David Bowie

Throughout his professional journey, David Bowie ranked among rock and roll’s most luminous figures, sidestepping neat labels by serving as the most experimentally inclined mainstream performer and the most approachable artist operating at the margins. Although he drew heavily from subterranean currents, he never truly stood outside rock’s commercial orbit. Beginning in the 1960s he pursued Top 40 success through British blues, mod-driven rock and roll, and elaborately arranged pop before achieving traction as a hippie-style singer-songwriter. The single “Space Oddity” delivered his initial British breakthrough, climbing into the Top Ten during the summer of 1969—the season of Apollo 11—and later duplicated that impact in the United States, where it became his first Top 20 hit in early 1973. By then he had abandoned his folk-leaning image in favor of the glam-rock extraterrestrial Ziggy Stardust, initiating a pattern of sonic and visual reinvention that would mark his entire trajectory. Ziggy Stardust & the Spiders from Mars ignited frenzy in Britain and cultivated a devoted following in America, laying the groundwork for a decade in which Bowie explored blue-eyed soul, avant-garde pop, and experimental electronic rock crafted alongside Brian Eno. Several hits surfaced during these years; the polished disco-rock track “Fame” supplied his maiden American chart-topper in 1975. Yet full superstardom arrived only with Let’s Dance, a sleek dance-rock effort produced with Nile Rodgers and shaped expressly for MTV. Once global fame was secured, Bowie navigated a phase of creative flux before stabilizing in the 1990s through renewed engagement with his hard-rock and art-music foundations. With the arrival of the twenty-first century he adopted a steady rhythm of touring and recording that ceased in 2003 when he withdrew from public life. After ten years of quiet he resurfaced in 2013, launching a concluding chapter that reached its apex with Blackstar, an album issued on his January 8 birthday in 2016. He crafted Blackstar as a valediction for listeners unaware he was succumbing to liver cancer. Two days after the record’s appearance, Bowie passed away, leaving Blackstar as his ultimate theatrical statement.

David Jones first performed music at age thirteen, taking up the saxophone while attending Bromley Technical High School; another formative incident there left his left pupil permanently enlarged after a playground altercation. Upon graduating at sixteen he worked as a commercial artist while playing saxophone in several mod groups, among them the King Bees, the Manish Boys—which included a session contribution from Jimmy Page—and Davey Jones & the Lower Third. Each of these ensembles issued singles that attracted scant notice, yet he persisted, adopting the name David Bowie in 1966 once the Monkees’ Davy Jones attained worldwide fame. Across 1966 he put out three mod singles on Pye Records, all overlooked. The next year he joined Deram and released the music-hall-inspired, Anthony Newley-styled David Bowie. After finishing that album he spent several weeks at a Scottish Buddhist monastery. Upon departing he trained with Lindsay Kemp’s mime troupe and established his own mime ensemble, the Feathers, in 1969. The Feathers proved short-lived; that same year he founded the experimental art collective Beckenham Arts Lab.

To fund the Arts Lab, Bowie signed with Mercury Records in 1969 and issued Man of Words, Man of Music, a psychedelic singer-songwriter set highlighted by “Space Oddity.” Released as a single, the track became a substantial British hit, prompting him to focus exclusively on music. Reconnecting with longtime friend Marc Bolan, he began miming at select T. Rex concerts and eventually toured with Bolan, bassist-producer Tony Visconti, guitarist Mick Ronson, and drummer Cambridge under the name Hype. The unit soon dissolved, though Bowie and Ronson stayed close, shaping material that would form Bowie’s subsequent album, The Man Who Sold the World, while adding Michael “Woody” Woodmansey on drums. Produced by Visconti, who also contributed bass, The Man Who Sold the World emerged as a dense guitar-rock record that initially drew limited attention. Late in 1971 Bowie followed it with the pop-rock outing Hunky Dory, again featuring Ronson and keyboardist Rick Wakeman.

After its release Bowie began refining his most celebrated persona: Ziggy Stardust, an androgynous, bisexual rock star from another world. Before unveiling Ziggy he declared himself gay in a January 1972 Melody Maker interview, heightening anticipation for the forthcoming album. Drawing inspiration from Bolan’s glamorous glam-rock style, Bowie dyed his hair orange and adopted women’s clothing. He presented himself as Ziggy Stardust, with Ronson, Woodmansey, and bassist Trevor Bolder forming the Spiders from Mars. The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars arrived amid considerable publicity in Britain late in 1972. The album and its opulent, theatrical performances created a sensation across England and allowed Bowie to secure a distinct foothold in America among glam acts. Ziggy Stardust gained cult traction in the United States, while the reissued “Space Oddity”—now also the title of the reissued Man of Words, Man of Music—reached the American Top 20. Bowie swiftly followed with Aladdin Sane later in 1973. That same year he also produced Lou Reed’s Transformer, the Stooges’ Raw Power, and Mott the Hoople’s comeback All the Young Dudes, for which he wrote the title track.

