David Bowie

• 1. Introduction

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  David Bowie was born David Robert Jones on the 8th of January 1947 in Brixton, London, and he died two days after releasing his final album, on the 10th of January 2016. That timing was not coincidence. Producer Tony Visconti later confirmed that Bowie had planned Blackstar to be a deliberate parting gift, a swan song composed while he was privately dying of liver cancer. The man who spent five decades shape-shifting on stage arranged his own exit with the same theatrical precision he applied to every persona he ever built.

  By the time he died, he had sold over 100 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling musicians of all time. As of 2022, he was the best-selling vinyl artist of the 21st century. Rolling Stone ranked him among the greatest singers, songwriters, and artists of all time. Yet the arc of his career resists any simple telling. He was never just one thing long enough. The questions worth asking are not merely what he made, but how a brawler from south London became the chameleon of rock, why he kept dismantling success at its peak, and what it cost him.

• 2. Brixton Roots

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  At age nine, Bowie's father brought home a collection of American 45s featuring the Teenagers, the Platters, Fats Domino, Elvis Presley, and Little Richard. Hearing Little Richard's "Tutti Frutti" for the first time, Bowie later said he had "heard God." His cousin Kristina recalled that she and David "danced like possessed elves" to records; his stage imitation of Presley and Chuck Berry before his local Wolf Cub group was described by witnesses as "mesmerizing... like someone from another planet."

  His mother, Peggy, was a cinema waitress. His father, John, worked as a promotions officer for the children's charity Barnardo's. The family lived at 40 Stansfield Road, on the Brixton-Stockwell boundary in the London borough of Lambeth. Even at Burnt Ash Junior School, teachers called his dancing interpretations "vividly artistic" and his poise "astonishing" for a child. His half-brother Terry Burns, ten years older and living alternately at home and in psychiatric wards with schizophrenia, introduced him to modern jazz, Buddhism, Beat poetry, and the occult. Several other extended family members had schizophrenia spectrum disorders, including an aunt who was institutionalized and another who underwent a lobotomy. These encounters shaped his early work in ways critics would note for decades.

  After Terry introduced him to jazz, Bowie's mother gave him a Grafton saxophone in 1961. He soon took lessons from baritone saxophonist Ronnie Ross. In 1962, a schoolyard fight over a girl ended with his friend George Underwood punching him in the left eye. After four months in hospital and multiple operations, the damage was permanent: faulty depth perception and anisocoria, a permanently dilated pupil that became one of his most recognizable physical features. Underwood, despite everything, went on to design artwork for Bowie's early albums. That same year, Bowie met a fellow Bromley Technical School student named Peter Frampton, and the two spent lunch breaks together playing Buddy Holly songs.

• 3. The Name, the Bands, the Misses

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  Bowie formed his first band, the Konrads, in 1962 at age 15, playing guitar-based rock and roll at youth gatherings and weddings. His frustration with limited ambitions drove him to write directly to entrepreneur John Bloom, asking him to "do for us what Brian Epstein has done for the Beatles - and make another million." Bloom did not respond, but his referral led to Bowie's first management contract with Leslie Conn.

  His debut single, "Liza Jane," credited to Davie Jones with the King Bees, sold nothing. He left the King Bees less than a month later, joined the Manish Boys, then moved on to the Lower Third. He recorded "You've Got a Habit of Leaving" with the Lower Third; it fared no better. By the mid-1960s he faced an additional problem: Davy Jones of the Monkees was causing persistent name confusion. He adopted the name David Bowie after the 19th-century American pioneer James Bowie and the knife associated with him. His first release under the new name, the January 1966 single "Can't Help Thinking About Me," flopped alongside everything else.

  He signed with Deram Records and released "The Laughing Gnome" in April 1967, deploying sped-up pitched vocals to portray a gnome; it failed to chart. His debut album David Bowie, an amalgam of pop, psychedelia, and music hall, arrived six weeks later and met the same fate. It would be his last release for two years. During those sessions, however, he began working with producer Tony Visconti, a collaboration that would continue, with long gaps, for the rest of his life. The track "Space Oddity," a song about a fictional astronaut named Major Tom written while Bowie was reeling from a career that had produced nothing but misses, changed everything. Philips issued it as a single on the 11th of July 1969, five days before the Apollo 11 launch.

• 4. Ziggy and the Cost of a Persona

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  On the 10th of February 1972, at the Toby Jug pub in Tolworth in Kingston upon Thames, Bowie launched his Ziggy Stardust stage show with the Spiders from Mars: guitarist Mick Ronson, bassist Trevor Bolder, and drummer Mick Woodmansey. One observer described the cult of Bowie that formed over the following months as "unique - its influence lasted longer and has been more creative than perhaps almost any other force within pop fandom."

  The Ziggy character was built from specific raw material. During an earlier US tour in early 1971, Bowie had observed Iggy Pop and Lou Reed. He described his concept as "the ultimate pop idol," a melding of Pop's persona with Reed's music. A girlfriend recalled him "scrawling notes on a cocktail napkin about a crazy rock star named Iggy or Ziggy." The "Stardust" surname paid tribute to the "Legendary Stardust Cowboy," whose record he had been given during the tour. Bowie contributed backing vocals, keyboards, and guitar to Reed's 1972 solo breakthrough Transformer, co-producing it with Ronson. He also co-produced and mixed the Stooges' album Raw Power alongside Iggy Pop.

