Rock and roll, rap, and the heavy stuff.
Continuing a week of reflection for the iconic, David Bowie, The Chelsea Tribe reached out to our network of renown artists, from various different mediums / styles, to find out their personal top 10 Bowie songs. It’s worth noting, many of our contributors below have had close, direct working relationships with Bowie himself, and / or they’ve been deeply influenced within their own artistic endeavors by Bowie’s timeless catalog of tunes / film appearances.
In remembrance of David Bowie, The Chelsea Tribe reached out to many of our close friends to ask for their personal favorite top 10 Bowie songs. Kicking off this editorial series, we are fortunate to have a special, in-depth guest contribution from, Martyn LeNoble (Bassist of Soulsavers, Porno for Pyros, and Thelonious Monster) listing some of his favorite Bowie tracks. Being that the subject at hand is undeniably a rock God, it proved difficult to confine Bowie’s body of work to only 10 songs, but here is Martyn’s digestible 20, with numerous interesting side-notes:
2015, a dynamically strong year in music, full of resonating sounds from decade-spanning legends and fresh talent alike. Just as we emerge into the new year, we see the rock n’ roll era shift and become forever altered.
While authoring this year-end list, it started to feel slightly foreshadowed and curated. Just as this post was about to be published, with Bowie appropriately topping the list of songs from 2015, news broke of his unfortunate passing, succumbing to an 18 month battle with cancer, which he kept under the wraps as he finished his “swan-song” album, Blackstar. This shattering news was beyond devastating, catching rock purists off guard, just as we were all attempting to process Lemmy’s death, which occurred only a week or so prior. Both David Bowie and Lemmy Kilmister were close in age, both recently celebrating their birthdays, 69 and 70 respectively. There’s many morbid coincidences, but most importantly, both artists set the archetype for blurring musical genres and becoming massively prolific in their discographies, at an exceedingly high standard. You’ve probably already read a dozen or more year-end lists on other sites, so we’re not reinventing the content-wheel here, nor attempting to write obituaries, but as The Chelsea Tribe’s inaugural post, here is a select list of memorable songs that spurred many repeated listens over the year. Also, check out our friends at Antiquiet for some of their staff picks, which share some of these same artists.