I heard the news today…* Last ever BBC session at Maida Vale Studios, Bowie Nights come to King’s Cross, Bowie’s former Granville Towers home hits the market, Black Crowes perform “The Jean Genie,” Ayla Tesler-Mabé covers “Fame,” Tom Hagler on Bowie, the BBC and his heroes plus MORE!
Welcome to my weekly roundup of Bowie news! Read on for summaries of Bowie-related stories that posted this past week, and click on the bolded story names to link to the original articles…
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NEWS
Last ever BBC session at Maida Vale Studios. Fontaines D.C. became the final artists to record a BBC session at Maida Vale Studios, a legendary venue where Bowie and many other major musicians previously performed before its closure and redevelopment.
David Bowie Nights Bring Peter Gregson, Pitchblack Playback And Summer Sounds To King’s Cross. Lightroom in King’s Cross, London, England, will host Bowie Nights from August through September, featuring concerts, pitch-black listening sessions, a book launch, and other events celebrating Bowie’s music alongside its immersive David Bowie: You’re Not Alone exhibition.
Granville Towers Residence Once Home to David Bowie Hits the Market. A West Hollywood apartment once occupied by Bowie and Iman is being offered for lease, combining its historical connection to Bowie with the preserved 1930s architecture and modern amenities of the iconic Granville Towers.
Black Crows perform Bowie Live. The Black Crowes’ Southern Hospitality tour has featured several long-unplayed songs and covers, including their first performance this year of Bowie’s “The Jean Genie” during their August 4 concert in Lincoln, Nebraska.
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FEATURES AND REFLECTIONS
Ziggy Bigger than Bowie. Bowie’s creation of the Ziggy Stardust persona blurred the boundary between fiction and reality so completely that the androgynous alien rock star became a cultural icon whose influence on glam rock, fashion, and popular culture briefly eclipsed Bowie himself.
The confusing sexuality of David Bowie. Bowie publicly identified as gay in 1972, later described himself as bisexual, subsequently distanced himself from those statements before later expressing no regret about people knowing he was bisexual, reflecting a public discussion of his sexuality that shifted over time.
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PROFLIES
Glen Hansard. Two days after Bowie’s death, Glen Hansard performed an unannounced rendition of “Ashes to Ashes” at the memorial outside Bowie’s New York apartment building, delivering a performance worthy of admiration beyond the tribute itself.
Rick Wakeman. Rick Wakeman’s upcoming album Return to the Red Planet includes the track “Bowie’s Vision,” inspired by his renewed exploration of Mars and reflecting his connection to Bowie as the pianist on “Life on Mars?”
David Torn. David Torn’s first album in more than a decade, Now I Imagine a Place Not the Same, expands his signature experimental guitar sound with immersive looping and cinematic atmospheres, including passages that recall his work with Bowie on The Next Day while evoking the moods of Outside and the Berlin trilogy.
Tim Pope. Tim Pope’s memoir recounts how his success directing visually daring and often hazardous music videos for artists including Bowie grew from an unconventional filmmaking career, with Bowie placing extraordinary trust in his creative vision.
Ed Askew. Ed Askew’s The Final Painting combines the musical adventurousness of Bowie’s Blackstar with Leonard Cohen’s lyrical sensuality while serving as a moving final meditation on mortality and artistic farewell.
Willie Weeks. Willie Weeks, who performed with Bowie and many other major artists, established himself as one of rock’s most accomplished bassists through his influential playing, including his solo on Donny Hathaway’s “Voices Inside (Everything Is Everything),” and earned admiration from musicians such as George Harrison.
Letícia Hall. Model Letícia Hall embodies the enduring influence of Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust persona by channeling its androgynous glam aesthetic in a fashion editorial that coincides with new archival releases and exhibitions celebrating his artistic legacy.
Carlos Alomar. Carlos Alomar recalled how his friendship with Bowie led to the formation of the band behind Young Americans, reflected on collaborating with Bowie and John Lennon on “Fame,” and shared memories of working with Paul McCartney, Chuck Berry and other rock legends.
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THIS WEEK IN THIS BLOG
August 2: Last week’s news
August 3: David Bowie Cover of the Week: Ayla Tesler-Mabé covers “Fame”
August 4: Drive-in Saturday Tuesday Movie Review: Spider Man Brand New Day (2026)
August 5: “Everything Zen’s” shot at Bowie
August 6: Albums I’d Rather have than the Shel Talmy Recordings, Part 3: Millennial Bonus Tracks and B-Sides
August 7: Find Bowie game (updated again)
August 7: DoM’s latest mashup: “Fashion Music”
August 8: Tom Hagler on Bowie, the BBC and his Heroes…
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LISTS
Rock’s 13 most painfully autobiographical songs. Bowie’s “Jump They Say” was inspired by the death of his half-brother Terry Burns, whose struggles with schizophrenia profoundly influenced Bowie’s artistic development and informed the song’s themes of mental illness, social pressure and despair.
Bowie’s 29 greatest songs. Bowie’s greatest songs reflect his continual reinvention across glam rock, the experimental late 1970s, and his later industrial work, combining major hits with atmospheric deep cuts that demonstrate his role in shaping rather than merely following musical and cultural change.
