The Freakiest Show :: Bowie Tributes That Stick in the Throat
I only ever had two David Bowie albums, and one of those was a collection of greatest hits (Hunky Dory was the other), so I can’t claim to have been a real fan of his music. Like a great many people, however, I always thought he seemed like pretty much the epitome of cool. Sometimes commercial but never mainstream, and always unapologetically individual. Funny too.
Also, despite being predominantly apolitical, he always seemed – with his bisexuality and his drugs and his refusal to accept a knighthood – wholly anti-establishment. That’s why it felt so horribly wrong to see David Cameron blathering on about him today on the news.
OK, maybe the Prime Minister is a David Bowie fan. I’ve not seen his record collection and cannot therefore say for sure. But he isn’t. He definitely isn’t. Or maybe he’s a Bowie fan in the same way he’s a fan of Aston Villa and The Smiths. In the same way Gordon Brown was a fan of The Arctic Monkeys.
It just doesn’t ring true. It’s like Dapper Laughs paying tribute to Germaine Greer, and it feels like the worst kind of bandwagonism. As does this tribute from one of the former members of Ugly Rumours:
Apart from the question of sincerity, another thing one can’t help feeling is, who cares if these repugnant, duplicitous, self-serving establishment murderers liked him anyway? How dare they even speak the name of someone whose ridiculous, predominantly laceless boots they were not fit to lace?
Of course, everyone is entitled to their opinion, and people who I deem cool, decent or in any way likeable do not have a monopoly on grief, fake or otherwise. Also, if I’m accusing people of jumping on bandwagons, then it would be perfectly fair to accuse me of exactly the same thing, just by putting this together. Feel free. But do spare an eye-roll for these fuckers while you’re about it…
Finally, hats off to the perennially unpleasant Stephen Pollard, who managed to clamber aboard the bandwagon whilst at the same time taking a dump on it…
Filed under: MUSIC, POLITICS Tagged: BNP, David Bowie, David Cameron, death, Stephen Pollard, Tony Blair
