Five years without the living magic of David Bowie

Madrid. It is 5 years since this Sunday the death of a musical icon who left as a will an album, “Blackstar”, recognized by critics and audiences as one of the best in history. A bit of what few stars can boast, but is that this is left alone within the reach of such charismatic characters as David Bowie.

The legendary British musician, also known as “The White Duke”, a pioneer of “glam rock” and a reference of legions of artists, died on January 10, 2016 at the age of 69, two days after his birthday in New York , due to liver cancer he had been suffering from for 18 months.

The news of his death shocked thousands of people, as three days earlier he had released his latest album: “Blackstar”.

“Blackstar” was his twenty-fifth studio album, which seen, in retrospect, contains what, according to his scholars, seem like references to his own death. An omen or the last hooliganism of the artist aware of his fate?

Bowie took the answer to his grave, but the lyrics to the album’s first single, “Lazarus”, leave no room for doubt: “Look up here, I’m in heaven. I have scars that can’t be seen. I have drama. It can’t be stolen. Everyone knows me now.”

In addition, the video clip of this song, about four minutes, shows a pale Bowie with his eyes blindfolded, levitating in a hospital bed.

With only seven songs and about 45 minutes in length, the posthumous album is the only work that does not feature an image of the musician on the cover. In its place appears a black star, which if placed in sunlight is transformed into a field of bright stars, and if placed under UV rays, illuminates as if it were a galaxy with stars blue color.

Shortly after its launching, the album was received with good reviews as much by the musical press as of public, arriving to be placed in the first place of musical lists of numerous countries.

The album, which sold 146,000 copies in its first week in the UK and more than 181,000 in the US, reached number one on the iTunes download list in 25 countries, becoming the first Bowie’s album topping the US Billboard chart.

But fame had already smiled on David Bowie more than four decades earlier, In 1972, when he released his fifth studio album “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars”, full of mysterious and electrifying lyrics, and accompanied by his image, as spectacular as it is ambiguous.

His big hits, turned into music classics and cult references, include titles like “Let’s Dance”, “Heroes”, “Under Pressure”, “Rebel, Rebel”, “Life on Mars”, “Suffragette City” “or” Space Oddity “, which won him the Ivor Novello Award for his originality.

Bowie had an innate artistic vocation that led him to tempt painting, design, and writing, and to alternate music with film.

Beyond the triumph of the youth film “Labyrinth” (Jim Henson, 1986), where he shared a cast with a debutante Jennifer Connelly, The British artist also participated in “The Last Temptation of Christ” (1988) by Martin Scorsese, Where he played Pontius Pilate.

“The Man Who Came from the Stars” (1976) by Nicolas Roeg, “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence” (1983) from the Japanese Nagisa Osima, Set in World War II and with music by the renowned composer Ryuichi Sakamoto or the very popular one in the sort of terror “The anxiety” (1983), of Tony Scott, Are also included in their resume.

He also acted in the role of Nikola Tesla, Together with Christian Bale i Hugh Jackman to the tape of Christopher Nolan, “The Final Trick” (2006) based on the epistolary novel of Christopher Priest which deals with the rivalry of two magicians of the early twentieth century. A paradox for the considered pop music magician of the eighties and nineties of this century.

Five years after his death, the magic of David Bowie is still alive among his fans. A charm gained to dust with his work. Since 2002 he has been on the list of the 100 most important Britons in history and in 2004 Rolling Stone magazine and also placed him among the one hundred most important artists of all time and in its list of best singers.