Death of a Rock Star

What do you hear at the bottom of the ocean? How does it feel to swim with whales? Or make friends with an octopus? Come and find out. This is Life Under Water.

Wildlife filmmaker and TV personality Hannah Stitfall wants to take you the world below the waves. She’ll be chatting to freedivers, marine biologists, submarine pilots and more, hearing mind-boggling stories about the oceans-deep and its inhabitants. We explore The Lost City. We hang out with your favourite animals. The hypnotic sound design and storytelling will drop you right there.

Oceans: Life Under Water is brought to you by Crowd Network and Greenpeace UK, which is how these stories can be told so beautifully but also responsibly.

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David Bowie is dying, and no-one knows it. No journalists, no fans. Just the chosen few. His wife. His grown-up son, his young daughter. A handful of others, all sworn to secrecy. And he’s been rushing to get songs recorded, videos made, plays performed. Because his life's always been about reinvention, about creativity. About working out who you are, what you want to say. About control of image, and intent. All those wild incarnations – the costumes, the make-up, the poses. All those characters he becomes – Ziggy Stardust, the Thin White Duke, the Man Who Fell To Earth. And now, he's releasing one more album. It’s time for the final performance. The last great artistic move...

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Richey Edwards is the frontman of the Manic Street Preachers. But he's quiet. A little pale. And one day... he's gone. For some fans, the possibility that he’s watching, listening, smiling somewhere, is impossible to resist. There are loose ends. The money that was never found. Richey’s fascination with Israel. The books he left behind. And there are the sightings. In Newport by the passport office. On the hippy trail in Goa.  In a bar on a Spanish island. On a beach in the Canary Islands. Each time, the story’s similar. A gaunt, quiet man, flitting out of view and remaining out of reach...

WARNING: this episode contains graphic descriptions of self-harm and references to suicide. If you’ve been affected by any of the issues we spoke about in this podcast or are worried about someone you love, please call the Samaritans at 116 123. Someone will always be there to listen, day or night, and it’s free for all UK phone numbers. Or, go to crowdnetwork.co.uk/helplines to find a list of people you can go to for help.

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Sam Cooke's music makes you feel nostalgic for a time you never knew. Perfect little love songs that take you back to the innocence of the late Fifties, the early Sixties. But they could've sounded so different, in a world where a black man could sing like a black man to everyone. Where he could be himself everywhere. But there’s other stuff you need to know about Sam Cooke. Because he’s the voice, but he’s so much more. The dodgy managers stealing his money, the run-ins with the Mafia. The racism – the threats, the violence. The wiretaps from the FBI. And how it all ends… In a cheap motel, with a call girl and a handgun, when he’s just starting to change the world.

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Cass? She’s the one the band can’t do without. Those 40 million records sold? The six top ten hits? It’s her voice that powers them. Her charisma that makes the Mamas & the Papas so lovable. When they all sing together, it sounds like the times squeezed and bottled with added vitamins. It’s sunshine and smiles and bright swirls of primary colours. But there’s always this sadness close by. A melancholy, lying there just under the surface. And that's Cass. She doesn't feel lovable. Doesn’t fit the mould. Doesn't look like 60s rock'n'roll. She’s the sunshine and darkness in one troubled woman. The openness, the paranoia. The dreams of a golden generation, living and dying under a perfect blue Californian sky...

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‘Moon the Loon.’ That’s the nickname. The bloke who drove a Rolls-Royce into a swimming pool. Who liked blowing up toilets and trashing hotel rooms. Moon’s life and death is one of pop music’s great cautionary tales. It’s textbook stuff. A man who becomes so grotesque that people forget what a genius he was. Before the drink and drugs and darkness reduce him to a husk. Is the golden age of rock really so golden, when its gods die so young? 

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Lady Day was the greatest singer of a generation. A sound they’ll try and copy for years to come. A girl who starts with nothing, who runs with pimps and hookers, but grows up to diamonds, furs, and adulation. But there's always been heroin around jazz. And she's playing a game where the odds are stacked against her. There are powerful men who want to bring it all crashing down...

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It’s the era of the superstar DJ. And Tim Bergling, or Avicii, is A-list. He’s on an endless carousel. Lights, music, screams, good times. Whirling faster and faster, on and on… Tim controls the tunes. But when he wants to get off, when he’s had enough of the ride, enough of being Avicii, who’s in control then? And what's left?

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Jimi Hendrix is the most famous rock star in the world. The biggest showman. A god, in a new musical universe. But he doesn't look like that anymore. Doesn't feel like that. Has nothing to show for it. He's paranoid, too. Who’s watching? Who’s listening? Who wants money now? And soon it'll all come crashing down...

