13. David Bowie
No list about space could not include him. A lot will be written about Bowie over the next few months and I doubt I can add anything meaningful to it. ‘Ashes to Ashes’ is my favourite track, but it’s not really the music, he was just fucking cool and completely sci-fi to the end.
I had this weird feeling of patriotism after he died. I’ve always hated patriotism in England and the association with right-wing politics and all that sort of stuff, apart from when I thought about Bowie… I got this massive sense of patriotism! I don’t even consider him a British artist exactly as he feels more international than that.
He somehow managed to avoid ever really fucking it up, which is a miracle when you work for your whole life on something. Even the jungle collaboration he did – even that doesn’t sound dated, or like a dent in his career. When an artist jumps on a new bandwagon and tries to get involved with the newest thing – that’s often seen as something really negative. It’s like, "Oh, so this washed-up rockstar wants to find out what the kids are listening to", but he’s the opposite of that. He’s someone who just endlessly nurtured new ideas.
‘Ashes To Ashes’ is one of the least sci-fi tracks by him so it doesn’t even quite fit on this list, but as someone who’s dedicated their life to going so far beyond humanity, he has to be included in some way.
