David Robert Jones (8 January 1947 – 10
January 2016), known professionally as David
Bowie ( BOH-ee), was an English singer-songwriter
and actor.
He was a leading figure in the music industry
and is considered one of the most influential
musicians of the 20th century, acclaimed by
critics and musicians, particularly for his
innovative work during the 1970s.
His career was marked by reinvention and visual
presentation, with his music and stagecraft
having a significant impact on popular music.
During his lifetime, his record sales, estimated
at 140 million albums worldwide, made him
one of the world's best-selling music artists.
In the UK, he was awarded ten platinum album
certifications, eleven gold and eight silver,
and released eleven number-one albums.
In the US, he received five platinum and nine
gold certifications.
He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall
of Fame in 1996.
Born in Brixton, South London, Bowie developed
an interest in music as a child, eventually
studying art, music and design before embarking
on a professional career as a musician in
1963.
"Space Oddity" became his first top-five entry
on the UK Singles Chart after its release
in July 1969.
After a period of experimentation, he re-emerged
in 1972 during the glam rock era with his
flamboyant and androgynous alter ego Ziggy
Stardust.
The character was spearheaded by the success
of his single "Starman" and album The Rise
and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders
from Mars, which won him widespread popularity.
In 1975, Bowie's style shifted radically towards
a sound he characterised as "plastic soul",
initially alienating many of his UK devotees
but garnering him his first major US crossover
success with the number-one single "Fame"
and the album Young Americans.
In 1976, Bowie starred in the cult film The
Man Who Fell to Earth, directed by Nicolas
Roeg, and released Station to Station.
The following year, he further confounded
musical expectations with the electronic-inflected
album Low (1977), the first of three collaborations
with Brian Eno that came to be known as the
"Berlin Trilogy".
"Heroes" (1977) and Lodger (1979) followed;
each album reached the UK top five and received
lasting critical praise.
After uneven commercial success in the late
1970s, Bowie had UK number ones with the 1980
single "Ashes to Ashes", its parent album
Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), and "Under
Pressure", a 1981 collaboration with Queen.
He reached his commercial peak in 1983 with
Let's Dance; the album's title track topped
both UK and US charts.
Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Bowie continued
to experiment with musical styles, including
industrial and jungle.
He also continued acting; his roles included
Major Jack Celliers in Merry Christmas, Mr.
Lawrence (1983), Jareth the Goblin King in
Labyrinth (1986), Pontius Pilate in The Last
Temptation of Christ (1988), and Nikola Tesla
in The Prestige (2006), among other film and
television appearances and cameos.
He stopped touring after 2004 and his last
live performance was at a charity event in
2006.
In 2013, Bowie returned from a decade-long
recording hiatus with The Next Day.
He remained musically active until he died
of liver cancer two days after the release
of his final album, Blackstar (2016).
== Early life ==
Bowie was born David Robert Jones on 8 January
1947 in Brixton, London.
His mother, Margaret Mary "Peggy" (née Burns;
2 October 1913 – 2 April 2001), was born
at Shorncliffe Army Camp near Cheriton, Kent.
Her paternal grandparents were Irish immigrants
who had settled in Manchester.
She worked as a waitress at a cinema in Royal
Tunbridge Wells.
His father, Haywood Stenton "John" Jones (21
November 1912 – 5 August 1969), was from
Doncaster, and worked as a promotions officer
for the children's charity Barnardo's.
The family lived at 40 Stansfield Road, on
the boundary between Brixton and Stockwell
in the south London borough of Lambeth.
Bowie attended Stockwell Infants School until
he was six years old, acquiring a reputation
as a gifted and single-minded child—and
a defiant brawler.In 1953, Bowie moved with
his family to Bromley.
Two years later, he started attending Burnt
Ash Junior School.
His voice was considered "adequate" by the
school choir, and he demonstrated above-average
abilities in playing the recorder.
At the age of nine, his dancing during the
newly-introduced music and movement classes
was strikingly imaginative: teachers called
his interpretations "vividly artistic" and
his poise "astonishing" for a child.
The same year, his interest in music was further
stimulated when his father brought home a
collection of American 45s by artists including
the Teenagers, the Platters, Fats Domino,
Elvis Presley, and Little Richard.
Upon listening to Little Richard's song "Tutti
Frutti", Bowie would later say that he had
"heard God".Bowie was first impressed with
Presley when he saw his cousin dance to "Hound
Dog".
By the end of the following year, he had taken
up the ukulele and tea-chest bass, begun to
participate in skiffle sessions with friends,
and had started to play the piano; meanwhile,
his stage presentation of numbers by both
Presley and Chuck Berry—complete with gyrations
in tribute to the original artists—to his
local Wolf Cub group was described as "mesmerizing
... like someone from another planet".
After taking his eleven-plus exam at the conclusion
of his Burnt Ash Junior education, Bowie went
to Bromley Technical High School.It was an
unusual technical school, as biographer Christopher
Sandford wrote:
Despite its status it was, by the time David
arrived in 1958, as rich in arcane ritual
as any [English] public school.
There were houses named after eighteenth-century
statesmen like Pitt and Wilberforce.
There was a uniform, and an elaborate system
of rewards and punishments.
There was also an accent on languages, science
and particularly design, where a collegiate
atmosphere flourished under the tutorship
of Owen Frampton.
In David's account, Frampton led through force
of personality, not intellect; his colleagues
at Bromley Tech were famous for neither, and
yielded the school's most gifted pupils to
the arts, a regime so liberal that Frampton
actively encouraged his own son, Peter, to
pursue a musical career with David, a partnership
briefly intact thirty years later.
Bowie studied art, music, and design, including
layout and typesetting.
After his half-brother Terry Burns introduced
him to modern jazz, his enthusiasm for players
like Charles Mingus and John Coltrane led
his mother to give him a Grafton saxophone
in 1961.
He was soon receiving lessons from baritone
saxophonist Ronnie Ross.
He received a serious injury at school in
1962 when his friend George Underwood punched
him in the left eye during a fight over a
girl.
After a series of operations during a four-month
hospitalisation, his doctors determined that
the damage could not be fully repaired and
Bowie was left with faulty depth perception
and a permanently dilated pupil, which gave
a false impression of a change in the iris's
colour; the eye later became one of Bowie's
most recognisable features.
Despite their altercation, Bowie remained
on good terms with Underwood, who went on
to create the artwork for Bowie's early albums.
== Career ==
=== 1962–1967: Early career to debut album
===
In 1962, Bowie formed his first band at the
age of 15, named the Konrads.
Playing guitar-based rock and roll at local
youth gatherings and weddings, the Konrads
had a varying line-up of between four and
eight members, Underwood among them.
When Bowie left the technical school the following
year, he informed his parents of his intention
to become a pop star.
His mother arranged his employment as an electrician's
mate.
Frustrated by his bandmates' limited aspirations,
Bowie left the Konrads and joined another
band, the King Bees.
He wrote to the newly successful washing-machine
entrepreneur John Bloom inviting him to "do
for us what Brian Epstein has done for the
Beatles—and make another million."
Bloom did not respond to the offer, but his
referral to Dick James's partner Leslie Conn
led to Bowie's first personal management contract.Conn
quickly began to promote Bowie.
The singer's debut single, "Liza Jane", credited
to Davie Jones with the King Bees, was not
commercially successful.
Dissatisfied with the King Bees and their
repertoire of Howlin' Wolf and Willie Dixon
covers, Bowie quit the band less than a month
later to join the Manish Boys, another blues
outfit, who incorporated folk and soul—"I
used to dream of being their Mick Jagger",
Bowie was to recall.
