David Bowie, the infinitely changeable, fiercely forward-looking songwriter who taught generations of musicians about the power of drama, images and personas, died on Sunday, two days after his 69th birthday.
Mr. BowieÕs death was confirmed by his publicist, Steve Martin, on Monday morning.
He died after an 18-month battle with cancer, according to a statement on Mr. BowieÕs social-media accounts.
ÒDavid Bowie died peacefully today surrounded by his family,Ó a post on his Facebook page read.
His last album, ÒBlackstar,Ó a collaboration with a jazz quintet that was typically enigmatic and exploratory, was released on Friday Ñ on his birthday. He was to be honored with a concert at Carnegie Hall on March 31 featuring the Roots, Cyndi Lauper and the Mountain Goats.
He had also collaborated on an Off Broadway musical, ÒLazarus,Ó that was a surreal sequel to his definitive 1976 film role, ÒThe Man Who Fell to Earth.Ó
Mr. Bowie wrote songs, above all, about being an outsider: an alien, a misfit, a sexual adventurer, a faraway astronaut. His music was always a mutable blend: rock, cabaret, jazz and what he called Òplastic soul,Ó but it was suffused with genuine soul. He also captured the drama and longing of everyday life, enough to give him No. 1 pop hits like ÒLetÕs Dance.Ó
If he had an anthem, it was ÒChanges,Ó from his 1971 album ÒHunky Dory,Ó which proclaimed:
ÒTurn and face the strange / Ch-ch-changes / Oh look out now you rock and rollers / Pretty soon now youÕre gonna get older.Ó
Mr. Bowie earned admiration and emulation across the musical spectrum Ñ from rockers, balladeers, punks, hip-hop acts, creators of pop spectacles and even classical composers like Philip Glass, who based two symphonies on Mr. BowieÕs albums ÒLowÓ and Ò ÔHeroesÕ.Ó
Mr. BowieÕs constantly morphing persona was a touchstone for performers like Madonna and Lady Gaga; his determination to stay contemporary introduced his fans to Philadelphia funk, Japanese fashion, German electronica and drum-and-bass dance music.
Nirvana chose to sing ÒThe Man Who Sold the World,Ó the title song of Mr. BowieÕs 1970 album, in its brief set for the 1993 ÒMTV Unplugged in New York.Ó
ÒUnder Pressure,Ó a collaboration with the glam-rock group Queen, supplied a bass line for the 1990 Vanilla Ice hit ÒIce Ice Baby.Ó
REMEMBRANCES ON TWITTER The Rolling Stones á @RollingStones As well as being a wonderful and kind man, he was an extraordinary artist, and a true original. 2/2 #DavidBowie
Yet throughout Mr. BowieÕs metamorphoses, he was always recognizable. His voice was widely imitated but always his own; his message was that there was always empathy beyond difference.
Born David Robert Jones on Jan. 8, 1947, in South London, Mr. Bowie was a person of relentless reinvention. He emerged in the late 1960s with the voice of a rock belter but with the sensibility of a cabaret singer, steeped in the dynamics of stage musicals. He was Major Tom, the lost astronaut in his career-making 1969 hit ÒSpace Oddity.Ó
He was Ziggy Stardust, the otherworldly pop star at the center of his 1972 album ÒThe Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars.Ó
He was the self-destructive Thin White Duke and the minimalist but heartfelt voice of the three albums he recorded in Berlin in the Õ70s, often considered his greatest work: ÒLow,Ó Ò ÔHeroesÕ Ó and ÒLodger.Ó
Confounded 3 minutes ago I never met Mr Bowie nor saw him in concert. Yet I weep as I read this article and these comments. His music, his creativity meant so... K Henderson 8 minutes ago
First Lou Reed and then Bowie. For a certain generation who remember the 1970s first-hand, a very sad day. doktorij 32 minutes ago
His music was there with me throughout my life. Through the good times and bad, he had something that provided a different way of...
The arrival of MTV in the 1980s was the perfect complement to Mr. BowieÕs sense of theatricality and fashion. ÒAshes to Ashes,Ó the ÒSpace OddityÓ sequel that revealed Òwe know Major TomÕs a junkie,Ó and ÒLetÕs Dance,Ó which offered, ÒPut on your red shoes and dance the blues,Ó gave him worldwide popularity.
Mr. Bowie was his generationÕs standard-bearer for rock as theater: something constructed and inflated yet sincere in its artifice, saying more than naturalism could. With a voice that dipped down to baritone and leaped into falsetto, he was complexly androgynous, an explorer of human impulses that could not be quantified.
He also pushed the limits of ÒFashionÓ and ÒFame,Ó writing songs with those titles and also thinking deeply about the possibilities and strictures of pop renown.
Mr. Bowie was married for more than 20 years to the international model Iman, with whom he had a daughter, Alexandria Jones.
In a post on Twitter, the musicianÕs son from an earlier marriage, Duncan Jones, said: ÒVery sorry and sad to say itÕs true. IÕll be offline for a while. Love to all.Ó
Mr. Bowie largely left the spotlight after a heart attack in 2004 brought an abrupt end to a tour supporting his album ÒReality.Ó The singer experienced pain during a performance at a German festival and sought treatment for what he believed was a shoulder injury; doctors then discovered a blocked artery.
The next year, he performed with Arcade Fire, a band he had championed. In 2006, he performed three songs in public for what would be the final time, at the Keep a Child Alive Black Ball fund-raiser at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York.
Angst and apocalypse, media and paranoia, distance and yearning were among Mr. BowieÕs lifelong themes. So was a taste for transgression coupled with a determination to push cult tastes toward the mainstream. Mr. Bowie produced albums and wrote songs for some of his idols Ñ Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Mott the Hoople Ñ that gave them pop hits without causing them to abandon their individuality. And he collaborated with musicians like Brian Eno in the Berlin years and, in his final recordings, with the jazz musicians Maria Schneider and Donny McCaslin, introducing them to many new listeners.
Caryn Ganz and Juston Jones contributed reporting.
