of state, a brilliant businessman, military leaders? Harry Hyams, a very gifted business man who changed the world of property development, died just before Christmas last year. He got a very few column inches – and then only for his extraordinary art collection, not his pioneering approach to office buildings. Who was the last writer to get fourteen (and one third) pages of coverage in the Times on their death, or the rest of the news shoved to one side? Did Graham Greene, Ted Hughes, Harper Lee get one tenth of Bowie’s coverage? Will David Hockney, surely Bowie’s equivalent in paint?
One can see reasons why news editors leapt with such enthusiasm to big up this story. It is not so much that it is a quiet news time, far from it, but the events that are “newsworthy” are not new or fresh; there is not much new news around just at the moment and the old news centres around depressing and complex matters of war, religion, refugees, resistance to population movements; economic uncertainty and complexity; the breaking, perhaps, of political moulds and emergence of new forces. All these could lead to a radically different world to the one we now inhabit, but they don’t make for much immediate excitement.
Mr Bowie, with grace and restraint, kept the news of his long illness very quiet, even when appearing in public a month ago looking gaunt and tired but apparently provoking no comment as to his health. The shock of an unexpected death is exciting in news terms. The media like drama of course, it sells well, so the sudden death of an international figure is a great driver of headlines; snatches from albums and videos, old scandals rehashed, and reporters standing on windy corners interviewing other international celebrities (and Prime Ministers) are dramatic and colourful.
It was the demise of Diana, Princess of Wales, that surely began all this. Diana had become, on rather slender foundations, an icon of the people, and her sudden death at such a young age, and so tragically, seemed to have caused the traditional British reserve to crash. And that reserve has never rebooted. Our society manufactures heroes with little clay; and then so often destroys them as it is revealed that they took advantage in some small or major way of their popular adulation; or even were just human with standard human failings.
Play wonderful celestial music, Mr Bowie. The angelic choir will be really lively from now on. But oh for the days when judges enquired “And who are the Beatles?”
