“I have great respect for him”: Sting believes all modern artists still imitate David Bowie
Despite what nostalgia tries to tell you, modern music is in a truly great state.
New music is pushing back against unprecedented levels of economic and structural oppression that continually threaten to kill the livelihoods of burgeoning artists, yet in the face of that danger, modern musicians continue to churn out some of the most interesting work in history.
But you’re not supposed to know that, because, as we have come to learn in recent years, nostalgia is a trend that comforts us a whole lot more than contemporary art, and so as society scratches around for answers to the existential questions of our troubled modernity, we inherently look back in the belief that they’ll lie somewhere in history.
But in doing so, we exercise such a heightened sense of hypocrisy without even realising. Heralding the legends of yesteryear as the saviours of the troubled today, we are failing to remember that their legacy was cemented on their own desire to be resolutely contemporary.
Particularly in the case of David Bowie, who, without fear or reason, continued to rebel against what was expected of him as an artist in a bid to constantly evolve. Bowie never provided music with what they wanted, but instead what they didn’t realise they needed and in doing so, became the icon that he was.
His approach to music making made him a timeless artist and one whose influence is arguably felt today, more than any other. At least, that’s what Sting firmly believes, as he said, “Most modern bands are facsimiles of David Bowie. A lot of singers are imitators of David Bowie. I have great respect for him.”
But Bowie wasn’t the type of artist to begrudge that. He deeply understood the patterns of influence and would have encouraged and celebrated the fleet of modern artists whose sound takes influence from his. His answer to societal strife was never to look backwards, in the blind hope that nostalgia would provide the answer, but to instead boldly step forward and allow artistic evolution to take its course.
Because of those artists that Sting rightly recognises as having taken influence from Bowie, are a string of names who are making an original impact on the world nonetheless. Sure, shades of Bowie’s greatness have been taken and injected into their sound, but with a unique sense of individuality that Bowie himself would have championed.
Whether it was a band as big as the Arctic Monkeys taking heed from Bowie’s storytelling to pen the glamorous Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino, or someone a lot earlier in the career like The Last Dinner Party, Bowie’s influence is, as Sting points out, felt, but not ripped off.
Because ultimately, Bowie himself was so elusive in how he approached his own art that anyone who accurately takes influence from his music adopts a similar sense of ambiguity that makes their sound feel somewhat individual to them. While there are certainly Bowie imitators out there, most of the modern greats are not; instead, they are just protectors of the sort of originality he championed.