Their cover of Bobby Bland's "I Pity the Fool"
was no more successful than "Liza Jane", and
Bowie soon moved on again to join the Lower
Third, a blues trio strongly influenced by
The Who.
"You've Got a Habit of Leaving" fared no better,
signalling the end of Conn's contract.
Declaring that he would exit the pop music
world "to study mime at Sadler's Wells", Bowie
nevertheless remained with the Lower Third.
His new manager, Ralph Horton, later instrumental
in his transition to solo artist, soon witnessed
Bowie's move to yet another group, the Buzz,
yielding the singer's fifth unsuccessful single
release, "Do Anything You Say".
While with the Buzz, Bowie also joined the
Riot Squad; their recordings, which included
one of Bowie's original songs and material
by The Velvet Underground, went unreleased.
Kenneth Pitt, introduced by Horton, took over
as Bowie's manager.Dissatisfied with his stage
name as Davy (and Davie) Jones, which in the
mid-1960s invited confusion with Davy Jones
of The Monkees, Bowie renamed himself after
the 19th-century American pioneer James Bowie
and the knife he had popularised.
His April 1967 solo single, "The Laughing
Gnome", using speeded-up thus high-pitched
vocals, failed to chart.
Released six weeks later, his album debut,
David Bowie, an amalgam of pop, psychedelia,
and music hall, met the same fate.
It was his last release for two years.
=== 1968–1971: Space Oddity to Hunky Dory
===
Bowie met dancer Lindsay Kemp in 1967 and
enrolled in his dance class at the London
Dance Centre.
He commented in 1972 that meeting Kemp was
when his interest in image "really blossomed".
"He lived on his emotions, he was a wonderful
influence.
His day-to-day life was the most theatrical
thing I had ever seen, ever.
It was everything I thought Bohemia probably
was.
I joined the circus."
Studying the dramatic arts under Kemp, from
avant-garde theatre and mime to commedia dell'arte,
Bowie became immersed in the creation of personae
to present to the world.
Satirising life in a British prison, meanwhile,
the Bowie composition "Over the Wall We Go"
became a 1967 single for Oscar; another Bowie
song, "Silly Boy Blue", was released by Billy
Fury the following year.
In January 1968, Kemp choreographed a dance
scene for a BBC play, The Pistol Shot, in
the Theatre 625 series, and used Bowie with
a dancer, Hermione Farthingale; the pair began
dating, and moved into a London flat together.
Playing acoustic guitar, Farthingale formed
a group with Bowie and guitarist John Hutchinson;
between September 1968 and early 1969 the
trio gave a small number of concerts combining
folk, Merseybeat, poetry, and mime.
Bowie and Farthingale broke up in early 1969
when she went to Norway to take part in a
film, Song of Norway; this affected him, and
several songs, such as "Letter to Hermione"
and "Life on Mars?"
reference her, and for the video accompanying
"Where Are We Now?", he wore a T-shirt with
the words "m/s Song of Norway".
They were last together in January 1969 for
the filming of Love You till Tuesday, a 30-minute
film that was not released until 1984: intended
as a promotional vehicle, it featured performances
from Bowie's repertoire, including "Space
Oddity", which had not been released when
the film was made.After the break-up with
Farthingale, Bowie moved in with Mary Finnigan
as her lodger.
During this period he appeared in a Lyons
Maid ice cream commercial, and was rejected
for another by Kit Kat.
In February and March 1969, he undertook a
short tour with Marc Bolan's duo Tyrannosaurus
Rex, as third on the bill, performing a mime
act.
On 11 July 1969, "Space Oddity" was released
five days ahead of the Apollo 11 launch, and
reached the top five in the UK.
Continuing the divergence from rock and roll
and blues begun by his work with Farthingale,
Bowie joined forces with Finnigan, Christina
Ostrom and Barrie Jackson to run a folk club
on Sunday nights at the Three Tuns pub in
Beckenham High Street.
The club was influenced by the Arts Lab movement,
developing into the Beckenham Arts Lab and
became extremely popular.
The Arts Lab hosted a free festival in a local
park, the subject of his song "Memory of a
Free Festival".Bowie's second album followed
in November; originally issued in the UK as
David Bowie, it caused some confusion with
its predecessor of the same name, and the
early US release was instead titled Man of
Words/Man of Music; it was reissued internationally
in 1972 by RCA Records as Space Oddity.
Featuring philosophical post-hippie lyrics
on peace, love, and morality, its acoustic
folk rock occasionally fortified by harder
rock, the album was not a commercial success
at the time of its release.Bowie met Angela
Barnett in April 1969.
They married within a year.
Her impact on him was immediate, and her involvement
in his career far-reaching, leaving manager
Ken Pitt with limited influence which he found
frustrating.
Having established himself as a solo artist
with "Space Oddity", Bowie began to sense
a lacking: "a full-time band for gigs and
recording—people he could relate to personally".
The shortcoming was underlined by his artistic
rivalry with Marc Bolan, who was at the time
acting as his session guitarist.
The band Bowie assembled comprised John Cambridge,
a drummer Bowie met at the Arts Lab, Tony
Visconti on bass and Mick Ronson on electric
guitar.
Known as Hype, the bandmates created characters
for themselves and wore elaborate costumes
that prefigured the glam style of the Spiders
from Mars.
After a disastrous opening gig at the London
Roundhouse, they reverted to a configuration
presenting Bowie as a solo artist.
Their initial studio work was marred by a
heated disagreement between Bowie and Cambridge
over the latter's drumming style.
Matters came to a head when an enraged Bowie
accused the drummer of the disturbance, exclaiming
"You're fucking up my album."
Cambridge left and was replaced by Mick Woodmansey.
Not long after, the singer fired his manager
and replaced him with Tony Defries.
This resulted in years of litigation that
concluded with Bowie having to pay Pitt compensation.The
studio sessions continued and resulted in
Bowie's third album, The Man Who Sold the
World (1970), which contained references to
schizophrenia, paranoia, and delusion.
Characterised by the heavy rock sound of his
new backing band, it was a marked departure
from the acoustic guitar and folk rock style
established by Space Oddity.
To promote it in the US, Mercury Records financed
a coast-to-coast publicity tour across America
in which Bowie, between January and February
1971, was interviewed by radio stations and
the media.
Exploiting his androgynous appearance, the
original cover of the UK version unveiled
two months later depicted the singer wearing
a dress: taking the garment with him, he wore
it during interviews—to the approval of
critics, including Rolling Stone's John Mendelsohn
who described him as "ravishing, almost disconcertingly
reminiscent of Lauren Bacall" – and in the
street, to mixed reaction including laughter
and, in the case of one male pedestrian, producing
a gun and telling Bowie to "kiss my ass".During
the tour, Bowie's observation of two seminal
American proto-punk artists led him to develop
a concept that eventually found form in the
Ziggy Stardust character: a melding of the
persona of Iggy Pop with the music of Lou
Reed, producing "the ultimate pop idol".
A girlfriend recalled his "scrawling notes
on a cocktail napkin about a crazy rock star
named Iggy or Ziggy", and on his return to
England he declared his intention to create
a character "who looks like he's landed from
Mars".
The "Stardust" surname was a tribute to the
"Legendary Stardust Cowboy", whose record
he was given during the tour.
Bowie would later cover "I Took a Trip on
a Gemini Space Ship" on 2002's Heathen.Hunky
Dory (1971) found Visconti, Bowie's producer
and bassist, supplanted in both roles by Ken
Scott and Trevor Bolder respectively.
The album saw the partial return of the fey
pop singer of "Space Oddity", with light fare
such as "Kooks", a song written for his son,
Duncan Zowie Haywood Jones, born on 30 May.
(His parents chose "his kooky name"—he was
known as Zowie for the next 12 years—after
the Greek word zoe, life.)
