Ground Control to Major Tom

Justly celebrated for blurring genres and opening minds around the globe, the late David Bowie's influence across the spectrum of Western music is more than formidable.

While many late rock stars are rightly saluted for their influence and impact, Bowie occupies a higher historical tier entirely. Among rock stars, Bowie influenced more musical genres than anyone else, living or dead. He is, in that respect, the most influential rock star.

Fun fact:

Did you know David Bowie launched his own internet service provider (ISP), offering subscription-based dial up access to the emerging online world in the late summer of 1998. He worked with the web and interactive entertainment pioneers Robert Goodale and Ron Roy to explore the deeper possibilities of the internet as a means of reaching fans and distributing music.

The launch of BowieNet was an ISP offering “uncensored” access to the internet attached to a dedicated David Bowie website. Subscribers could browse a vast archive of Bowie’s photographs, videos and interviews, as well as a blog, career chronology and news feed. Most enticingly for many fans, users also got their own BowieNet email address.

For Bowie, this ISP wasn’t a new means of marketing his material to the masses, it was the realization of something he’d always understood about music: that the fan response completes the art.

References: The Guardian, Billboard