David Bowie
Amazon Ziggy, Aladdin, Halloween Jack, the Man Who Fell to Earth,
the Thin White Duke, Major Tom, the Goblin King, The Dame, the Mid-Life
Crisis Soul Patch, and all the rest, there was the Mask. In 1969, when David Bowie
was just another struggling London songwriter desperate for a break, he
shot a promotional film to showcase his particularly dramatic brand of
performance. Along with a handful of songs-- including an early version
of "Space Oddity" in which a tinfoil-helmeted Bowie is seduced by a
couple of space sirens-- the reel included an original mime piece called
"The Mask".
It shows Bowie, looking like the least intimidating pirate of all-time
in tight white tights, a frilly top, and a pageboy wig, stealing an
invisible mask and proceeding to charm his family, co-workers, and
eventually entire concert halls by simply placing it on his face.
"Autographs, films, television-- the lot!" he says, in voiceover,
describing the opportunities afforded by his mysterious new facade. "Had
a very strange effect on me, though." The mime ends with
the white-faced "star" giving his biggest performance yet-- and then he
can't get the mask off. It strangles him. "The papers made a big thing
out of it," he continues, "funny though, they didn't mention anything
about a mask." Even before David Bowie gained a smidge of notoriety, he
was well aware of its pitfalls-- and his own susceptibility to the lure
of disguise.
To put it mildly, this self-aware
attraction to reinvention has served him well. In the 1970s, he rifled
through looks, genres, and band members without hesitation, from
space-age glam, to cocaine funk, to harrowing ambience, to name a few.
In more modern terms, consider Radiohead's whiplash transformation
between OK Computer and Kid A... and then consider how Bowie pulled off equally radical shifts at least five times
between 1970 and 1980 alone. This malleability astounds because it runs
so counter to the way most of us think and behave. It's non-conformist,
uncomfortable, and irrational, without any of the detrimental
consequences that are supposed to come along with such rule-breaking.
Granted, a stupendous coke habit nearly killed him and he wasn't able to
be a present father to his young son during that time, but even those
disappointments led to the despondency that fueled his oblique Berlin
trilogy. While many artists claim to despise the status quo, only a few
have discarded previous successes with the abandon of Bowie, especially
during that flawless decade-long stretch. "Tomorrow belongs to those who
can hear it coming," read the tagline in an ad for 1977's "Heroes". It was anything but hyperbole. Back then, Bowie may have had many masks, but he knew exactly how long to wear each one.
The video sees frontman Adam Levine go topless as he and the band are
covered in grey paint. The more paint that gets smeared on the band,
the more we get to see of them. As the song continues The Voice judge is also seen using his hands to uncover a female love interest. 
Apreviously traded under her birth name Rachl Furner, gaining steady success as a singer-songwriter supporting acts such as Paolo Nutini, Pixie Lott, Justin Bieber, JLS and Olly Murs. She was signed by Mercury Records and released a single ‘Sticks & Stones’ in 2010, but a full album unfortunately never materialised.