Elsewhere, the album explored more serious
subjects, and found Bowie paying unusually
direct homage to his influences with "Song
for Bob Dylan", "Andy Warhol", and "Queen
Bitch", a Velvet Underground pastiche.
It was not a significant commercial success
at the time.
=== 1972–1974: Ziggy Stardust ===
Dressed in a striking costume, his hair dyed
reddish-brown, Bowie launched his Ziggy Stardust
stage show with the Spiders from Mars—Ronson,
Bolder, and Woodmansey—at the Toby Jug pub
in Tolworth in Kingston upon Thames on 10
February 1972.
The show was hugely popular, catapulting him
to stardom as he toured the UK over the next
six months and creating, as described by Buckley,
a "cult of Bowie" that was "unique—its influence
lasted longer and has been more creative than
perhaps almost any other force within pop
fandom."
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the
Spiders from Mars (1972), combining the hard
rock elements of The Man Who Sold the World
with the lighter experimental rock and pop
of Hunky Dory, was released in June.
"Starman", issued as an April single ahead
of the album, was to cement Bowie's UK breakthrough:
both single and album charted rapidly following
his July Top of the Pops performance of the
song.
The album, which remained in the chart for
two years, was soon joined there by the 6-month-old
Hunky Dory.
At the same time the non-album single "John,
I'm Only Dancing", and "All the Young Dudes",
a song he wrote and produced for Mott the
Hoople, were successful in the UK.
The Ziggy Stardust Tour continued to the United
States.Bowie contributed backing vocals, keyboards,
and guitar to Reed's 1972 solo breakthrough
Transformer, co-producing the album with Mick
Ronson.
The following year, Bowie co-produced and
mixed The Stooges album Raw Power alongside
Iggy Pop.
His own Aladdin Sane (1973) topped the UK
chart, his first number-one album.
Described by Bowie as "Ziggy goes to America",
it contained songs he wrote while travelling
to and across the US during the earlier part
of the Ziggy tour, which now continued to
Japan to promote the new album.
Aladdin Sane spawned the UK top five singles
"The Jean Genie" and "Drive-In Saturday".Bowie's
love of acting led his total immersion in
the characters he created for his music.
"Offstage I'm a robot.
Onstage I achieve emotion.
It's probably why I prefer dressing up as
Ziggy to being David."
With satisfaction came severe personal difficulties:
acting the same role over an extended period,
it became impossible for him to separate Ziggy
Stardust—and, later, the Thin White Duke—from
his own character offstage.
Ziggy, Bowie said, "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."
His later Ziggy shows, which included songs
from both Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane,
were ultra-theatrical affairs filled with
shocking stage moments, such as Bowie stripping
down to a sumo wrestling loincloth or simulating
oral sex with Ronson's guitar.
Bowie toured and gave press conferences as
Ziggy before a dramatic and abrupt on-stage
"retirement" at London's Hammersmith Odeon
on 3 July 1973.
Footage from the final show was released the
same year for the film Ziggy Stardust and
the Spiders from Mars.
After breaking up the Spiders from Mars, Bowie
attempted to move on from his Ziggy persona.
His back catalogue was now highly sought after:
The Man Who Sold the World had been re-released
in 1972 along with Space Oddity.
"Life on Mars?", from Hunky Dory, was released
in June 1973 and peaked at No. 3 on the UK
Singles Chart.
Entering the same chart in September, Bowie's
novelty record from 1967, "The Laughing Gnome",
reached No. 6.
Pin Ups, a collection of covers of his 1960s
favourites, followed in October, producing
a UK No. 3 hit in his version of the McCoys's
"Sorrow" and itself peaking at number one,
making David Bowie the best-selling act of
1973 in the UK.
It brought the total number of Bowie albums
concurrently on the UK chart to six.
=== 1974–1976: "Plastic soul" and the Thin
White Duke ===
Bowie moved to the US in 1974, initially staying
in New York City before settling in Los Angeles.
Diamond Dogs (1974), parts of which found
him heading towards soul and funk, was the
product of two distinct ideas: a musical based
on a wild future in a post-apocalyptic city,
and setting George Orwell's 1984 to music.
The album went to number one in the UK, spawning
the hits "Rebel Rebel" and "Diamond Dogs",
and No. 5 in the US.
To promote it, Bowie launched the Diamond
Dogs Tour, visiting cities in North America
between June and December 1974.
Choreographed by Toni Basil, and lavishly
produced with theatrical special effects,
the high-budget stage production was filmed
by Alan Yentob.
The resulting documentary, Cracked Actor,
featured a pasty and emaciated Bowie: the
tour coincided with the singer's slide from
heavy cocaine use into addiction, producing
severe physical debilitation, paranoia, and
emotional problems.
He later commented that the accompanying live
album, David Live, ought to have been titled
"David Bowie Is Alive and Well and Living
Only in Theory".
David Live nevertheless solidified Bowie's
status as a superstar, charting at No. 2 in
the UK and No. 8 in the US.
It also spawned a UK No. 10 hit in Bowie's
cover of Eddie Floyd's "Knock on Wood".
After a break in Philadelphia, where Bowie
recorded new material, the tour resumed with
a new emphasis on soul.
The fruit of the Philadelphia recording sessions
was Young Americans (1975).
Biographer Christopher Sandford writes, "Over
the years, most British rockers had tried,
one way or another, to become black-by-extension.
Few had succeeded as Bowie did now."
The album's sound, which the singer identified
as "plastic soul", constituted a radical shift
in style that initially alienated many of
his UK devotees.
Young Americans yielded Bowie's first US number
one, "Fame", co-written with John Lennon,
who contributed backing vocals, and Carlos
Alomar.
Lennon called Bowie's work "great, but it's
just rock'n'roll with lipstick on".
Earning the distinction of being one of the
first white artists to appear on the US variety
show Soul Train, Bowie mimed "Fame", as well
as "Golden Years", his November single, which
was originally offered to Elvis Presley, who
declined it.
Young Americans was a commercial success in
both the US and the UK, and a re-issue of
the 1969 single "Space Oddity" became Bowie's
first number-one hit in the UK a few months
after "Fame" achieved the same in the US.
Despite his by now well established superstardom,
Bowie, in the words of Sandford, "for all
his record sales (over a million copies of
Ziggy Stardust alone), existed essentially
on loose change."
In 1975, in a move echoing Ken Pitt's acrimonious
dismissal five years earlier, Bowie fired
his manager.
At the culmination of the ensuing months-long
legal dispute, he watched, as described by
Sandford, "millions of dollars of his future
earnings being surrendered" in what were "uniquely
generous terms for Defries", then "shut himself
up in West 20th Street, where for a week his
howls could be heard through the locked attic
door."
Michael Lippman, Bowie's lawyer during the
negotiations, became his new manager; Lippman
in turn was awarded substantial compensation
when Bowie fired him the following year.
Station to Station (1976), produced by Bowie
and Harry Maslin, introduced a new Bowie persona,
"The Thin White Duke" of its title-track.
Visually, the character was an extension of
Thomas Jerome Newton, the extraterrestrial
being he portrayed in the film The Man Who
Fell to Earth the same year.
Developing the funk and soul of Young Americans,
Station to Station's synthesizer-heavy arrangements
prefigured the krautrock-influenced music
of his next releases.
The extent to which drug addiction was now
affecting Bowie was made public when Russell
Harty interviewed the singer for his London
Weekend Television talk show in anticipation
of the album's supporting tour.
Shortly before the satellite-linked interview
was scheduled to commence, the death of the
Spanish dictator Francisco Franco was announced.
Bowie was asked to relinquish the satellite
booking, to allow the Spanish Government to
put out a live newsfeed.
