David Bowie, the infinitely changeable, fiercely forward-looking songwriter who taught generations of musicians about the power of drama, images and personae, died Sunday, two days after his 69th birthday, according to his publicist. Mr. Bowie’s death was reported in posts on Facebook and Twitter, and confirmed by the publicist, Steve Martin, on Monday morning.
“David Bowie died peacefully today surrounded by his family after a courageous 18-month battle with cancer,” according to a statement on Mr. Bowie’s social media accounts. The multitalented artist, whose last album, “Blackstar,” a collaboration with a jazz quintet that was typically enigmatic and exploratory, was released on Friday — on his birthday. He was to be honored with a concert at Carnegie Hall on March 31 featuring the Roots, Cyndi Lauper and the Mountain Goats. Mr. Bowie wrote songs above all about being an outsider: an alien, a misfit, a sexual adventurer, a faraway astronaut. His music was always a mutable blend: rock, cabaret, jazz, and what he called “plastic soul” but was suffused with genuine soul. He also captured the drama and longing of everyday life, enough to give him No.1 pop hits like “Let’s Dance.” If he had an anthem, it was either “Changes,” from his 1971 album “Hunky Dory,” or “Golden Years” from his 1975 album “Station to Station.”
Born David Jones on Jan. 8, 1947, in South London, Mr. Bowie rose to fame with “Space Oddity,” in 1969, and later through his jumpsuit-wearing alter ego Ziggy Stardust and another persona, the Thin White Duke. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996. Mr. Bowie was his generation’s standard-bearer for rock as theater: something constructed and inflated yet sincere in its artifice, saying more than naturalism could. With a voice that dipped down to baritone and leaped into falsetto, he was complexly androgynous, an explorer of human impulses that could not be quantified.
He also pushed the limits of “Fashion” and “Fame,” writing songs with those titles and also thinking deeply about the possibilities and strictures of pop renown. Mr. Bowie was married to the international model Iman, with whom he had a daughter, Alexandria Jones.
Mr. Bowie largely left the spotlight after a heart attack in 2014 brought to an abrupt end a tour supporting his album “Reality.” The singer experienced pain during a performance at a German festival and sought treatment for what he believed was a shoulder injury; doctors then discovered a blocked artery. The following year, he performed with Arcade Fire, a band he championed. In 2006, he performed three songs in public for what would be the final time, at the charity Keep a Child Alive’s Black Ball fund-raiser at Hammerstein Ballroom in New York.
Bowie also starred in the film The Man Who Fell to Earth, playing one of the most stark, disturbing and psychologically complex representations of an alien ever captured on screen. This film was an important precursor to recent experimental aliens-among-us films like Under the Skin, and if you ever get a chance to see the restored uncut version, you should drop everything. Bowie also played an unforgettable vampire in The Hunger, and one of the most iconic fantasy characters, Jareth the Goblin King in Labyrinth.