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Biggie Smalls was the King of New York. But his reign doesn’t last long. Less than three years after his coronation, he’s shot dead. A very modern regicide. A hail of bullets pumped into the side of his SUV. We still don’t know who did it or why. What a waste… Or was it? The people chanting his name, as his funeral winds through Brooklyn, don’t think so. Maybe it’s better to be king for a day, however rickety the throne, than settle for a long, desperate slog...

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In the real world, you’d be scared of Bon Scott. But in the world of rock and roll, he’s perfect. He's on a Highway to Hell and you’re ready to strap yourself in and join him. But there are things you don't know. How he’s trapped in a cycle of uppers and downers, benders and comedowns. How he wants to quit this life but everyone else is keeping him strapped in. And how he’s about to crash and burn for real...

WARNING: this episode contains references to drug abuse.

If you’ve been affected by any of the issues we spoke about in this podcast or are worried about someone you love, go to crowdnetwork.co.uk/helplines to find a list of people you can go to for help.

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Dennis Wilson's a Beach Boy. He’s always there, but...not there. The drummer, but not the one who drums on their biggest records. His face on the album covers, his sound left off the hits. The best-looking one, the one they think’s the Steve McQueen or James Dean of the band, but the first to die. The one who slips away, when no-one’s looking...

WARNING: this episode contains references to drug and alcohol abuse.

If you’ve been affected by any of the issues we spoke about in this podcast or are worried about someone you love, go to crowdnetwork.co.uk/helplines to find a list of people you can go to for help.

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Maybe you know Nick Drake. The songs, the sound. How he wants to be famous but won’t do what it takes. How he’s never a pop star, but people love him like he’s their private hero. 

But people didn’t know him when he lived. He seemed… invisible. And he should’ve faded away with the 70s, with his death. But instead, something magical happens…

WARNING: this episode contains references to drug abuse, addiction, and suicide. 

If you’ve been affected by any of the issues we spoke about in this podcast or are worried about someone you love, please call the Samaritans at 116 123. Someone will always be there to listen, day or night, and it’s free for all UK phone numbers. Or, go to crowdnetwork.co.uk/helplines to find a list of people you can go to for help.

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Tupac Shakur. He’s a gangster and a genius. A cliched death, but a unique life. America’s grim reality and its sacred dream, all in one. Shots fired on tracks will rebound into real life. But Tupac will always live on. Not in Cuba, Haiti or a Coachella holographic. But in deep ideas, and the impact he had. You just have to look a little harder...

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Sweet Janis Joplin. She should never have strayed so far from the apple tree of her youth. But if she was still with us, surely she’d say: what chance did I have? All her life, Janis wrote songs that were achingly sad. She never wanted much. Just a pair of arms to hold her close. Even if it was for just one night. But she was always left chasing that bright, elusive butterfly of love...

WARNING: This episode contains references to drug abuse and addiction. If you've been affected by any of the things we mention in this show, go to crowdnetwork.co.uk/helplines to find people who can help.

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With Jim Morrison, everything’s always somewhere between truth and myth. You don’t know what’s real, it’s all bent together. There’s things that make you love him, make you hate him. Things that make you uncomfortable. It’s a wild ride, with Jim. And if you get out alive? You’re the lucky one…

WARNING: This episode contains references to drug abuse and addiction. If you've been affected by any of the things we mention in this show, go to crowdnetwork.co.uk/helplines to find people who can help.

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Kurt Cobain doesn’t look like the spokesman for an angry generation. Then he starts picking at his guitar and singing. Rasping, like a chainsaw cutting down a tree. Ugly and beautiful, vulnerable and certain. But he can’t see his own appeal. He hates himself. And less than five month after his most famous gig, he’ll end up dead…

WARNING: this this episode contains references to drug abuse, addiction, and suicide. 

If you’ve been affected by any of the issues we spoke about in this podcast or are worried about someone you love, please call the Samaritans at 116 123. Someone will always be there to listen, day or night, and it’s free for all UK phone numbers. Or, go to crowdnetwork.co.uk/helplines to find a list of people you can go to for help.

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Buddy Holly came and went so fast. Inspired the Beatles, inspired the Stones. His songs soundtrack so many lives, but he was the first of the rock’n’roll legends to go down in flames. The day, as we all now know, when the music died.

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Some bands could be from anywhere. You can’t hear their home in the bassline, feel the streets and skies in the guitars. But Joy Division and Ian Curtis are pure Manchester - an old town, a new town, a city that tears down the past and falls into the future.

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You can’t talk about TLC without talking about all three. But there’s always a point to every triangle, and TLC’s is Lisa ‘Left Eye’ Lopes.

It’s her creativity, her contradictions and the way she could start fires. But there’s a bigger battle underneath it all. Poet vs rock star. Health fanatic vs alcoholic. Lover vs a warrior fixated on revenge. This is the story of how it all fits together…

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