I heard the news today…* RIP Zimmerman, Vivino and Broomfield; Bowie charts again; KillerStar’s new single; exhibits, covers, Klees on Heathen and MUCH MORE!
Welcome to my weekly roundup of Bowie news! After two weeks of heavy coverage of the 10th anniversary of Bowie’s passing, Bowie-related news stories were a little more diverse over this past week. The most significant series of stories had to do with the passing of three figures on the periphery of the Bowie universe. 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…
—
NEWS
RIP Tucker Zimmerman. Folk singer Tucker Zimmerman died at 84 alongside his wife Marie-Claire Lambert in a house fire in Belgium, and his legacy is closely tied to Bowie, who admired his 1969 album Ten Songs by Tucker Zimmerman, supported his performances in Beckenham, and regarded him as a deeply influential songwriter.
RIP Floyd Vivino. “Uncle Floyd,” the influential New Jersey comedian and host of The Uncle Floyd Show who died at 74, left a legacy of absurdist comedy and punk-era television that inspired artists including David Bowie, who wrote the song “Slip Away”—released on Heathen—with lyrics referencing Floyd and his puppets, Oogie and Bones Boy.
RIP Chris Broomfield. Chris Broomfield, a widely respected figure in Scottish comedy and beyond, is being mourned at age 69 for a multifaceted career that included running a successful Glasgow salon and, in the early 1970s, styling David Bowie’s hair during the Ziggy Stardust era.
Bowie’s Albums Return To The Charts A Decade After His Death. A decade after his death, Bowie sees multiple albums and collaborations surge back onto U.K. charts across downloads, vinyl, soundtracks, and singles, with renewed interest in works like Hunky Dory, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, Blackstar, and songs such as “Heroes” and “Dancing in the Street.”
KillerStar release new single ‘Afterglow.’ Founded by Rob Fleming and James Sedge to fuse 1970s art-rock with modern alternative influences, the band drew in collaborators from David Bowie’s circle for a well-received debut and now preview their March 20 release The Afterglow with its title track as the new single.
Green Day singer and son cover “Heroes.” Billie Joe Armstrong and his son Jakob have recorded a cover of David Bowie’s “Heroes,” with Billie Joe on lead vocals and Jakob performing alongside him, for a promotional video marking the 50th season of Survivor, which premieres in February.
Jehnny Beth Covers Bowie At British Library Tribute Event. At a British Library tribute marking ten years since Bowie’s death, Jehnny Beth performed piano covers of “Dollar Days” and “Girl Loves Me” from Blackstar with Donny McCaslin and reflected on how Bowie’s final work reshaped her understanding of art, mortality, and creative defiance.
Harry Styles’ fans declare the music video for his new song is ‘David Bowie coded.’ Fans are speculating that Harry Styles’s new video for “Aperture,” released after a four-year hiatus, deliberately echoes David Bowie’s “I’m Afraid of Americans” by mirroring its chase-driven structure and visual motifs, while reworking the confrontation into a choreographed dance that has been widely labeled “David Bowie coded.”
Hello Starman! An exhibition in Parma titled David Bowie Hello Starman runs from January to April 2026 as a group show curated by Stefano Bianchi that brings together contemporary artists, films, and multimedia projects to reinterpret Bowie’s many personas from Ziggy Stardust to Blackstar, presenting him as an enduring symbol of transformation, creative freedom, and cross-disciplinary influence.
Murcia photo exhibit. To mark the 10th anniversary of Bowie’s death, the city of Murcia in Spain is hosting a major free exhibition celebrating the life, legacy, and many artistic identities of the David Bowie.
Exploring a positive future for AI music. Industry figures at a London music business conference discuss how generative AI music could evolve into useful, additive creative tools rather than replacements for artists, arguing that thoughtful design, governance, and industry collaboration could lead to positive outcomes and suggesting that Bowie, known for embracing new technologies and experimentation, would likely have engaged enthusiastically rather than fearfully with these developments. I tend to agree with this, at least in a general sense.
Seu Jorge Revisits David Bowie Songs From The Life Aquatic. Seu Jorge presents a filmed live performance revisiting his Portuguese-language interpretations of Bowie songs created for The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, reflecting on how embodying Pelé dos Santos led him to reinterpret Bowie’s songwriting across eras through intimacy, voice, and restraint while honoring Bowie’s lasting musical influence.
