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Cargando... Bowie: A Biography (2009)por Marc Spitz
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InscrÃbete en LibraryThing para averiguar si este libro te gustará. Actualmente no hay Conversaciones sobre este libro. Great! ( ) It took me a lot longer to get through this biography than most. I thought for sure, a book about someone like David Bowie would be an interesting read. I think the problem here lies in the author. I never felt engrossed in the story, not in Bowie's beginnings and not in the conclusion which summed up the last decade. Spitz's look at a man he idolizes seems to be lacking heart, and while that may have been intentional, I think the results suffer for it. The grit and the rumors on our thin, white knight of song. Bowie is THE rock star of our time (or at least the '69 to '83 part of that) -- a new look, a new sound with almost every album he's ever done. This unauthorized biography seems fairly well researched and relatively balanced though it's obvious the author adores Bowie. I would have given this book four stars, but thought it just was not dense enough. I was looking forward to reading this. I am a big fan of Bowie’s middle to late musical career, so finding out a little more about what contributed to his iconic status was an easy lure for me. Spitz had an unusual tack for a biography, in that he follows Bowie’s career by following his major hits. The implicit assumption is that Bowie was after such wide success from the start and therefore Bowie had achieved his record selling goals while maintaining his artistic integrity. According to Spitz, Bowie’s popularity allowed him to pursue side projects and diversify into new areas where he could market himself (film, stage drama, music video). Spitz documents Bowie’s arc of popularity directly from Space Oddity, to Diamond Dogs, to Young Americans, to Heroes, to Ashes to Ashes, ending in Let’s Dance. Unfortunately the book might have ended at chapter 24. After that chapter there is no longer a biography but a series of epilogical personal reflections related to Bowie. Spitz hopes that Bowie one day will thumb through the book while at the bookstore. I doubt Bowie will. There is much that is unpleasant about Bowie’s life here. No actual Bowie interviews were granted to Spitz. The book was in the end sufficiently interesting, as I had not read anything else about Bowie. The photos were numerous enough to glimpse the many phases of Bowie’s transformations. As a complete book ‘Bowie’ lacks rigor but as a work composed by a fellow fan of Bowie I am willing to grant leeway for the weak ending and the many digressions meant to add context but come off as extended asides. I was interested in Bowie's attraction to Buddhism and I wish Spitz had covered more of the interior life of Bowie. Bibliography and index.
Whether or not this is the last major Bowie bio remains to be seen, but if it is, Bowie fans could certainly do a lot worse, and probably not much better. *t’s kind of fun to turn and face the strangeness that is Bowie. He’s a lot more interesting than the average rocker and lived so much more than the average cliché rockstar life. He was never perfect, and neither is Bowie: A Biography. But it’s a very nice read, just the same. If you know a Bowie-phile looking for a holiday gift, you could do a lot worse than Marc Spitz’s book, that’s for sure.
Biography & Autobiography.
History.
Music.
Nonfiction.
HTML:An expansive biography of David Bowie, one of the twentieth centuryâ??s greatest music and cultural icons. From noted author and rock â??nâ?? roll journalist Marc Spitz comes a major David Bowie biography to rival any other. Following Bowieâ??s life from his start as David Jones, an R & Bâ??loving kid from Bromley, England, to his rise to rock â??nâ?? roll aristocracy as David Bowie, Bowie recounts his career but also reveals how much his music has influenced other musicians and forever changed the landscape of the modern era. Along the way, Spitz reflects on how growing up with Bowie as his soundtrack and how writing this definitive book on Bowie influenced him in ways he never expected, adding a personal dimension that Bowie fans and those passionate about art and culture will connect with and that no other bio on the artist offers. Bowie takes an in-depth look at the culture of postwar England in which Bowie grew up, the mod and hippie scenes of swinging London in the sixties, the sex and drug-fueled glitter scene of the early seventies when Bowieâ??s alter-ego Ziggy Stardust was born, his rise to global stardom in the eighties and his subsequent status as an elder statesman of alternative culture. Spitz puts each incarnation of Bowie into the context of its era, creating a cultural time line that is intriguing both for its historical significance as well as for its delineation of this rock â??nâ?? roll legend, the first musician to evolve a coherent vision after the death of the sixties dream. Amid the sex, drugs and rock â??nâ?? roll mayhem, a deeper portrait of the artist emerges. Bowieâ??s early struggles to go from follower to leader, his tricky relationship with art and commerce and Buddhism and the occult, his complicated family life, his open romantic relationship and, finally, his perceived disavowal of all that made him a touchstone for outcasts are all thoughtfully explored. A fresh evaluation of his recorded work, as well as his film, stage and video performances, is included as well. Based on a hundred original interviews with those who knew him best and those familiar with his work, including ex-wife Angie Bowie, former Bowie manager Kenneth Pitt, Siouxsie Sioux, Camille Paglia, Dick Cavett, Todd Haynes, Ricky Gervais and Peter Frampton, Bowie gives us not only a portrait of one of the most important artists in the last century, but also an honest examination of a truly revolutionary artist and the uniqu No se han encontrado descripciones de biblioteca. |
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