He was as British as one could wish for in the selfish, extroverted world of pop. This was not least reflected in his ironically imbued self-perception. He never took his job and his merits as a producer as an opportunity to put his own person in the foreground. He preferred to step back behind the work and praise the artistic genius of his clients. At a time when he was helping to establish the studio as a musical instrument, he saw himself, he once said, in the tradition of those foolhardy men in their flying boxes who had once conquered the airspace as "daring pilots, without a plan and in the open cockpit". Very British, indeed.
DAVID BOWIE
The man without qualities?
On 8 January, David Bowie, one of England's most dazzling, avant-garde, hedonistic and not least richest pop artists, reached the age of 60. Its status is inviolable, but the characteristics of the restless are difficult to grasp. Does the artist character David Bowie not have any characteristics at all in the end?
