October 9 - David Bowie

David Bowie

What more can be said about Bowie that hasn't already been covered this year? One of the most popular and innovative musicians of the 1970s and beyond, Bowie sold nearly 150 million records and changed the face (quite literally) of rock and pop music. Along with Queen, Bowie helped create the glam rock movement with his genderqueer alter ego Ziggy Stardust, an androgynous extraterrestrial who brought messages to Earth of sexual exploration. Coinciding with the release of his album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust..., Bowie came out as gay in Melody Maker magazine. Four years later, Bowie would change that label to one of bisexuality (in Playboy) before ultimately saying in 1983 that he was "a closet heterosexual" and claiming that declaring his bisexuality was "the biggest mistake" he ever made. He waffled back once again in 2002, confirming his bisexuality and attributing his reticence to own that label to closemindedness in America. He wanted to be an artist first and never a representative of any one sexuality, which is directly in line with the way his musical persona was presented: Ziggy Stardust was a mix of gender and sexual markers, and Bowie himself helped redefine what the masculine and feminine were. Aside from being one of the world's most lasting icons of rock music, he never allowed labels to define him and frequently defied them through both his music and his expression.