How David Bowie is still shaping the future 10 years after his death | Celebrity News | Showbiz & TV
Today (January 10) marks a decade since the world lost the musical genius of David Bowie, who passed away at the age of 69 from liver cancer.
Despite the Starman singer’s absence, his influence continues to resonate in various spheres including music, fashion, and film.
Known for his futuristic ideas and concepts, David Bowie – born David Robert Jones – remains a significant figure for many.
Rather than being a relic of the past, Bowie’s legacy feels as if it is still ahead of its time. His foresight was not about gadgets or trends, but about granting permission, which ages differently than sound or fashion.
Here are a few reasons why this sentiment endures, even ten years on:
1. He treated identity as an experiment, not a final product
Bowie lived with the belief that one’s self is something to be continually developed and refined. Ziggy Stardust, the Thin White Duke, Berlin-era Bowie – these were not “eras” in the conventional sense.
They were experiments. In today’s world, characterised by fluid identities, avatars, handles, and reinvention, this mindset feels remarkably relevant.
2. Bowie emotionally anticipated the internet age, not technically
Long before the rise of social media, Bowie understood fragmentation: personas, masks, performance, the gap between the private and public self. He comprehended what it feels like to live life mediated through images and signals.
That’s precisely why his work feels more relevant today than it did upon its initial release.
3. He didn’t chase relevance – he designed his own obsolescence
Whilst most artists attempt to remain contemporary, Bowie intentionally abandoned previous incarnations of himself. This approach is unusual, and it mirrors the breakneck speed at which culture evolves today.
He was demonstrating cultural agility long before the concept had a name.
4. Bowie was a trailblazer in dismantling boundaries
Bowie refused to view genre, gender, race, or the separation between high art and pop as constraints, treating them instead as mere suggestions. He made hybridity mainstream well before it became a defining characteristic of our present age.
Even when we believe we’ve finally understood him, he still appears to be one step ahead.
5. His final work reimagined death as an artistic statement
Blackstar wasn’t a prompt for grief; it was an opportunity for interpretation. The notion of transforming death into a conceptual gesture feels distinctly modern in an age where legacy, archives, and digital afterlives carry as much weight as physical existence.
6. He was motivated by curiosity, not nostalgia.
Nostalgia can confine artists to what’s gone before, but Bowie almost compulsively resisted it. Even today, his work doesn’t evoke “remembering” – it feels more like predicting the future.