This he refused to do, and his interview went
ahead.
In the ensuing lengthy conversation with Harty,
Bowie was incoherent and looked "disconnected".
His sanity—by his own later admission—had
become twisted from cocaine; he overdosed
several times during the year, and was withering
physically to an alarming degree.Station to
Station's January 1976 release was followed
in February by a 31/2-month-long concert tour
of Europe and North America.
Featuring a starkly lit set, the Isolar – 1976
Tour with its iconic colour newsprint Isolar
concert program, highlighted songs from the
album, including the dramatic and lengthy
title track, the ballads "Wild Is the Wind"
and "Word on a Wing", and the funkier "TVC
15" and "Stay".
The core band that coalesced to record this
album and tour—rhythm guitarist Carlos Alomar,
bassist George Murray, and drummer Dennis
Davis—continued as a stable unit for the
remainder of the 1970s.
The tour was highly successful but mired in
political controversy.
Bowie was quoted in Stockholm as saying that
"Britain could benefit from a Fascist leader",
and was detained by customs on the Russian/Polish
border for possessing Nazi paraphernalia.
Matters came to a head in London in May in
what became known as the "Victoria Station
incident".
Arriving in an open-top Mercedes convertible,
Bowie waved to the crowd in a gesture that
some alleged was a Nazi salute, which was
captured on camera and published in NME.
Bowie said the photographer caught him in
mid-wave.
He later blamed his pro-fascism comments and
his behaviour during the period on his addictions
and the character of the Thin White Duke.
"I was out of my mind, totally crazed.
The main thing I was functioning on was mythology
... that whole thing about Hitler and Rightism
... I'd discovered King Arthur".
According to playwright Alan Franks, writing
later in The Times, "he was indeed 'deranged'.
He had some very bad experiences with hard
drugs."
Bowie's cocaine addiction, which had motivated
these controversies, had much to do with his
time living in Los Angeles, a city which alienated
him.
Discussing his flirtations with fascism in
a 1980 interview with NME, Bowie explained
that Los Angeles was "where it had all happened.
The fucking place should be wiped off the
face of the Earth.
To be anything to do with rock and roll and
go and live in Los Angeles is, I think, just
heading for disaster.
It really is."After recovering from addiction,
Bowie apologised for these statements, and
throughout the 1980s and '90s criticised racism
in European politics and the American music
industry.
Nevertheless, Bowie's comments on fascism,
as well as Eric Clapton's alcohol-fuelled
denunciations of Pakistani immigrants in 1976,
led to the establishment of Rock Against Racism.
=== 1976–1979: Berlin era ===
Bowie moved to Switzerland in 1976, purchasing
a chalet in the hills to the north of Lake
Geneva.
In the new environment, his cocaine use decreased
and he found time for other pursuits outside
his musical career.
He devoted more time to his painting, and
produced a number of post-modernist pieces.
When on tour, he took to sketching in a notebook,
and photographing scenes for later reference.
Visiting galleries in Geneva and the Brücke
Museum in Berlin, Bowie became, in the words
of biographer Christopher Sandford, "a prolific
producer and collector of contemporary art.
... Not only did he become a well-known patron
of expressionist art: locked in Clos des Mésanges
he began an intensive self-improvement course
in classical music and literature, and started
work on an autobiography."
Before the end of 1976, Bowie's interest in
the burgeoning German music scene, as well
as his drug addiction, prompted him to move
to West Berlin to clean up and revitalise
his career.
There he was often seen riding a bicycle between
his apartment on Hauptstraße in Schöneberg
and Hansa Tonstudio, the recording studio
he used, located on Köthener Straße in Kreuzberg,
near the Berlin Wall.
While working with Brian Eno and sharing an
apartment with Iggy Pop, he began to focus
on minimalist, ambient music for the first
of three albums, co-produced with Tony Visconti,
that became known as his Berlin Trilogy.
During the same period, Iggy Pop, with Bowie
as a co-writer and musician, completed his
solo album debut The Idiot and its follow-up
Lust for Life, touring the UK, Europe, and
the US in March and April 1977.
The album Low (1977), partly influenced by
the Krautrock sound of Kraftwerk and Neu!,
evinced a move away from narration in Bowie's
songwriting to a more abstract musical form
in which lyrics were sporadic and optional.
Although he completed the album in November
1976, it took his unsettled record company
another three months to release it.
It received considerable negative criticism
upon its release—a release which RCA, anxious
to maintain the established commercial momentum,
did not welcome, and which Bowie's former
manager, Tony Defries, who still maintained
a significant financial interest in the singer's
affairs, tried to prevent.
Despite these forebodings, Low yielded the
UK No. 3 single "Sound and Vision", and its
own performance surpassed that of Station
to Station in the UK chart, where it reached
No. 2.
Leading contemporary composer Philip Glass
described Low as "a work of genius" in 1992,
when he used it as the basis for his Symphony
No. 1 "Low"; subsequently, Glass used Bowie's
next album as the basis for his 1996 Symphony
No. 4 "Heroes".
Glass has praised Bowie's gift for creating
"fairly complex pieces of music, masquerading
as simple pieces".
Also in 1977, London released Starting Point,
a ten-song LP containing releases from Bowie's
Deram period (1966—67).
Echoing Low's minimalist, instrumental approach,
the second of the trilogy, "Heroes" (1977),
incorporated pop and rock to a greater extent,
seeing Bowie joined by guitarist Robert Fripp.
Like Low, "Heroes" evinced the zeitgeist of
the Cold War, symbolised by the divided city
of Berlin.
Incorporating ambient sounds from a variety
of sources including white noise generators,
synthesisers and koto, the album was another
hit, reaching No. 3 in the UK.
Its title-track, though only reaching No.
24 in the UK singles chart, gained lasting
popularity, and within months had been released
in both German and French.
Towards the end of the year, Bowie performed
the song for Marc Bolan's television show
Marc, and again two days later for Bing Crosby's
final CBS television Christmas special, when
he joined Crosby in "Peace on Earth/Little
Drummer Boy", a version of "The Little Drummer
Boy" with a new, contrapuntal verse.
Five years later, the duet proved a worldwide
seasonal hit, charting in the UK at No. 3
on Christmas Day, 1982.After completing Low
and "Heroes", Bowie spent much of 1978 on
the Isolar II world tour, bringing the music
of the first two Berlin Trilogy albums to
almost a million people during 70 concerts
in 12 countries.
By now he had broken his drug addiction; biographer
David Buckley writes that Isolar II was "Bowie's
first tour for five years in which he had
probably not anaesthetised himself with copious
quantities of cocaine before taking the stage.
... Without the oblivion that drugs had brought,
he was now in a healthy enough mental condition
to want to make friends."
Recordings from the tour made up the live
album Stage, released the same year.The final
piece in what Bowie called his "triptych",
Lodger (1979), eschewed the minimalist, ambient
nature of the other two, making a partial
return to the drum- and guitar-based rock
and pop of his pre-Berlin era.
The result was a complex mixture of new wave
and world music, in places incorporating Hijaz
non-Western scales.
Some tracks were composed using Eno and Peter
Schmidt's Oblique Strategies cards: "Boys
Keep Swinging" entailed band members swapping
instruments, "Move On" used the chords from
Bowie's early composition "All the Young Dudes"
played backwards, and "Red Money" took backing
tracks from "Sister Midnight", a piece previously
composed with Iggy Pop.
The album was recorded in Switzerland.
Ahead of its release, RCA's Mel Ilberman stated,
"It would be fair to call it Bowie's Sergeant
Pepper ... a concept album that portrays the
Lodger as a homeless wanderer, shunned and
victimized by life's pressures and technology."
