2016 begins and ends with music deaths [View all]

[Miles Archer]

In order to follow the "four paragraph rule," I just copied the list of names from Raw Story's article. The sad truth here is that these are the "headliners"...the list of musicians from lesser-revered bands is one hell of a lot longer than this.

The biggest blow came for me on December 28, 2015...Lemmy, who was supposed to outlast Keith Richards as the king of the indestructible. Lemmy was like the Frank Zappa of hard rock (Motörhead was not a "metal" band, even though they are considered to be a part of the NWOBHM (New Wave of British Heavy Metal)...he introduced the band on most occasions by saying "We are Motörhead and we play rock and roll.&quot But just like Zappa, the band could be relied upon to dish up at least an album a year, and it would demand your attention, and it would make you think about how much you were letting the world screw with you versus how much you were willing to screw it back. As Bonnie Raitt observed upon the passing of Little feat founder Lowell George, it was like the county fair wouldn't be coming to town again. And when we lost Lemmy, I didn't anticipate the flood of loss that would happen once we turned the corner into 2016.

Take David Bowie, for example. How many people stopped listening after the "Let's Dance" album and its cluster of hits ("Let's Dance," "China Girl," "Modern Love&quot ? Truth is, he released twelve studio albums after that...two by Tin Machine, his band experiment that tanked in the mainstream...plus live albums and a number of other projects. And like Lemmy, and like Zappa, even during his quiet periods, there was always the "in the back of the mind" expectation that he'd emerge from the shadows with some weird and wonderful new masterpiece, or less-than-masterpiece, and who really cared, because a new Bowie album, good or bad, was always more interesting than the "American Idol" / "The Voice" / "America's Got Talent" boredom of the mass marketplace.

The purpose of this post isn't to remind you that Bowie, Prince, Frey and the rest are no longer with us. We did the memorial threads upon each of their passings. The purpose is to give you the opportunity to reflect on these musicians as well as the countless others who didn't make Raw Story's list, and post your own memories and videos.

2016...6 days to go, and I hope the list doesn't see any more names in those 6 days.

2016 begins and ends with music deaths



http://www.rawstory.com/2016/12/2016-begins-and-ends-with-music-deaths/

— DAVID BOWIE.

— GLENN FREY.

— PAUL KANTNER.

— MAURICE WHITE.

— KEITH EMERSON AND GREG LAKE.

— PHIFE DAWG:

— MERLE HAGGARD.

— PRINCE.

— LEONARD COHEN.

— SHARON JONES.

— RICK PARFITT.

— GEORGE MICHAEL.