David Bowie
I’ve always loved his music, but he was bigger than just music. He made Blackstar as a goodbye album; he knew he was dying. I just can’t fathom that. It’s hard to watch the last seconds of the Lazarus video. Maybe more than anything, he reaches back to my childhood, to the escapism offered in Labyrinth. There was Bowie, a music icon, singing on stage with muppets. He reinvented himself more than any artist. I paid a scalper $79 to see him at the Nassau Coliseum; that was a fortune for a teenager back then.
A close second is Lou Reed. His lyrics on Magic and Loss will always have special meaning to me. "There's a bit of magic in everything. And then some loss to even things out."