As described by biographer Christopher Sandford,
"The record dashed such high hopes with dubious
choices, and production that spelt the end—for
fifteen years—of Bowie's partnership with
Eno."
Lodger reached No. 4 in the UK and No. 20
in the US, and yielded the UK hit singles
"Boys Keep Swinging" and "DJ".
Towards the end of the year, Bowie and Angie
initiated divorce proceedings, and after months
of court battles the marriage was ended in
early 1980.
=== 1980–1988: New Romantic and pop era
===
Scary Monsters and Super Creeps (1980) produced
the number-one hit "Ashes to Ashes", featuring
the textural work of guitar-synthesist Chuck
Hammer and revisiting the character of Major
Tom from "Space Oddity".
The song gave international exposure to the
underground New Romantic movement when Bowie
visited the London club "Blitz"—the main
New Romantic hangout—to recruit several
of the regulars (including Steve Strange of
the band Visage) to act in the accompanying
video, renowned as one of the most innovative
of all time.
While Scary Monsters used principles established
by the Berlin albums, it was considered by
critics to be far more direct musically and
lyrically.
The album's hard rock edge included conspicuous
guitar contributions from Robert Fripp, Chuck
Hammer, and Pete Townshend.
As "Ashes to Ashes" hit number one on the
UK charts, Bowie opened a three-month run
on Broadway on 24 September, starring as John
Merrick in The Elephant Man.Bowie paired with
Queen in 1981 for a one-off single release,
"Under Pressure".
The duet was a hit, becoming Bowie's third
UK number-one single.
Bowie was given the lead role in the BBC's
1982 televised adaptation of Bertolt Brecht's
play Baal.
Coinciding with its transmission, a five-track
EP of songs from the play, recorded earlier
in Berlin, was released as David Bowie in
Bertolt Brecht's Baal.
In March 1982, the month before Paul Schrader's
film Cat People came out, Bowie's title song,
"Cat People (Putting Out Fire)", was released
as a single, becoming a minor US hit and entering
the UK Top 30.Bowie reached his peak of popularity
and commercial success in 1983 with Let's
Dance.
Co-produced by Chic's Nile Rodgers, the album
went platinum in both the UK and the US.
Its three singles became Top 20 hits in both
countries, where its title track reached number
one.
"Modern Love" and "China Girl" each made No.
2 in the UK, accompanied by a pair of "absorbing"
promotional videos that biographer David Buckley
said "activated key archetypes in the pop
world.
'Let's Dance', with its little narrative surrounding
the young Aborigine couple, targeted 'youth',
and 'China Girl', with its bare-bummed (and
later partially censored) beach lovemaking
scene (a homage to the film From Here to Eternity),
was sufficiently sexually provocative to guarantee
heavy rotation on MTV".
Stevie Ray Vaughan was guest guitarist playing
solo on "Let's Dance", although the video
depicts Bowie miming this part.
By 1983, Bowie had emerged as one of the most
important video artists of the day.
Let's Dance was followed by the Serious Moonlight
Tour, during which Bowie was accompanied by
guitarist Earl Slick and backing vocalists
Frank and George Simms.
The world tour lasted six months and was extremely
popular."
At the 1984 MTV Video Music Awards Bowie received
two awards including the inaugural Video Vanguard
Award.
Tonight (1984), another dance-oriented album,
found Bowie collaborating with Tina Turner
and, once again, Iggy Pop.
It included a number of cover songs, among
them the 1966 Beach Boys hit "God Only Knows".
The album bore the transatlantic Top 10 hit
"Blue Jean", itself the inspiration for a
short film that won Bowie a Grammy Award for
Best Short Form Music Video, Jazzin' for Blue
Jean.
Bowie performed at Wembley Stadium in 1985
for Live Aid, a multi-venue benefit concert
for Ethiopian famine relief.
During the event, the video for a fundraising
single was premiered, Bowie's duet with Mick
Jagger.
"Dancing in the Street" quickly went to number
one on release.
The same year, Bowie worked with the Pat Metheny
Group to record "This Is Not America" for
the soundtrack of The Falcon and the Snowman.
Released as a single, the song became a Top
40 hit in the UK and US.Bowie was given a
role in the 1986 film Absolute Beginners.
It was poorly received by critics, but Bowie's
theme song, also named "Absolute Beginners",
rose to No. 2 in the UK charts.
He also appeared as Jareth, the Goblin King,
in the 1986 Jim Henson film Labyrinth, for
which he wrote five songs.
His final solo album of the decade was 1987's
Never Let Me Down, where he ditched the light
sound of his previous two albums, instead
offering harder rock with an industrial/techno
dance edge.
Peaking at No. 6 in the UK, the album yielded
the hits "Day-In, Day-Out" (his 60th single),
"Time Will Crawl", and "Never Let Me Down".
Bowie later described it as his "nadir", calling
it "an awful album".
Supporting Never Let Me Down, and preceded
by nine promotional press shows, the 86-concert
Glass Spider Tour commenced on 30 May.
Bowie's backing band included Peter Frampton
on lead guitar.
Contemporary critics maligned the tour as
overproduced, saying it pandered to the current
stadium rock trends in its special effects
and dancing, although years after the tour's
conclusion, critics acknowledged that the
tour influenced how other artists performed
concerts, including Britney Spears, Madonna,
and U2.
=== 1989–1991: Tin Machine ===
Bowie shelved his solo career in 1989, retreating
to the relative anonymity of band membership
for the first time since the early 1970s.
A hard-rocking quartet, Tin Machine came into
being after Bowie began to work experimentally
with guitarist Reeves Gabrels.
The line-up was completed by Tony and Hunt
Sales, whom Bowie had known since the late
1970s for their contribution, on bass and
drums respectively, to Iggy Pop's 1977 album
Lust for Life.
Although he intended Tin Machine to operate
as a democracy, Bowie dominated, both in songwriting
and in decision-making.
The band's album debut, Tin Machine (1989),
was initially popular, though its politicised
lyrics did not find universal approval: Bowie
described one song as "a simplistic, naive,
radical, laying-it-down about the emergence
of Neo-Nazis"; in the view of biographer Christopher
Sandford, "It took nerve to denounce drugs,
fascism and TV ... in terms that reached the
literary level of a comic book."
EMI complained of "lyrics that preach" as
well as "repetitive tunes" and "minimalist
or no production".
The album nevertheless reached No. 3 and went
gold in the UK.Tin Machine's first world tour
was a commercial success, but there was growing
reluctance—among fans and critics alike—to
accept Bowie's presentation as merely a band
member.
A series of Tin Machine singles failed to
chart, and Bowie, after a disagreement with
EMI, left the label.
Like his audience and his critics, Bowie himself
became increasingly disaffected with his role
as just one member of a band.
Tin Machine began work on a second album,
but Bowie put the venture on hold and made
a return to solo work.
Performing his early hits during the seven-month
Sound+Vision Tour, he found commercial success
and acclaim once again.In October 1990, a
decade after his divorce from Angie, Bowie
and Somali-born supermodel Iman were introduced
by a mutual friend.
Bowie recalled, "I was naming the children
the night we met ... it was absolutely immediate."
They married in 1992.
Tin Machine resumed work the same month, but
their audience and critics, ultimately left
disappointed by the first album, showed little
interest in a second.
Tin Machine II's arrival was marked by a widely
publicised and ill-timed conflict over the
cover art: after production had begun, the
new record label, Victory, deemed the depiction
of four ancient nude Kouroi statues, judged
by Bowie to be "in exquisite taste", "a show
of wrong, obscene images", requiring air-brushing
and patching to render the figures sexless.
Tin Machine toured again, but after the live
album Tin Machine Live: Oy Vey, Baby failed
commercially, the band drifted apart, and
Bowie, though he continued to collaborate
with Gabrels, resumed his solo career.
