NWF said:

Another 2 add 2 the disciples..... AMY WINEHOUSE , who has apparently recorded an albums worth of covers.

NWF said:

Ireland's greatest rock band?? if u mean now then ok but ever, i can't look past the mighty Thin Lizzy

heartbeatocean said:

To qualify the Bowie thing, I'd say that Bowie 'played' at being a 'chameleonic' rock star (which is a wrong term really, as Bowie says; a chameleon is a reptile which changes its colours to blend into with its surroundings ) and being 'superficial' on purpose, often in an ironic way. Bowie also has an awareness of the meaninglessness of so many pop song lyrics, and so played with randomness and 'cut-ups' of lyrics in a William S. Burroughs kind of way.

This is what makes him imo far more sophisticated than Madonna (and Prince too really, in image/ icon terms, but that would another discussion), who just took someone else's image, say Marilyn, Marlene Dietrich or Bette Davis (especially in her late '80s- early '90s videos) and basically imitated them, adding nothing but trashy sex images, no extra layers of irony or wierdness as Bowie did.

As you say, Madonna was little more than a 'mirror' to some of the old film idols, while Bowie as say, Ziggy Stardust, was more of a warped reflection/ amalgamation of everyone from Elvis, Lennon, Marc Bolan etc, making his own creation.

So, while I like some of Madonna's stuff (espec. her '80s-early '90s 'prime'), I'd call her second rate next to a pretty great songwriter, musical innovator and icon like Bowie.

Bowie has been much imitated over the years, by everyone from Gary Numan to Annie Lennox to the risible Marilyn Manson, but none of these had that sense of 'Bowie detachment' that Bowie assumed from the events he was supposed to participating in as a character in his songs/ performances.

To the extent I care about Madonna these days, I do wish she'd stop releasing such awful generic dance records and do something a bit more interesting and playful, like some of her early '90s stuff, but new.