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David Bowie died of cancer on Sunday at the age of 69. It almost seems impossible: he made a career out of seeming not of this earth, so it’s shocking to be reminded that he emphatically was. His music, of course, will endure, almost five decades of wildly original, visionary songs and albums that forever changed the course of pop music – several times, in fact.

"Space Oddity," a 1969 photo of David Bowie by David Bebbington/National Portrait Gallery

Photo taken February 13, 1970. (Press Association via AP)

A Dec. 1, 1972 photo of Bowie in his Ziggy Stardust period pictured in Philadelphia. (Brian Horton/AP)

Bowie is seen off at the station by his wife Angie in 1973. (Smith/Express/Getty Images)

Striped bodysuit for the Aladdin Sane tour, 1973. Design by Kansai Yamamoto. (Masayoshi Sukita/The David Bowie Archive)

The Archer Station to Station tour in 1976. (John Robert Rowlands)

Bowie performs at Radio City Music Hall in New York in 1974. (Suzanne Vlamis/AP)

Filming of Ashes to Ashes video, 1980. (The David Bowie Archive)

June 9, 1983 Bowie performing on stage at the Auteuil's Hippodrome in Paris. (Philippe Wojazer/AFP/Getty Images)

Bowie performing on stage June 14, 1987 during an open air concert in Hamburg, Germany. (Werner Baum/AFP/Getty Images)

Sept. 14, 1995 performance in Hartford, Conn. (Bob Child/AP)

Concert in Vienna February 4, 1996. (Leonhard Foeger/Reuters)

Portrait taken on October 14, 1999 in Paris. (Eric Feferberg/AFP/Getty Images)

Performance at the 1999 Much Music Video Awards in Toronto. (Andy Clark/Reuters)

Concert at Glastonbury Festival on June 25, 2000. (Dab Chung/Reuters)

Bowie during the first concert of his UK tour November 17, 2003 in Manchester. (Ian Hodgson/Reuters)

David Bowie arrives with his wife Iman to attend the Council of Fashion Designers of America fashion awards in New York in June 7, 2010. (Lucas Jackson/Reuters)

Performance at the Bell Center in Montreal on Saturday Dec. 13, 2003. (Bernard Brault/La Presse via The Canadian Press)

Portrait taken on May 13, 1983 at 36th Cannes Film Festival. (Ralph Gatti/AFP/Getty Images)