=== 1992–1998: Electronic period ===
On 20 April 1992, Bowie appeared at The Freddie
Mercury Tribute Concert, following the Queen
singer's death the previous year.
As well as performing "Heroes" and "All the
Young Dudes", he was joined on "Under Pressure"
by Annie Lennox, who took Mercury's vocal
part; during his appearance, Bowie knelt and
recited the Lord's Prayer at Wembley Stadium.
Four days later, Bowie and Iman were married
in Switzerland.
Intending to move to Los Angeles, they flew
in to search for a suitable property, but
found themselves confined to their hotel,
under curfew: the 1992 Los Angeles riots began
the day they arrived.
They settled in New York instead.
In 1993, Bowie released his first solo offering
since his Tin Machine departure, the soul,
jazz, and hip-hop influenced Black Tie White
Noise.
Making prominent use of electronic instruments,
the album, which reunited Bowie with Let's
Dance producer Nile Rodgers, confirmed Bowie's
return to popularity, hitting the number-one
spot on the UK charts and spawning three Top
40 hits, including the Top 10 single "Jump
They Say".
Bowie explored new directions on The Buddha
of Suburbia (1993), ostensibly a soundtrack
album of his music composed for the BBC television
adaptation of Hanif Kureishi's novel.
Only the title track had been used in the
television adaptation, although some of his
themes for it were also present on the album.
It contained some of the new elements introduced
in Black Tie White Noise, and also signalled
a move towards alternative rock.
The album was a critical success but received
a low-key release and only made No. 87 in
the UK charts.Reuniting Bowie with Eno, the
quasi-industrial Outside (1995) was originally
conceived as the first volume in a non-linear
narrative of art and murder.
Featuring characters from a short story written
by Bowie, the album achieved UK and US chart
success, and yielded three Top 40 UK singles.
In a move that provoked mixed reaction from
both fans and critics, Bowie chose Nine Inch
Nails as his tour partner for the Outside
Tour.
Visiting cities in Europe and North America
between September 1995 and February 1996,
the tour saw the return of Gabrels as Bowie's
guitarist.
On 7 January 1997, Bowie celebrated his half
century with a 50th birthday concert at Madison
Square Garden, New York, at which he was joined
in playing his songs and those of his guests,
Lou Reed, Dave Grohl and the Foo Fighters,
Robert Smith of the Cure, Billy Corgan of
the Smashing Pumpkins, Black Francis of the
Pixies, and Sonic Youth.Bowie was inducted
into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on 17
January 1996.
Incorporating experiments in British jungle
and drum 'n' bass, Earthling (1997) was a
critical and commercial success in the UK
and the US, and two singles from the album
– "Little Wonder" and "Dead Man Walking"
– became UK Top 40 hits.
Bowie's song "I'm Afraid of Americans" from
the Paul Verhoeven film Showgirls was re-recorded
for the album, and remixed by Trent Reznor
for a single release.
The heavy rotation of the accompanying video,
also featuring Trent Reznor, contributed to
the song's 16-week stay in the US Billboard
Hot 100.
Reznor also executive produced the Lost Highway
soundtrack (1997) which begins and ends with
different mixes of Bowie's Outside song "I'm
Deranged".
Bowie received a star on the Hollywood Walk
of Fame on 12 February 1997.
The Earthling Tour took in Europe and North
America between June and November 1997.
In November 1997, Bowie performed on the BBC's
Children in Need charity single "Perfect Day",
which reached number one in the UK.
Bowie reunited with Visconti in 1998 to record
"(Safe in This) Sky Life" for The Rugrats
Movie.
Although the track was edited out of the final
cut, it was later re-recorded and released
as "Safe" on the B-side of Bowie's 2002 single
"Everyone Says 'Hi'".
The reunion led to other collaborations including
a limited-edition single release version of
Placebo's track "Without You I'm Nothing",
co-produced by Visconti, with Bowie's harmonised
vocal added to the original recording.
==== Bowie Bonds ====
"Bowie Bonds", an early example of celebrity
bonds, were asset-backed securities of current
and future revenues of the 25 albums (287
songs) that Bowie recorded before 1990.
Issued in 1997, the bonds were bought for
US$55 million by the Prudential Insurance
Company of America.
Royalties from the 25 albums generated the
cash flow that secured the bonds' interest
payments.
By forfeiting ten years worth of royalties,
Bowie received a payment of US$55 million
up front.
Bowie used this income to buy songs owned
by his former manager, Tony Defries.
The bonds liquidated in 2007 and the rights
to the income from the songs reverted to Bowie.
==== BowieNet ====
In September 1998, Bowie launched an Internet
service provider, BowieNet, developed in conjunction
with Robert Goodale and Ron Roy.
Subscribers to the dial-up service were offered
exclusive content, as well as a BowieNet email
address and Internet access.
The service was closed by 2006.
=== 1999–2012: Neoclassicist Bowie ===
Bowie, with Reeves Gabrels, created the soundtrack
for Omikron: The Nomad Soul, a 1999 computer
game in which he and Iman also voiced characters
based on their likenesses.
Released the same year and containing re-recorded
tracks from Omikron, his album Hours featured
a song with lyrics by the winner of his "Cyber
Song Contest" Internet competition, Alex Grant.
Making extensive use of live instruments,
the album was Bowie's exit from heavy electronica.
Sessions for the planned album Toy, intended
to feature new versions of some of Bowie's
earliest pieces as well as three new songs,
commenced in 2000, but the album was never
released.
Bowie and Visconti continued their collaboration,
producing a new album of completely original
songs instead: the result of the sessions
was the 2002 album Heathen.On 25 June 2000,
Bowie made his second appearance at the Glastonbury
Festival in England, playing 30 years after
his first.
On 27 June, Bowie performed a concert at BBC
Radio Theatre in London, which was released
in the compilation album Bowie at the Beeb,
which also featured BBC recording sessions
from 1968 to 1972.
Bowie and Iman's daughter was born on 15 August.
His interest in Buddhism led him to support
the Tibetan cause by performing at the February
2001 and February 2003 concerts to support
Tibet House US at Carnegie Hall in New York.In
October 2001, Bowie opened the Concert for
New York City, a charity event to benefit
the victims of the September 11 attacks, with
a minimalist performance of Simon & Garfunkel's
"America", followed by a full band performance
of "Heroes".
2002 saw the release of Heathen, and, during
the second half of the year, the Heathen Tour.
Taking place in Europe and North America,
the tour opened at London's annual Meltdown
festival, for which Bowie was that year appointed
artistic director.
Among the acts he selected for the festival
were Philip Glass, Television, and the Dandy
Warhols.
As well as songs from the new album, the tour
featured material from Bowie's Low era.
Reality (2003) followed, and its accompanying
world tour, the A Reality Tour, with an estimated
attendance of 722,000, grossed more than any
other in 2004.
Onstage in Oslo, Norway, on 18 June, Bowie
was hit in the eye with a lollipop thrown
by a fan; a week later he suffered chest pain
while performing at the Hurricane Festival
in Scheeßel, Germany.
Originally thought to be a pinched nerve in
his shoulder, the pain was later diagnosed
as an acutely blocked coronary artery, requiring
an emergency angioplasty in Hamburg.
The remaining 14 dates of the tour were cancelled.
In the years following his recuperation from
the heart attack, Bowie reduced his musical
output, making only one-off appearances on
stage and in the studio.
He sang in a duet of his 1971 song "Changes"
with Butterfly Boucher for the 2004 animated
film Shrek 2.During a relatively quiet 2005,
he recorded the vocals for the song "(She
Can) Do That", co-written with Brian Transeau,
for the film Stealth.
