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The insignificance of David Bowie: Latin America’s refusal of a “world icon”
journal contribution
posted on 2019-06-18, 08:21 authored by Jorge Saavedra Utman, Toby MillerDavid Bowie doesn’t matter very much. That seems like a bizarre remark,
particularly in a special issue dedicated to the opposite view. But in Latin
America, he is of minimal importance by contrast with other prominent
English-language pop-music exports that journal readers will know, such
as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Smiths or The Cure. How can this be
true of an artist who is routinely labelled a world icon? Our paper identifies
several reasons: nation-building and rock music’s first steps in Latin America,
progressive cultural politics, conservative gender norms and a continent
dominated by dictatorships when Bowie was becoming a putative ‘world
icon’
History
School
- Loughborough University London