Bowie episode of Hot Press Classics out now. An episode of Hot Press Classics marks the 50th anniversary of Station to Station , with Paul Nolan and Donny Keane reflecting on Bowie’s late-career legacy including Blackstar, his artistic consistency, reclusiveness, mental health, live theatricality, and global impact, and concluding with archival remarks from bassist Gail Ann Dorsey about performing “Under Pressure,” Dublin concerts, and the significance of Bowie’s death.
—
REFLECTIONS
The Night Bowie Brought Ziggy Stardust To Guildford. A vivid recollection of Bowie’s 1973 Ziggy Stardust tour stop at Guildford Civic Hall describes the Beethoven intro, theatrical staging, cultural anxieties behind the songs, and Bowie’s electrifying transformation into Ziggy as a moment when he reshaped rock performance and left a lasting mark on those who witnessed it.
The Goblin King still casts the longest spell. Bowie’s many personas fused music, image, and intellectual ambition, and long after his death one of the most durable has been Jareth in Labyrinth, a role that unexpectedly concentrates his theatrical and psychological interests while positioning him as a seductive, unsettling figure within a fantasy shaped by a resentful teenage girl’s imagination.
Quote of the day by David Bowie. Bowie is highlighted for his lifelong insistence on creative independence—captured in the quote “I’m just an individual who doesn’t feel I need to have somebody qualify my work. I’m working for me.”
Station To Station 50th Anniversary. Fifty years after its 1976 release, Station To Station is presented as a pivotal work that introduced the Thin White Duke, bridged his American soul period with European modernism, emerged from a fraught Los Angeles recording process marked by addiction, yielded songs such as “Station To Station,” “Golden Years,” “Word On A Wing,” and “TVC 15,” and served as the gateway to the Berlin Trilogy that followed with Low, “Heroes,” and Lodger.
On music and mortality. Arguing that great rock artists can peak late, the passage contrasts David Bowie’s final album Blackstar—a forward-looking, mortality-focused work shaped by contemporary influences and released days before his death—with legacy acts like AC/DC, suggesting Bowie continued to evolve artistically while many peers remain frozen in an earlier era.
The Ziggy Stardust star still shines bright. David Bowie, who died in January 2016 at age 69, was a prolific and transformative cultural figure whose 54-year career encompassed constant reinvention through music, performance, and multiple stage personas, resulting in 26 studio albums, massive global sales, and a wide-ranging influence across fashion, film, and popular culture.
The One Minute Music Book Club: Lazarus-The Second Coming of David Bowie. The book by Alexander Larman examines Bowie’s six-decade career as a cycle of reinvention, decline, and resurgence, framing his final years and death in 2016 as a deliberately shaped artistic conclusion that reinforces Bowie’s lasting cultural significance.
Catherine Drea on “Space Oddity”. A reflective meditation on space travel, the International Space Station, and humanity’s shared fragility weaves personal wonder with science and geopolitics, returning repeatedly to Bowie and “Space Oddity” and ending by invoking his enduring question in “Life on Mars” as exploration turns once again toward the Moon and beyond.
Behind John Lennon’s decision to enlist Bowie‘s go-to guitarist for his best-selling solo album. Earl Slick recounts how his work as Bowie’s longtime guitarist made him visible to John Lennon, but how Lennon ultimately chose him for Double Fantasy precisely because he was a street rock player who couldn’t read music, valuing raw instinct over technique in a way that also defined Slick’s role in Bowie’s evolving sound.
On “Word on A Wing.” “Word on a Wing,” the least performed and least streamed track from Station to Station, stands out as a deeply personal prayer reflecting one of the rare moments when Bowie seriously engaged with faith, featuring his understated piano-and-voice collaboration with Roy Bittan, an early Springsteen associate who played on both Station to Station and Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps).
The TV shows that utterly baffle us. A reflection on Twin Peaks emphasizes how its deliberately baffling imagery and dream logic, including Bowie’s uncanny appearance amid surreal mythology, coexist with an emotionally clear core about a detective’s long pursuit of justice for a murdered teenager, making confusion itself part of the experience rather than an obstacle.
Labyrinth Made the ’80s SO Much Better. Labyrinth, initially a box office failure and now a cult classic returning to theaters for its 40th anniversary, centers on Jennifer Connelly’s Sarah navigating a surreal maze ruled by Bowie as the Goblin King, whose songs including “Magic Dance,” “Underground,” and “When the World Falls Down” anchor a story about adolescence, imagination, and the darker edges of growing up.