He returned to the stage on 8 September 2005,
appearing with Arcade Fire for the US nationally
televised event Fashion Rocks, and performed
with the Canadian band for the second time
a week later during the CMJ Music Marathon.
He contributed backing vocals on TV on the
Radio's song "Province" for their album Return
to Cookie Mountain, made a commercial with
Snoop Dogg for XM Satellite Radio and joined
with Lou Reed on Danish alt-rockers Kashmir's
2005 album No Balance Palace.Bowie was awarded
the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award on 8
February 2006.
In April, he announced, "I'm taking a year
off—no touring, no albums."
He made a surprise guest appearance at David
Gilmour's 29 May concert at the Royal Albert
Hall in London.
The event was recorded, and a selection of
songs on which he had contributed joint vocals
were subsequently released.
He performed again in November, alongside
Alicia Keys, at the Black Ball, a benefit
event for Keep a Child Alive at the Hammerstein
Ballroom in New York.
The performance marked the last time Bowie
performed his music on stage.Bowie was chosen
to curate the 2007 High Line Festival, selecting
musicians and artists for the Manhattan event,
including electronic pop duo AIR, surrealist
photographer Claude Cahun, and English comedian
Ricky Gervais.
Bowie performed on Scarlett Johansson's 2008
album of Tom Waits covers, Anywhere I Lay
My Head.
On the 40th anniversary of the July 1969 moon
landing—and Bowie's accompanying commercial
breakthrough with "Space Oddity"—EMI released
the individual tracks from the original eight-track
studio recording of the song, in a 2009 contest
inviting members of the public to create a
remix.
A Reality Tour, a double album of live material
from the 2003 concert tour, was released in
January 2010.In late March 2011, Toy, Bowie's
previously unreleased album from 2001, was
leaked onto the internet, containing material
used for Heathen and most of its single B-sides,
as well as unheard new versions of his early
back catalogue.
=== 2013–2016: Final years ===
On 8 January 2013, his 66th birthday, his
website announced a new album, to be titled
The Next Day and scheduled for release 8 March
for Australia, 12 March for the United States,
and 11 March for the rest of the world.
Bowie's first studio album in a decade, The
Next Day contains 14 songs plus 3 bonus tracks.
His website acknowledged the length of his
hiatus.
Record producer Tony Visconti said 29 tracks
were recorded for the album, some of which
could appear on Bowie's next record, which
he might start work on later in 2013.
The announcement was accompanied by the immediate
release of a single, "Where Are We Now?",
written and recorded by Bowie in New York
and produced by longtime collaborator Visconti.A
music video for "Where Are We Now?" was released
onto Vimeo the same day, directed by New York
artist Tony Oursler.
The single topped the UK iTunes Chart within
hours of its release, and debuted in the UK
Singles Chart at No. 6, his first single to
enter the Top 10 for two decades (since "Jump
They Say" in 1993).
A second video, "The Stars (Are Out Tonight)",
was released 25 February.
Directed by Floria Sigismondi, it stars Bowie
and Tilda Swinton as a married couple.
On 1 March, the album was made available to
stream for free through iTunes.
The Next Day debuted at No. 1 on the UK Albums
Chart, was his first album to achieve that
position since Black Tie White Noise (1993),
and was the fastest-selling album of 2013
at the time.
The music video for the song "The Next Day"
created some controversy, initially being
removed from YouTube for terms-of-service
violation, then restored with a warning recommending
viewing only by those 18 or over.According
to The Times, Bowie ruled out ever giving
an interview again.
An exhibition of Bowie artefacts, called David
Bowie Is, was organised by the Victoria and
Albert Museum in London, and shown there in
2013.
The London exhibit was visited by 311,956
people, making it one of the most successful
exhibitions ever staged at the museum.
Later that year the exhibition began a world
tour which started in Toronto and included
stops in Chicago, Paris, Melbourne, Groningen
and Brooklyn, New York where the exhibit ended
on 15 July at the Brooklyn Museum.
Bowie was featured in a cameo vocal in the
Arcade Fire song "Reflektor".
A poll carried out by BBC History Magazine,
in October 2013, named Bowie as the best-dressed
Briton in history.At the 2014 Brit Awards
on 19 February, Bowie became the oldest recipient
of a Brit Award in the ceremony's history
when he won the award for Best British Male,
which was collected on his behalf by Kate
Moss.
His speech read: "I'm completely delighted
to have a Brit for being the best male – but
I am, aren't I Kate?
Yes.
I think it's a great way to end the day.
Thank you very, very much and Scotland stay
with us."
Bowie's reference to the forthcoming September
2014 Scottish independence referendum garnered
a significant reaction throughout the UK on
social media.
On 18 July, Bowie indicated that future music
would be forthcoming, though he was vague
about details.New information was released
in September 2014 regarding his next compilation
album, Nothing Has Changed, which was released
in November.
The album featured rare tracks and old material
from his catalogue in addition to a new song
titled "Sue (Or in a Season of Crime)".
In May 2015, "Let's Dance" was announced to
be reissued as a yellow vinyl single on 16
July 2015 in conjunction with the David Bowie
Is exhibition at the Australian Centre for
the Moving Image in Melbourne, Australia.In
August 2015, it was announced that Bowie was
writing songs for a Broadway musical based
on the SpongeBob SquarePants cartoon series.
Bowie wrote and recorded the opening title
song to the television series The Last Panthers,
which aired in November 2015.
The theme that was used for The Last Panthers
was also the title track for his January 2016
release Blackstar which is said to take cues
from his earlier krautrock influenced work.
According to The Times: "Blackstar may be
the oddest work yet from Bowie".
On 7 December 2015, Bowie's musical Lazarus
debuted in New York.
His last public appearance was at opening
night of the production.Blackstar was released
on 8 January 2016, Bowie's 69th birthday,
and was met with critical acclaim.
Following his death on 10 January, producer
Tony Visconti revealed that Bowie had planned
the album to be his swan song, and a "parting
gift" for his fans before his death.
Several reporters and critics subsequently
noted that most of the lyrics on the album
seem to revolve around his impending death,
with CNN noting that the album "reveals a
man who appears to be grappling with his own
mortality".
Visconti later said that Bowie had been planning
a post-Blackstar album, and had written and
recorded demo versions of five songs in his
final weeks, suggesting that Bowie believed
he had a few months left.
The day following his death, online viewing
of Bowie's music skyrocketed, breaking the
record for Vevo's most viewed artist in a
single day.
On 15 January, Blackstar debuted at number
one on the UK Albums Chart; nineteen of his
albums were in the UK Top 100 Albums Chart,
and thirteen singles were in the UK Top 100
Singles Chart.
Blackstar also debuted at number one on album
charts around the world, including Australia,
France, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, and the
US Billboard 200.As of 11 January 2016, more
than 1.3 million people had visited the David
Bowie Is exhibit, making it the most successful
exhibition ever staged by the Victoria and
Albert Museum in terms of worldwide attendance.
The museum stated that the exhibition would
continue to tour, with confirmed travel to
Japan in 2017.
At the 59th Annual Grammy Awards, Bowie won
all five nominated awards: Best Rock Performance;
Best Alternative Music Album; Best Engineered
Album, Non-Classical; Best Recording Package;
and Best Rock Song.
The wins marked Bowie's first ever in musical
categories.An EP, No Plan, was released on
8 January 2017, which would have been Bowie's
70th birthday.
Apart from "Lazarus", the EP includes three
songs that Bowie had recorded during the Blackstar
sessions, but were left off the album and
subsequently appeared on the soundtrack album
for the Lazarus musical in October 2016.
A music video for the title track was also
released.