  The toll was immediate and severe. Bowie said of Ziggy: "He wouldn't leave me alone for years. That was when it all started to go sour... My whole personality was affected. It became very dangerous. I really did have doubts about my sanity." Late Ziggy shows featured Bowie stripping to a sumo wrestling loincloth or simulating oral sex with Ronson's guitar. The character was retired in a dramatic on-stage announcement at London's Hammersmith Odeon on the 3rd of July 1973. His 1967 novelty record "The Laughing Gnome" entered the UK charts that September and reached number six. Pin Ups, a covers album released in October, made him the best-selling act of 1973 in the UK, with six Bowie albums simultaneously charting.

• 5. Cocaine, Fascism, and Berlin

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  The Diamond Dogs Tour of 1974, choreographed by Toni Basil and filmed by Alan Yentob for the documentary Cracked Actor, showed a pasty, emaciated Bowie descending into cocaine addiction. He later suggested that the accompanying live album, David Live, ought to have been titled "David Bowie Is Alive and Well and Living Only in Theory." Station to Station in 1976 introduced the Thin White Duke persona. Bowie later admitted he remembered "only flashes" of its recording, having sometimes gone three to four days without sleep during the sessions.

  The accompanying Isolar Tour became entangled in political scandal. Bowie was quoted saying that Britain could benefit from a fascist leader and was detained at the Russian-Polish border for possessing Nazi paraphernalia. At Victoria Station in London in May, a photograph published in NME appeared to show him giving a Nazi salute from an open-top Mercedes convertible. He attributed the remarks and behavior to cocaine, the Thin White Duke character, and life in Los Angeles, a city he later said "should be wiped off the face of the Earth." His comments on fascism, alongside Eric Clapton's alcohol-fueled anti-immigrant tirade in 1976, directly led to the founding of Rock Against Racism.

  In August 1976, Bowie and Iggy Pop moved to West Berlin to escape addiction and the spotlight. The three albums that followed, Low (1977), "Heroes" (1977), and Lodger (1979), became known collectively as the Berlin Trilogy. Low was recorded in France, co-produced with Visconti, and drew on krautrock and experimental music. RCA considered it commercially unviable; Bowie's former manager Tony Defries tried to block its release. Upon its January 1977 release, it yielded the UK number three single "Sound and Vision." The title track of "Heroes," recorded entirely in Berlin with guitarist Robert Fripp, was also released in German and French. Though it reached only number 24 in the UK singles chart on release, it became one of Bowie's best-known songs. Philip Glass later adapted all three Berlin albums into his first, fourth, and twelfth symphonies in 1992, 1997, and 2019.

• 6. Commercial Peak and Public Retreat

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  Let's Dance, co-produced with Nile Rodgers of Chic, went platinum in both the UK and the US in 1983. Its title track reached number one in both countries. Then-unknown Texas blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan guested prominently on the album. The six-month Serious Moonlight Tour that followed was extremely successful. At the 1984 MTV Video Music Awards, Bowie received the inaugural Video Vanguard Award.

  In early 1985, his collaboration with the Pat Metheny Group, "This Is Not America," became a transatlantic top 40 hit. At Wembley Stadium in July 1985, he performed at Live Aid. His duet with Mick Jagger covering Martha and the Vandellas' "Dancing in the Street" reached number one in the UK and number seven in the US. By 1987, however, Bowie himself described Never Let Me Down as his "nadir" and "an awful album." The 86-concert Glass Spider Tour was attacked by critics as overproduced, though later reassessed as influential on tours by Prince, Madonna, and U2.

  Between 1988 and 1992, Bowie disbanded his solo career to front the hard rock quartet Tin Machine. EMI complained of "lyrics that preach" and "repetitive tunes." Tin Machine II in 1991 was his first album to miss the UK top 20 in nearly twenty years, and its record label airbrushed the genitalia of ancient Kouroi statues depicted on the cover for the American release. After Tin Machine dissolved, Bowie returned to solo work in 1993 with Black Tie White Noise, which reunited him with Rodgers and topped the UK chart. His 50th birthday concert at Madison Square Garden on the 7th of January 1997 featured Lou Reed, Dave Grohl, the Foo Fighters, Robert Smith, Billy Corgan, Black Francis, and Sonic Youth.

• 7. The Final Album

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  On the 8th of January 2013, his 66th birthday, Bowie's website announced The Next Day, his first studio album in a decade. A music video for the lead single "Where Are We Now?" was released simultaneously, directed by New York artist Tony Oursler. The single topped the UK iTunes chart within hours. It was his first top 10 UK single since "Jump They Say" in 1993. Twenty-nine songs were recorded during the album sessions between 2011 and 2012; 22 saw official release in 2013. The Next Day debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart. In 2014, Bowie became the oldest ever recipient of a Brit Award, collecting the British Male Solo Artist award; Kate Moss accepted it on his behalf.

  Bowie secretly recorded his final album Blackstar in New York between January and May 2015, while already diagnosed with liver cancer. On the 7th of December 2015, his musical Lazarus debuted in New York; he made his final public appearance at its opening night. Blackstar was released on the 8th of January 2016, his 69th birthday. He died two days later. In the immediate aftermath, Bowie's music broke the record for Vevo's most viewed artist in a single day. Nineteen of his albums entered the UK top 100 albums chart simultaneously. In the two years following his death, five million Bowie records were sold in the UK alone.

  At the 59th Annual Grammy Awards in 2017, Bowie won all five of his nominated awards. They were his first Grammy wins in musical categories. In January 2022, Variety reported that his estate had sold his publishing catalogue to Warner Chappell Music for a price above 250 million dollars. The sixth and final posthumous retrospective box set, covering his studio records from Heathen to Blackstar, was scheduled for release in September 2025.