Lying in the loungeroom of my grandmother's house were a number of Bowie records (a few Beatles, Rolling Stones, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop and Roxy Music). I was too poor to afford cds, and listened to Triple J instead. So I rigged up the record player and listened to "Heroes."

Then my life pretty much changed forever.

Because Life is a Distraction from Art

"The Jean Genie", 1973, on a tape my sister had recorded from a German radio show.

And I want to believe
In the madness that calls 'now'

The simplest answer would be Heathen, because I really became a fan after that. But I never would have bought it without some earlier experience. So, I think when I was about 12 I heard Space Oddity and it left me with the feeling I NEEDED to hear it again. Later, when I was about 17 I saw Jump They Say -video on MTV and thought it was so cool that I bought Black Tie White Noise. It was on a tape and as much as I hate to admit it, I think I would have liked it more then, if Lucy Can't Dance had been on the tape too. Some years later I bought "Heroes", because it was on sale. I liked the songs, but couldn't really understand the number of instrumentals on it. I loved (and still love) Bowie's voice, so I just couldn't understand why he didn't just sing. Then came Heathen and the rest is history!

Who's been wearing Miranda's clothes?

I had a dream about him after watching the Glass Spider concert on tv in 1987. I didn't really get interested in him until August 1991 when I had a mysterious urge to watch Labyrinth again, find out more about him, and hear more of his music. Bowie is simply fascinating to me.

My Neopets guild Ormheim

Basically:

- Alice Cooper
- Brazilian magazine Pop
- Aladdin Sane

I had known of his music for years, since songs like "Let's Dance", "China Girl", and "Blue Jean" were pretty much unavoidable on the radio, but I can't say I ever thought too much about him beyond that. I had a kind of detached respect for him, though, simply because I knew he was considered one of the "greats" of rock-n-roll by many. The day it all clicked for me was when I went to the theater with my mom one summer afternoon. I forget what we were there to see. I do, however, remember that they played a brief preview trailer for "Labyrinth". All of sudden, I just couldn't contain myself. I started going, "That's David Bowie!" over and over. I remember being quite puzzled even as I was ranting on as to why I was suddenly so fascinated with him. I guess it was just fate or something even more elusive at work... who knows? Because the movie was only in theaters here for 2 weeks, I wound up not getting to see it on the big screen. My family never rushed out to see anything. Still, I made a point to remember that it only played for 2 weeks, and I recall being very disappointed when I didn't get to see it. There were no discount theaters back then, so I had to wait for its release on video.

In the meantime, I bought the "Labyrinth" soundtrack and read the novelization for it (trying to imagine where the various songs would fit in). Soon after, I went ahead and got "Let's Dance" and "Tonight" because I knew there were songs on those that I liked. I also bought the book "David Bowie: Theatre of Music" which I used as a guide to plunge into his back catalog. When he came out with "Never Let Me Down", I purchased it at once, and from there, I never looked back!

It's the so-called "normal" guys that always let you down. Sickos never scare me. At least they're committed.

Sex.

Visitors From Alternate Universes Are People, Too

years and years of hearing 'let's dance' on vh1.. (I wasn't born til '87, so there wasn't really a time that it wasn't being played sometime on that channel, because vh1 was trying to play catch-up to the music scene.) I love the song, then they stopped playing it. I never knew what it was called or who did it. I just remembered he said 'red shoes' and few and random parts of the video. Later, I remembered hearing his name and seeing clips from 'I'm Afraid of Americans'. And of course, being a child of the 80's, I had seen 'Labyrinth', but didn't really remember much about it. My mom always said she played 'Fame' and stuff to make me go to sleep as a baby, but that was it for a while. Then, 2 christmases ago, I started getting into vinyl. We found this record store, and they had 'Let's Dance' in there. My mom told me it was good, so I listened and it was the 'red shoes' that I was familiar with. I bought 'Best of Bowie' and 'Heathen' and now it's kind of sickening how my collection has grown....

Hearing 'Ashes to Ashes' in 1980. Then when Let's Dance came out in '83, I went to the concert. From that I went and bought Ziggy Stardust and Hunky Dory, and slowly got the rest of the 70s albums.

My parents listen to him, so I grew up listening to David Bowie, and automatically liked his music. Then I saw the China Girl video when I was pretty young and he was like my first crush ever! Then I saw Labyrinth when I was like 12 and my likeness for him grew! And when I was in high school, I started to steal my parents David Bowie CD's to listen to and I totally fell in love! :)

Be Happy for this Moment. This Moment is your Life.