On Bowie, Lemmy and Weiland

I’m not a huge David Bowie fan.

Didn’t really grow up with him. We had a Best of Bowie CD sitting in our little CD spindle under our stereo, but we rarely put it on – and if we did, I don’t recall being around for it. Obviously, I’m aware of “Under Pressure” and “Rebel Rebel” and some of his biggest songs, and they’re pretty good. But I’ve never been inclined to truly dive into his catalog.

Same thing with Motorhead – outside of “Ace of Spades,” I couldn’t reliably identify another Motorhead song by name, aside from their confusing cover of “Eat the Rich.” I could identify Lemmy’s throaty bark from a mile away, though. To a lesser extent, the same goes for Stone Temple Pilots. I know their catalog slightly better than Bowie or Motorhead, but it’s mostly Scott Weiland’s trademark wail singing his trademark vocal melodies that tip me off. They’re a perfectly fine band in my mind, but they didn’t directly shape my feelings on music.

So emotionally, hearing that each of these individuals – Bowie, Lemmy and Weiland –  were no longer with us brought more surprise than sadness, more shock than lament, more sorry for the people who are clearly more emotionally impacted. Bowie never let anyone know about his illness, and Lemmy and Weiland seemed as if they were going to live the life of rock ‘n’ roll excess in perpetuity. This is not intended to sound unfeeling, even though it surely does. There’s just a lack of emotional connection that drives this sort of grief, the type that you feel when someone you’ve never met personally and yet means so much to you dies.

One may call the process of turning the deaths of three musical legends into an excuse to discuss your own music preferences as selfish and demeaning, but honestly, the biggest reason folks are impacted by Bowie or Lemmy or Weiland’s loss isn’t because they were waiting with baited breath for their new release. (Yes, Bowie just put out an album recently, but you know what I mean)

No, it’s because music makes each individual feel a certain way, and we naturally personalize it. A completely non-scientific study of social media connections who posted about Bowie showed about half of them commented on specific traits of his music, like the guitar riff of “Suffragette City.” The other half mentioned how Bowie was the soundtrack of their high school years, and some of their most fun memories involved dancing to his music.

The best compliment I, as someone who greatly respects the talent of these three men without growing up with their presence, can pay to Bowie, Lemmy and Weiland is a compliment a friend of mine from college paid to Led Zeppelin. One of the best musicians I know, he said he never liked Zeppelin’s music, though he acknowledged their reach and talent. Same goes for my girlfriend, who doesn’t like the Beatles even though they’ve influenced many of the bands she enjoys.

I may not know many of Bowie’s songs, but his willingness to cross many genres and his defiantly non-macho public persona normalized experimentation for many bands that followed. Same with Weiland, who also brought a glam-rock persona to the generally grave genre of grunge, which many bands of the new millennium emulated (for better or worse). Lemmy…well, Lemmy’s unwavering devotion punk, thrash and blues have always been appealing, but his band’s relentles

sness (and his Herculean liver) became the stuff of legend.

That’s how it works with legends. Not everyone will be able to draw the line between the names Bowie, Lemmy and Weiland and the bands they enjoy who were influenced by those three, but the line certainly exists. Young basketball players and fans may look up to LeBron James and Kevin Durant today, but they’ll always know the name Jordan, the man that inspired James and Durant. And anyone who enjoys music, no matter how casually or seriously, will feel the influence of legends like Weiland, Lemmy, and especially Bowie for decades, whether they know it or not.