Hunky Dory Review. Hunky Dory is described as a decisive creative breakthrough that unifies stylistic range and thematic ambition through songs like “Changes,” “Oh! You Pretty Things,” and “Life on Mars?” while openly absorbing influences from Dylan, The Velvet Underground, and Andy Warhol to establish the artistic foundation for his 1970s work.
The Only Actor To Work With Lynch, Nolan, And Scorsese Isn’t Who You’d Expect. Yep, its Bowie. Maybe, since you are reading this post, you did expect it.
How Jeff Beck foiled Bowie’s plans after appearing on the biggest night of the Ziggy Stardust tour. The long-coveted but elusive collaboration between Bowie and Jeff Beck culminated in Beck’s guest appearance on the final night of the Ziggy Stardust tour playing “The Jean Genie,” only for his footage to be withheld from the original film release due to his refusal to sign a release, underscoring both Bowie’s ambition and Beck’s famously unjoinable temperament.
Paul Morley Reframes Bowie Legacy In Far Above The World. Paul Morley’s book presents Bowie as a living, forward-facing cultural force whose contradictions, constant reinvention, and use of pop music to interpret unstable times make his work increasingly relevant a decade after his death.
In an inspiring 1983 interview, Bowie calls out MTV for featuring so few Black artists. Bowie’s 1983 MTV News appearance is revisited to show him calmly but firmly challenging the network’s marginalization of Black artists, reinforcing how his public stance on fairness and cultural responsibility matched the moral seriousness that runs through songs like “Heroes.”
Bowie Turned a Tour Bus Jam Session Into a One Take Song. Bowie wrote “The Jean Genie” while on the Ziggy Stardust tour after a spontaneous jam with Mick Ronson, recorded it in a single take to capture its raw immediacy, viewed it as his first New York song inspired in part by Cyrinda Foxe, and applied the same instinctive, low-take approach to songs such as “Life on Mars?” and “Heroes,” a method that helped make the single a major UK success.
Station To Station 50th Anniversary Celebrated. Bowie recorded Station to Station in Los Angeles after completing The Man Who Fell to Earth, adopted the Thin White Duke persona, assembled an American-backed band featuring Carlos Alomar and Earl Slick, and created songs including “Golden Years,” “Stay,” “TVC 15,” “Wild Is the Wind,” and the title track that later influenced artists such as The Cars, Talking Heads, and Gary Numan.
The Sinatra Song That Inspired Bowie’s Classic Hit. Bowie wrote “Life on Mars?” in part as a creative response to Frank Sinatra’s “My Way,” which itself came from the same French source Bowie had tried to adapt, using Sinatra’s success with that song as motivation to craft something of his own with similar impact.
Why Bowie said Bob Dylan hated him. As Bowie’s profile rose in the 1970s, rumors circulated about a possible collaboration with Bob Dylan, but Bowie firmly dismissed them in a 1976 interview, saying they were not close, barely spoke when they met, and suggesting that Dylan actively disliked him.
The brilliant one-liner Bowie stole from John Lennon. Bowie recalled being introduced to John Lennon by Elizabeth Taylor and described Lennon as both a mentor and a comic influence, illustrating their rapport with an anecdote about Lennon deflecting a fan in Hong Kong by joking that he was not Lennon but wished he had his money.
—
PROFLIES
Tom Cossie. Music executive Tom Cossie recounts his RCA Victor years promoting major artists including Elvis Presley and Michael Nesmith while detailing how he helped secure Bowie’s RCA signing, acquire his earlier catalog, break “Changes” from Hunky Dory, and launch the Ziggy Stardust era that turned Bowie into a megastar.
Syd Barrett. Bowie repeatedly cited Pink Floyd founder Syd Barrett as a major inspiration, praising his songwriting, charisma, British vocal style, and the unsettling, poignant qualities that influenced Bowie’s own characters such as Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, and the Thin White Duke.
Richard Lloyd. Richard Lloyd recalls how synesthesia, early encounters with Hendrix and Led Zeppelin, and years of creative friction and business disputes with Tom Verlaine shaped Television songs like “Marquee Moon,” “See No Evil,” “Friction,” and “Guiding Light,” and he says Bowie once had to mix Verlaine out of a Bowie track because Verlaine was so difficult in the studio.
Rob Zombie. Rob Zombie releases the hard-driving single “(I’m a) Rock ‘N’ Roller” ahead of his forthcoming album The Great Satan, performing with his band in a basement-style video that celebrates rock lineage through lyrical nods to figures ranging from David Bowie and T. Rex to the Sweet and Jimmy Page.