Given the intense activity of 1972 and 1973, Bowie’s punishing pace inevitably took a toll. After completing the all-covers Pin-Ups with the Spiders from Mars, he abruptly declared the band’s dissolution and his own retirement from live performance at their final show. He withdrew to develop a musical version of George Orwell’s 1984, yet when rights were denied he reworked the project into Diamond Dogs. Issued to largely unfavorable notices in 1974, the album nonetheless yielded the hit “Rebel Rebel,” which he promoted through an extravagant and costly American tour. As the trek continued, Bowie grew absorbed by soul music and gradually reshaped the production to embody his new “plastic soul.” Enlisting guitarist Carlos Alomar as bandleader, he recast his ensemble as a Philly soul outfit and dressed himself in refined, fashionable attire. The transformation startled audiences, as did the double album David Live, drawn from 1974 performances.

Young Americans, released in 1975, represented the peak of Bowie’s soul immersion and became his first significant crossover success, reaching the American Top Ten and spawning his initial U.S. number-one single, “Fame,” co-written with John Lennon and Alomar. Bowie moved to Los Angeles, where he secured his first film role in Nicolas Roeg’s The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976). While there he recorded Station to Station, extending the plastic-soul aesthetic of Young Americans into darker, avant-garde-inflected territory; the album still proved a major hit, delivering the Top Ten single “Golden Years.” It introduced Bowie’s elegant “Thin White Duke” persona and mirrored his intensifying cocaine-driven paranoia. Soon deciding Los Angeles was intolerably dull, he returned to England; shortly after landing in London he offered a Nazi salute to waiting fans, underscoring his drug-induced detachment from reality. The gesture provoked widespread outrage, prompting Bowie to relocate to Berlin, where he lived and collaborated with Brian Eno.

In Berlin, Bowie achieved sobriety, took up painting, and immersed himself in art study. He also developed a keen interest in German electronic music, which Eno helped realize on their first joint album, Low. Released early in 1977, Low fused electronics, pop, and avant-garde methods. Although initially met with mixed reactions, it became one of the era’s most influential records, as did its successor, Heroes, issued later that year. In addition to two solo albums in 1977, Bowie produced Iggy Pop’s comeback efforts The Idiot and Lust for Life and toured incognito as Pop’s keyboardist. He resumed acting in 1977, appearing in Just a Gigolo alongside Marlene Dietrich and Kim Novak and narrating Eugene Ormandy’s recording of Peter and the Wolf. Bowie returned to the concert stage in 1978, mounting an international tour documented on the double album Stage. In 1979 he and Eno recorded Lodger across New York, Switzerland, and Berlin, releasing it at year’s end. Lodger was promoted with several innovative videos, as was 1980’s Scary Monsters; tracks such as “DJ,” “Fashion,” and “Ashes to Ashes” became early MTV staples.

Scary Monsters marked Bowie’s final RCA release and concluded his most daring and prolific stretch. Later in 1980 he portrayed the lead in a stage production of The Elephant Man, including Broadway performances. Over the next two years he largely stepped away from recording, appearing in Christiane F (1981) and the vampire film The Hunger (1982), returning to the studio only for the 1981 Queen collaboration “Under Pressure” and the theme for Paul Schrader’s Cat People remake. In 1983 he signed a lucrative EMI contract and delivered Let’s Dance. Recruiting Chic guitarist Nile Rodgers as producer and unknown Stevie Ray Vaughan as lead guitarist, Bowie gave the album a glossy, funk-infused base. Let’s Dance became his biggest commercial triumph, propelled by stylish videos for “Let’s Dance” and “China Girl,” both of which reached the Top Ten. He supported the record with the sold-out Serious Moonlight arena tour.

Confronted with unprecedented success, Bowie struggled to chart his next move and attempted to replicate Let’s Dance with 1984’s Tonight. Although the album sold respectably and produced the Top Ten hit “Blue Jean,” it drew poor reviews and ultimately underperformed. He marked time in 1985 with a duet of Martha & the Vandellas’ “Dancing in the Street” alongside Mick Jagger for Live Aid, while also frequenting celebrity gatherings worldwide and starring in several films—Into the Night (1985), Absolute Beginners (1986), Labyrinth (1986)—that proved commercial disappointments. Bowie resumed recording in 1987 with the widely criticized Never Let Me Down, touring behind it on the Glass Spider trek, which likewise met with negative notices. In 1989 he oversaw remastering of his RCA catalog for CD with Rykodisc, inaugurating the series with the three-disc box Sound + Vision. He backed the collection with a namesake tour, announcing afterward that he would retire his earlier characters from live performance. Sound + Vision succeeded commercially, and Ziggy Stardust re-entered the charts amid the publicity.

