ONTOPIC
O
Throughout history, music has served as a medium
to inspire, unify and transform. We’ve highlighted
some iconic figures that have all, in their own way,
pioneered moments of transformation — and what
has defined them.
1972 1990 1999
First as David Jones, then as David
Bowie, one of the most influential
forces in pop history spent most
of the late 1960s and early 1970s
as a struggling singer and
performance artist. You could view Madonna as the
queen of transformations. As she
shifted from one aesthetic to
the nex t , al tering her hair,
choreography and accent , it
became shorthand to describe
what was happening in one word:
reinvention. Why pay for music when you can
get it for free? Napster gave music
lovers access to their favourite
songs at no cost, changing the way
the industry conducted business
and transforming music into a
public good, albeit briefly. Live music
became the only reliable way to
make money, mix tapes were over
and playlists were the way forward.
ZIGGY STARDUST EMERGES
In January 1972, Bowie told an
interviewer: “I’m gay, and always
have been.” Whatever the truth of
the statement, it announced the
imminent arrival of his
androgynous alter ego, Ziggy
Stardust, unveiled the following
June on his album Ziggy Stardust
and the Spiders from Mars. It was
the first of Bowie’s many exotic
personae, and the moment that
launched glam rock.
MADONNA DEBUTS HER CONE BRA
She unveiled the iconic ‘cone bra’,
designed by Jean Paul Gaultier, on
the first stop of her Blonde
Ambition tour in Japan in 1990.
“Art should be controversial, and
that’s all there is to it,” she told
the New York Times.
NAPSTER COMES TO THE FORE
Although Napster would get shut
down, Spotify and Apple Music did
eventually capitalise on how
technology changed music from a
scarce resource, to one that we all
expected to have for free. The
repercussions for who could
succeed in the music industry
would be massive. Drake is currently
the most streamed artist today,
topping more than 28bn streams.
Art should be controversial,
and that’s all there is to it
Madonna
February – May 2020 // 103