—
LISTS
5 Rock Songs From 1971 That Sound Even Cooler Today. A survey of influential rock songs from 1971 argues that enduring tracks by Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones, the Who, and John Lennon still resonate today, with Bowie’s “Life on Mars?” highlighted as a pivotal, cinematic work that captures his emerging glam-era vision and lasting cultural impact.
5 Songs From 1972 That Define Rock History. A look at landmark songs from 1972 traces how rock splintered into new forms while centering Bowie’s “Moonage Daydream” as a defining glam-rock statement that crystallized his Ziggy Stardust persona and helped push the genre toward theatrical reinvention alongside contemporaries like Lou Reed, Stevie Wonder, Elton John, and Steely Dan.
The 5 Best Rock Songs For Boomers And Their Children To Bond Over. A cross-generational playlist argues that enduring rock anthems help boomers and their children connect emotionally, with Bowie’s “Heroes” singled out as a uniquely powerful bridge whose Berlin-era message and history continue to resonate across generations alongside classics like “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “Stairway to Heaven.”
The worst albums from rock’s 19 greatest bands. A survey of widely criticized releases by major rock artists highlights how experimentation, band turmoil, and commercial pressure led to misfires ranging from Lou Reed’s abrasive Metal Machine Music to Queen’s disco-leaning Hot Space, while noting Bowie’s own Never Let Me Down as a rare low point he later disavowed, underscoring that even Bowie and his peers were not immune to creative failure.
Heavier Songs by Artists Who Usually Don’t Go That Hard. A wide-ranging survey of unexpectedly heavy tracks shows artists known for restraint or polish embracing distortion, volume, and fury, from Prince’s “The Beautiful Ones” and U2’s “Exit” to Pink Floyd’s “The Nile Song” and Bowie’s hard-rock turn on “She Shook Me Cold,” highlighting how Bowie fits within a broader tradition of artists periodically pushing against their own stylistic boundaries.
5 Rock Songs From 1983 That Sound Even Cooler Today. Bowie’s chart-dominating “Let’s Dance,” created with Nile Rodgers, stands as a defining example of how that year fused rock credibility with pop ambition in ways that continue to shape modern music.
3 Movies That Capture the Musical Spirit of 1980s Cold War Culture. The films Christiane F. and Atomic Blonde use carefully chosen soundtracks to evoke divided-era Berlin, with the former grounding its bleak portrait of 1970s West Berlin in music by David Bowie and Brian Eno from Bowie’s Berlin period, and the latter framing a stylized Cold War spy narrative around late-1980s tracks by artists such as Bowie, Nena, New Order, and Falco.
5 Rock Songs From 1981 That Sound Even Cooler Today. “Under Pressure” endures as a powerful collaboration between Freddie Mercury and David Bowie, blending a timeless theme about the strain of everyday life with stripped-down rock instrumentation and an iconic riff that has been repeatedly reinterpreted, revived, and renewed in popular culture without losing its emotional force.
3 Late-Career Rock Songs That Proved Musicians Still Had It. “Lazarus” stands as a stark, self-aware farewell in which David Bowie confronts his impending death with unflinching clarity, transforming the song into a raw and unsettling final statement that seems to anticipate his own fate.
—
FAR OUT MAGAZINE
Far Out publishes multiple Bowie-related items each week, a small number of which reflect genuine reporting or offer a fresh perspective, but the majority recycle long-circulating anecdotes under headlines crafted to suggest new revelations, so given both the sheer volume and the uneven reliability, I treat these posts as a separate category rather than alongside more consistently dependable sources. This week featured:
(1) The singer Trent Reznor saw as his lifelong “inspiration”
(2) A hypothetical guide to David Bowie’s music in ‘Trainspotting’
(3) My first time listening to the flux of David Bowie on ‘Station to Station’
(4) The song David Bowie wrote to piss Mick Jagger off
(5) When Freddie Mercury almost ruined Queen’s big break
—
THIS WEEK IN THIS BLOG
January 18: Last Week’s News
January 19: David Bowie Cover of the Week: Declan McKenna covers “Valentine’s Day” and “Oh! You Pretty Things.”
January 20: Who in the world was Alvin Stardust?
January 21: Is Bowie’s musical legacy at risk of fading?
January 22: Brixton Jones releases “All the Young Dudes”
January 23: On Heathen
January 24: Bowie Author Don Klees on Heathen
—
And with that, “we’ve finished our news…”*
—
*“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”