BOWIE. “How do you recap the career of the man who was Major Tom, Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, and the Thin White Duke?,” asks Steve Green. “How do you sum up the music of the man who invented Glam, who recorded Alt Rock before there was an alternative scene, who with Brian Eno helped invent electronica, the Englishman who recorded great big blue-eyed soul like a Philly native, the pop crooner of twisted love songs, the hard rock frontman of Tin Machine, and who fought off his own death just long enough to release one final and haunting album? How do you define a human being whose personal life stretched from the darkest sex & drug days of the ’70s to a long and happy marriage to one of the most beautiful women in the world, from rumored dalliances with Mick Jagger to being a devoted and private family man?”

Read the whole thing — though perhaps Bowie himself summed up his multifaceted career — or at least his lyrical aims — the best: “The trousers may change, but the actual words and subjects I’ve always chosen to write with are things to do with isolation, abandonment, fear and anxiety — all of the high points of one’s life.”