Craig Cooper: Sad farewell to a truly unique artist

David Bowie.

Many David Bowie songs have been played in the last day or so.

I woke up yesterday morning and put Heroes on. I let the random play on my iPod sort the rest of the songs out, but Heroes is my favourite.

Heroes was a collaboration, like many of Bowie's best known songs.

Under Pressure, a shared writing credit with Queen, is another favourite.

But Heroes is locked in my consciousness as the track that for me, defines David Bowie.

It was written with Brian Eno, an artist who strictly speaking, is not a musician. More an architect of soundscapes.

It is presumably Eno's influence that colours the song with its droning synthesiser melody.

It doesn't really have a chorus, and seems to go on and on.

But it is, I think, a beautiful song, released in 1977 when the hatred and spittle of punk dominated UK airwaves.

Recorded in West Berlin, and when Bowie sang "standing by the wall", the Berlin Wall wasn't far away. The studio was also known as "Studio By The Wall".

A decade later I stood among the thousands of fans at Western Springs in Auckland.

I wasn't there to hear songs off his '87 Never Let Me Down album. I wanted to hear Heroes. Gene Genie. Rebel Rebel.

YouTube concert footage and set lists from 87's Glass Spider tour suggest there were three or four songs off the new album and then all the hits. Almost all - no Under Pressure, it seems.

In 1987, Ice T was two years away from stealing it, so who knows where it went.

Glass Spider was a theatrical tour with a dramatic opening, and on-stage choreography - it could easily have looked quite lame but Bowie's artistic integrity held it together, even in the 80s, not everyone's favourite musical decade.

Nowadays, it is unlikely new artists will leave behind the legacy Bowie has.

Whether or not you're a Bowie fan, it is difficult to not agree that the world has lost a quite astonishing artist.