Showbiz411

Happy Birthday, David Bowie! A young 66 today! I don’t know about you, but I’ve really missed him. Bowie has a new song today and a video to go with it called “Where Are We Now?” It’s a beautiful, elegiac ballad. A new album — his first in freakin’ ten years– is due in March called “The Next Day.” The video is on Bowie’s site, www.davidbowie.com. The song, which I downloaded for $1.29, is on iTunes, so it’s a closed system thing. But you can hear a snippet of it there. The video is on vimeo, another closed system. The album will be on Sony, since RCA–Bowie’s old label–is part of that company now. Can’t wait for the album. The single is lovely. The video is arty, just like Bowie. By the way, “Changes” came out 41 years ago yesterday. It’s not possible since I remember hearing it on the radio when it debuted, and I’m only 34. Happy Birthday, Ziggy Stardust. Welcome back!

PS I will tell you a true story. I can remember doing homework, listening to WNEW-FM when they first played “Space Oddity.” It was the most remarkable thing coming out of the radio. And it still is. What passes for “music” today is criminal by comparison.

Play this, kids:

Space Oddity

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhSYbRiYwTY

Heroes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tgcc5V9Hu3g

Changes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xorNjvg1B48

Roger Friedman

Roger Friedman began his Showbiz411 column in April 2009 after 10 years with Fox News. Friedman previously wrote the Intelligencer column at New York Magazine, He writes for Parade magazine and has written for Details, Vogue, the New York Times, Post, and Daily News and many other publications. He is the writer and co-producer of a film about R&B Music called “Only the Strong Survive,” which was released by Miramax in 2003 and was a selection of the Cannes, Sundance, and Telluride Film festivals.