Remembering the greats and the music they left behind

Header image for Interrobang article CREDIT: AUTHOR: ADAM KLICZEK, HTTP://ZATRZYMUJECZAS.PL (CC-BY-SA-3.0)
These musicians have changed many people's lives in their day, they will not be easily forgotten.

It has been an incredibly dark winter for music. I’m not talking about the sorry state of the industry, slumping album sales, and the evil side of streaming websites or the fact that Justin Bieber is the second highest grossing artist right now. I’m referring to a string of deaths that have fallen too close together to give anyone time to properly grieve, let alone catch their breath. I’m talking about Lemmy Kilmister (Motörhead), David Jones (David Bowie) and Glenn Frey (Eagles).

It’s hard to get away from the constant bombardment of death these days. It’s not that death is a new concept, it just seems that in this day the media uses it to keep their citizens in place. Terrorism, world disasters and war are all streamed around the clock directly into the houses of anyone with Internet or cable, and in a way, it’s made us all a little desensitized.

We’re so desensitized that when a beautiful and creative mind passes away, people make jokes and attempt to discredit their legacy. Gone are the days of candle-lit vigils and radio tributes. These days, the most a musician can hope for is a post-mortem album release, not unlike Michael Jackson’s Xscape record. And even then, these albums only happen so record companies can squeeze a few dollars out of die-hard fans.

If you’ve never heard of the three musical geniuses we’ve lost recently, that’s okay. It doesn’t make you insensitive, or bigoted, or sheltered, it just means that you’ve missed out on some truly amazing music and important artists during your life.

Take Kilmister for example. In many ways Kilmister was one of the last true rock stars. I mean, one of his first musical gigs was being the tech-guy for Jimi Hendrix.

He first picked up the guitar because he saw kids at school using it to attract girls, and he ended up joining the English band Hawkwind due to a shared love of amphetamines. And of course, who could overlook the ever-present bottle of Jack Daniels in his life. If all of this isn’t rock ‘n’ roll, then I don’t know what is.

Lemmy Kilmister seemed like the invincible man. Against all odds, logic and scientific explanation, he kept on rocking. If you never had a chance to listen to the ferocious saga that is Motörhead, now is a damn good time. The light may be gone from him, but the raw and passionate performances he left behind will continue to rage against the night.

The next star we lost this year was David Bowie. The experimental trailblazer always seemed to be one step ahead of the rest of the world. This continued right up until his dying day with the nearly posthumous release of Blackstar. While the world sympathized with Kilmister’s deterioration over a series of cancelled performances and unanswered encore chants, Bowie kept his struggle below the radar for 18 months. I don’t mean to discredit either of them here; they both went out doing what they loved.

Kilmister refused to take no for an answer, pushing himself onstage until it was impossible; Bowie saw his future and set out to turn it into his final artistic mark on the world.

Everyone deals with death differently in their own right, the rock stars and the experimentalists alike. While we may never see Bowie’s level of premonition, wit and brazen daringness, we will always be able to look back on the legacy he left behind.

The last artistic genius to sorely leave us this year is Glenn Frey. Though many kids of this generation are unfamiliar with the legacy of the Eagles, perhaps the song “Hotel California” rings a bell.

Frey released 24 songs in his career that charted in the top 40 on Billboard’s top 100 charts, and that’s nothing to scoff at.

When the Eagles disbanded in 1980, he wasted no time carving out a name for himself as a solo artist. His creativity didn’t stop at just music; over the years Frey acted in several facets of Hollywood, including Miami Vice and the feature film Jerry Maguire.

Frey reunited with the Eagles for their “Hell Freezes Over” tour, a title derived from a good-natured joke the band would make after their departure. Frey had a generally happy disposition and the mind of a virtuoso. It is with a heavy heart that the world bids a final farewell to him, alongside the other greats we have lost this year.

Although their spirits may leave us, artists are among the few people who leave behind such tangible keepsakes of their existence. A song can convey and conjure up so many complex emotions, varying from person to person and place to place. A song can bring us to a specific moment, or bring up memories long forgotten. A song can even drive us to make brave life-changing decisions, or fuel us to overcome obstacles in our way. Music is the anthem of our life; it’s the one thing that strangers from around the world can unify in. We may have been unlucky to lose these musicians, but we are blessed with the gifts they left behind.

Lemmy Kilmister: Dec. 24, 1945 – Dec. 28, 2015 (aged 70)

David Bowie: Jan. 8, 1947 – Jan. 10, 2016 (aged 69)

Glenn Frey: Nov. 6, 1948 – Jan. 18, 2016 (aged 67)