The Music's Artist Of The Year

If anything has defined 2016 artistically it has been the unceremonious reaping of our creative titans. A trendsetter 'til the end, David Robert Jones' passing was the first and, arguably, the most devastating sucker punch of the colossal emotional beatdown 2016 was winding up to lay down on us. When David Bowie parted the veil we as a species should have gone into hibernation. The weather had clearly turned.

However, though there was much gnashing of teeth and smoting of breasts, 2016 wasn't just a cause for grief, but also for celebration. It's been a year of reflection on the loss, but also the achievements of some truly fantastic people. Specifically the astounding contributions of the Brixton lad with the off-colour eyes, from Ziggy's rise and fall to the Goblin King's tights. (Bowie's music swept music charts clean worldwide just days after his death, Blackstar becoming The Thin White Duke's first ever US #1.)

Bowie died only ten days into 2016, but his influence this year was geological, decades of weight rupturing the landscape irreparably. Bowie is The Music's Artist Of The Year for Blackstar — swansong, "parting gift" and ripper album — but also the history that it represents as the last word from a man whose hand has shaped music, art and fashion since the '60s. Vale Bowie.