Despite that achievement, Bowie’s subsequent venture proved among his least successful. Inspired by the abrasive rock of Sonic Youth and the Pixies, he assembled the guitar-driven Tin Machine with guitarist Reeves Gabrels and brothers Hunt and Tony Sales—the latter having previously played on Iggy Pop’s Lust for Life. Tin Machine released a self-titled debut to unfavorable reviews in summer 1989 and toured clubs with only modest success. Nevertheless, the band issued a second album, Tin Machine II, in 1991, which passed virtually unnoticed.

Bowie resumed his solo career in 1993 with the refined, soul-inflected Black Tie White Noise, recorded with Nile Rodgers and the now-permanent collaborator Reeves Gabrels. Released on Savage, an RCA subsidiary, the album earned favorable notices, yet the label soon collapsed and the record vanished. Black Tie White Noise signaled Bowie’s determination to revive his career, as did the largely instrumental 1994 soundtrack The Buddha of Suburbia. In 1995 he reunited with Brian Eno for the industrial-tinged 1. Outside. Several critics hailed it as a comeback; Bowie supported it with a co-headlining tour alongside Nine Inch Nails aimed at younger alternative listeners, but audiences departed before his set and the album faded. He returned quickly to the studio in 1996 for Earthling, an album steeped in techno and drum’n’bass. Upon its early 1997 release Earthling garnered generally positive reviews, yet it failed to find an audience and drew criticism from techno purists who accused Bowie of exploiting their scene. hours… appeared in 1999. In 2002 Bowie rejoined producer Tony Visconti for Heathen, which received strong acclaim. He continued the partnership for Reality in 2003, again warmly received.

Bowie backed Reality with an extensive tour that ended abruptly in summer 2004 when he underwent emergency angioplasty in Hamburg, Germany. Following the health scare he quietly withdrew from view. Over subsequent years he made occasional appearances at charity concerts or galas and contributed studio vocals for other artists, notably on Scarlett Johansson’s 2008 Tom Waits tribute Anywhere I Lay My Head. Archival projects continued, but no new recordings surfaced until he abruptly ended his informal retirement on his sixty-sixth birthday, January 8, 2013, issuing the single “Where Are We Now?” and announcing a new album. Titled The Next Day and once more produced by Visconti, the record arrived in March 2013. Met with generally positive reviews, The Next Day debuted at number one or two in numerous territories and earned gold certifications in several countries.

The following year Bowie released the compilation Nothing Has Changed, which included the new song “Sue (Or in a Season of Crime).” That track formed the foundation of his next project, Blackstar. Issued on January 8, 2016, the album reunited Bowie with Tony Visconti and ventured into adventurous terrain, previewed by the lead single “Blackstar.” Just two days after release it was announced that David Bowie had died from liver cancer. In a Facebook statement Tony Visconti disclosed that Bowie had known of his illness for at least eighteen months and had fashioned Blackstar as “his parting gift.” The album topped multiple national charts, including the Billboard 200, marking his first American number-one album.

By autumn 2016 posthumous releases began appearing, including Who Can I Be Now?—a collection of mid-1970s albums positioned as a sequel to the prior year’s Five Years box—and the cast recording of Lazarus, the Broadway musical completed in his final years. On January 8, 2017—the first anniversary of Blackstar’s release—the No Plan EP, containing Bowie’s renditions of songs featured in Lazarus, appeared. A New Career in a New Town, the third volume of retrospective boxes focusing on late-1970s recordings, arrived in September 2017. The following year the fourth retrospective box, Loving the Alien, was issued, covering albums from 1983 to 1988. It included Bowie’s biggest-selling 1980s album, Let’s Dance, alongside live material and a 2018 reworking of Never Let Me Down featuring string arrangements by Nico Muhly and production by Mario McNulty. Throughout 2019 Parlophone issued a series of limited-edition vinyl sets spotlighting 1969 demos. At year’s end these recordings were gathered with a new mix of David Bowie (Space Oddity) in the box Conversation Piece. The Metrobolist, a revised edition of The Man Who Sold the World under its original title, surfaced late in 2020, followed in 2021 by The Width of a Circle, a double-disc anthology of non-album 1970 recordings. Late in 2021 the fifth “era” retrospective box Brilliant Adventure (1992–2001) was released; among its highlights was the previously unreleased album Toy, comprising modern reworkings of early, pre-“Space Oddity” songs. Toy received a standalone release in January 2022.