Five music success stories that blur the line between luck and genius. Bowie’s “Space Oddity” became closely associated with the Apollo 11 moon landing after its release just days before the mission, with its timely arrival helping establish it as a classic.
Legendary Performances Captured on Film. Bowie’s filmed final Ziggy Stardust performance at London’s Hammersmith Odeon on July 3, 1973, ended the Ziggy persona in a theatrical concert that became a landmark of rock performance and concert filmmaking.
Five albums that defined life in 1976. Station to Station helped bridge Bowie’s glam era and the Berlin trilogy by combining avant-garde krautrock with narrative songwriting in ways that influenced a new wave of experimental, genre-blending music.
Scotland’s 100 most popular boys’ names in the 1970s. The popularity of names in Scotland at the start of the 1970s reflected contemporary cultural influences, including Bowie’s emergence as a pop culture icon through Ziggy Stardust.
20 Classic Rock musicians who’ve acted in movies. Bowie built on his early drama and mime training to establish a successful acting career that included leading roles in films such as The Man Who Fell To Earth, Labyrinth, and Basquiat, with his portrayal of the Goblin King Jareth becoming especially beloved by a generation of viewers.
5 Rock Albums Better Than Sgt. Pepper’s. The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars transcended glam rock by combining broad popular appeal with artistic ambition, making it the strongest single introduction to his work.
5 Nearly Perfect David Bowie Songs. Bowie’s essential songs reflect the creativity, stylistic reinvention, songwriting, and collaborations that defined his career and deserve renewed attention from younger generations despite a perceived decline in his posthumous cultural prominence.
3 Songs From 1975 That Teens Couldn’t Stop Playing in Their First Car. Bowie’s forward-looking embrace of funk produced the 1975 Young Americans hit “Fame,” which appealed across generations and reached No. 1 in the United States and the Top 20 internationally.
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CHURNALISM
This section separates genuine Bowie news and original writing from recycled “churnalism” stories with vague click-bait headlines that often repeat familiar information but may still be of interest if readers have not seen them before.
What song was number one when David Bowie died in 2016? What a bizarre piece of click bait. The answer, which has little to do with the long lead-up to the answer, is the number one song on the UK singles chart was Justin Bieber’s “Love Yourself”. However, on the US Billboard Hot 100, it was Adele’s “Hello”.
The 1972 album Joe Elliott wanted to send to space. This is another very weird attempt to milk an entire story out of what appeared to be a comment, this one made by Def Leppard’s Elliott that Ziggy Stardust should be sent into space as representative art from our species for anyone else out there to find. In the process, the “article” mentions that “no other musician has ever been as closely associated with alien life and other worlds as David Bowie.” By way of example, it cites “Space Oddity,” “Life on Mars?,” “Starman,” “Moonage Daydream,” “Loving the Alien,” and “Hallo Spaceboy.” Of these songs, only “Starman” appears to be related to alien life — and that’s assuming that the Starman is an alien, which the song doesn’t firmly establish. Also, while one of the songs obviously mentions Mars, and two others use phrases that include the word “Moon,” none of them is actually about “other worlds.”
The 1967 prog-rock frontman John Lydon hailed as a true original. John Lydon praised Peter Hammill as a “true original,” suggested Bowie drew significant inspiration from Hammill’s solo work, and highlighted Bowie’s “Rebel Rebel” among the diverse records that shaped his own musical outlook.
The day David Bowie discovered the next T Rex in Leeds. Bowie’s endorsement of the Mekons’ “Where Were You?” by comparing the band to a young T. Rex helped raise the group’s profile during the emergence of Britain’s post-punk movement.
The musician Paul McCartney and John Lennon crowned as the best of the 1970s. Bowie seized the artistic leadership of the 1970s by expanding the creative possibilities of popular music beyond the Beatles’ influence through continual reinvention exemplified by Ziggy Stardust.
The 1982 song Elvis Costello really wanted David Bowie to sing. Bowie profoundly influenced Elvis Costello, who considered him a dream collaborator and later revealed that Bowie had contemplated recording “Shipbuilding,” although the collaboration never came to fruition.
A David Bowie classic is being used in an unlikely way. Bowie conceived “Five Years” as an apocalyptic yet ultimately optimistic reflection on humanity’s technological future, making its use in an AI advertisement both controversial and potentially ironic because its original context contrasts sharply with the commercial’s reassuring message while still introducing the song to a new audience.
The 1984 album David Bowie was forced to make. Bowie recorded Tonight under pressure from EMI to quickly follow the commercial success of Let’s Dance, resulting in an album he later disliked that reflected record label demands more than his own artistic ambitions.
The 1960s musician Dave Grohl thought was in his own universe. Dave Grohl credits Bowie’s Let’s Dance and seemingly otherworldly capacity for reinvention with helping inspire him to become a drummer, before later befriending and working with Bowie and coming to appreciate his distinctive humor through exchanges that included a poignant reference to “running out of birthdays” during his private battle with cancer.
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And with that, “we’ve finished our news…”*
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*“I’ve heard the news today” is Bowie’s adaptation of the Beatles lyric, which is heard in “Young Americans.” **“We’ve finished our news” is a line from, “Oh You Pretty Things”