Among deaths in 2016, a heavy toll in pop music

New York

DEATH may be the great equaliser, but it isn't necessarily evenhanded. Of all the fields of endeavour that suffered mortal losses in 2016 - consider Muhammad Ali and Arnold Palmer in sports, and the back-to-back daughter-mother Hollywood deaths of Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds - the pop music world had, hands down, the bleakest year.

Start with David Bowie, whose stage persona - androgynous glam rocker, dance pop star, electronic experimentalist - was as shape-shifting as his music. The year was only days old when the news came that he had died of cancer at 69. He had hinted that his time was short in the lyrics of his final album, released just two days before his death, but he had otherwise gone to great lengths to hide his illness from the public, a wish for privacy that ensured his death would appear out of the blue.