“TOMORROW BELONGS TO THOSE WHO CAN HEAR IT COMING”

Fittingly, it is unreal, like an elaborate ruse. In my heart, it is simply another strange, challenging expression of restless artistry. David Bowie always had an otherworldly authority to him, even aside from the instances in which he purposefully claimed alien personae, so it stands to reason that a late-in-life guise, a long-gestating follow-up to Ziggy Stardust or the Thin White Duke, would involve something more ethereal. Here’s a method to haul the heavens down to the earthly firmament, claiming an angelic cloak nicely timed to coincide with the release of a new album preoccupied with legacy and mortality. I don’t mean to suggest the cold calculation of a put-on as much as the multi-faceted ingenuity of a born showman. In truth, though, this crackpot theory is willful delusion. I don’t want to think of Bowie as truly gone.

Bowie is one of those artists who was always there, not only well into his globally successful career by the time I was old enough to pay attention, but seemingly omnipresent. That quality partially stemmed from his vaunted pliability, which let him stalk the stage with sexual danger or chum up next to Bing Crosby in a television Christmas special and sing “The Little Drummer Boy,” taking on every drastically different assignment with equal ease. His work ethic was also a factor. Through the nineteen-seventies, not a single year passed without a new Bowie record, including two double-album live releases. There are stretches during that decade, undoubtedly his most creatively prosperous, when his ability to prolifically craft incredible music is mind-boggling. Enduring classics Low and “Heroes” both arrived in 1977, no more than ten months between their respective release dates.

I once posed a theory in a rambling music discussion, asserting that the Beatles were the quintessential trailblazers and the Rolling Stones were similarly representative of the skilled followers (the latter demonstrated most clearly by the somewhat clumsy adoption of psychedelia on Their Satanic Majesties Request and the more successful incorporation of disco stylings on Some Girls). Fantastically, Bowie straddled those two artistic approaches. For all his chameleon-like turns, Bowie was rarely the genuine inventor of one of his new sounds. Instead, he was highly attuned to what was going on around him — be it glam rock, prog, disco, new wave — and prepared to transform with such radical rapidity that he always appeared to be leading the parade. But he also instilled enough of his own archly ingenious self into everything, finessing each adopted style so that it gave the prevailing music scene a sidelong glance rather than a chummy embrace. That attribute is one of the chief reasons Bowie’s best music remains timeless while the glitter has faded to dust for so many of his contemporaries.

Despite his status as one of the figures most befitting the title rock god, Bowie felt oddly approachable. He radiated decency and wit. As with any rock performer of his era who lasted, Bowie knew could create material with hearty veins of menace. But there are also plenty of readily identifiable reasons his music is ideal to underscore moments of pure joy. Sometimes — with some songs, with some records — it could seem that Bowie was too wondrous for this world, which may explain why he needed to become so adept at reinventing it. For those who can’t easily find their place, they have to build it on their own. Thankfully, Bowie’s majestic constructions were there for all to share, gleaming promises of perpetual betterment.