Since January 2016, Bowie has sold 5 million
units in the United Kingdom alone.
== Acting career ==
The beginnings of Bowie's acting career predate
his commercial breakthrough as a musician.
Studying avant-garde theatre and mime under
Lindsay Kemp, he was given the role of Cloud
in Kemp's 1967 theatrical production Pierrot
in Turquoise (later made into the 1970 television
film The Looking Glass Murders).
In the black-and-white short The Image (1969),
he played a ghostly boy who emerges from a
troubled artist's painting to haunt him.
The same year, the film of Leslie Thomas's
1966 comic novel The Virgin Soldiers saw Bowie
make a brief appearance as an extra.
In 1976 he earned acclaim for his first major
film role, portraying Thomas Jerome Newton,
an alien from a dying planet, in The Man Who
Fell to Earth, directed by Nicolas Roeg.
Just a Gigolo (1979), an Anglo-German co-production
directed by David Hemmings, saw Bowie in the
lead role as Prussian officer Paul von Przygodski,
who, returning from World War I, is discovered
by a Baroness (Marlene Dietrich) and put into
her Gigolo Stable.
Bowie played Joseph Merrick in the Broadway
theatre production The Elephant Man, which
he undertook wearing no stage make-up, and
which earned high praise for his expressive
performance.
He played the part 157 times between 1980
and 1981.
Christiane F.
– We Children from Bahnhof Zoo, a 1981 biographical
film focusing on a young girl's drug addiction
in West Berlin, featured Bowie in a cameo
appearance as himself at a concert in Germany.
Its soundtrack album, Christiane F. (1981),
featured much material from his Berlin Trilogy
albums.
Bowie starred in The Hunger (1983), with Catherine
Deneuve and Susan Sarandon.
In Nagisa Oshima's film the same year, Merry
Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, based on Laurens
van der Post's novel The Seed and the Sower,
Bowie played Major Jack Celliers, a prisoner
of war in a Japanese internment camp.
Bowie had a cameo in Yellowbeard, a 1983 pirate
comedy created by Monty Python members, and
a small part as Colin, the hitman in the 1985
film Into the Night.
He declined to play the villain Max Zorin
in the James Bond film A View to a Kill (1985).Absolute
Beginners (1986), a rock musical film adapted
from Colin MacInnes's book of the same name
about life in late 1950s London, featured
Bowie's music and presented him with a minor
acting role.
The same year, Jim Henson's dark fantasy Labyrinth
found him with the part of Jareth, the king
of the goblins.
Two years later, he played Pontius Pilate
in Martin Scorsese's 1988 film The Last Temptation
of Christ.
Bowie portrayed a disgruntled restaurant employee
opposite Rosanna Arquette in The Linguini
Incident (1991), and the mysterious FBI agent
Phillip Jeffries in David Lynch's Twin Peaks:
Fire Walk with Me (1992).
He took a small but pivotal role as Andy Warhol
in Basquiat, artist/director Julian Schnabel's
1996 biopic of Jean-Michel Basquiat, and co-starred
in Giovanni Veronesi's Spaghetti Western Il
Mio West (1998, released as Gunslinger's Revenge
in the US in 2005) as the most feared gunfighter
in the region.
He played the ageing gangster Bernie in Andrew
Goth's Everybody Loves Sunshine (1999), and
appeared in the television horror series of
The Hunger.
In Mr. Rice's Secret (2000), he played the
title role as the neighbour of a terminally
ill 12-year-old, and the following year appeared
as himself in Zoolander.Bowie portrayed physicist
Nikola Tesla in Christopher Nolan's film The
Prestige (2006), which was about the bitter
rivalry between two magicians in the late
19th century.
In the same year, he voice-acted in Luc Besson's
animated film Arthur and the Invisibles as
the powerful villain Maltazard, and appeared
as himself in an episode of the Ricky Gervais
television series Extras.
In 2007, he lent his voice to the character
Lord Royal Highness in the SpongeBob's Atlantis
SquarePantis television film.
In the 2008 film August, directed by Austin
Chick, he played a supporting role as Ogilvie,
alongside Josh Hartnett and Rip Torn, with
whom he had worked in the 1976 film The Man
Who Fell to Earth.In a 2017 interview with
Consequence of Sound, director Denis Villeneuve
revealed his intention to cast Bowie in Blade
Runner 2049 as the lead villain, Niander Wallace,
but when news broke of Bowie's death in January
of the same year, Villeneuve was forced to
look for talent with similar "rock star" qualities.
He eventually cast actor and lead singer of
Thirty Seconds to Mars, Jared Leto.
Talking about the casting process, Villeneuve
said: "Our first thought [for the character]
had been David Bowie, who had influenced Blade
Runner in many ways.
When we learned the sad news, we looked around
for someone like that.
He [Bowie] embodied the Blade Runner spirit."
== 
Legacy and influence ==
Bowie's songs and stagecraft brought a new
dimension to popular music in the early 1970s,
strongly influencing both its immediate forms
and its subsequent development.
Bowie was a pioneer of glam rock, according
to music historians Schinder and Schwartz,
who credited Marc Bolan and Bowie with creating
the genre.
At the same time, he inspired the innovators
of the punk rock music movement.
When punk musicians were "noisily reclaiming
the three-minute pop song in a show of public
defiance", biographer David Buckley wrote
that "Bowie almost completely abandoned traditional
rock instrumentation."
Bowie's record company promoted his unique
status in popular music with the slogan, "There's
old wave, there's new wave, and there's David
Bowie".Musicologist James Perone credited
Bowie with having "brought sophistication
to rock music", and critical reviews frequently
acknowledged the intellectual depth of his
work and influence.
The Human League founder Martyn Ware remarked
that he had lived his life "as though he were
an art installation."
The BBC's arts editor Will Gompertz likened
Bowie to Pablo Picasso, writing that he was
"an innovative, visionary, restless artist
who synthesised complex avant garde concepts
into beautifully coherent works that touched
the hearts and minds of millions".
U2 lead singer Bono commented, "I like Bowie
when he’s evenly pulled in the direction
of being a pop star and Picasso, where he's
right down the middle.
That’s usually my favorite, when the songwriting
is disciplined but the recording is not.
I love when he's pulled equally in the directions
of art and populism."Broadcaster John Peel
contrasted Bowie with his progressive rock
contemporaries, arguing that Bowie was "an
interesting kind of fringe figure... on the
outskirts of things".
Peel said he "liked the idea of him reinventing
himself... the one distinguishing feature
about early-70s progressive rock was that
it didn't progress.
Before Bowie came along, people didn't want
too much change".
Buckley called the era "bloated, self-important,
leather-clad, self-satisfied"; then Bowie
"subverted the whole notion of what it was
to be a rock star".
After Bowie there has been no other pop icon
of his stature, because the pop world that
produces these rock gods doesn't exist any
more.
... The fierce partisanship of the cult of
Bowie was also unique—its influence lasted
longer and has been more creative than perhaps
almost any other force within pop fandom.
Buckley called Bowie "both star and icon.
The vast body of work he has produced ... has
created perhaps the biggest cult in popular
culture.
... His influence has been unique in popular
culture—he has permeated and altered more
lives than any comparable figure."Through
continual reinvention, his influence broadened
and extended.
Biographer Thomas Forget added, "Because he
has succeeded in so many different styles
of music, it is almost impossible to find
a popular artist today that has not been influenced
by David Bowie."
In 2000, Bowie was voted by other music stars
as the "most influential artist of all time"
in a poll by NME.
Alexis Petridis of The Guardian wrote that
Bowie was confirmed by 1980 to be "the most
important and influential artist since the
Beatles".
Neil McCormick of The Daily Telegraph stated
that Bowie had "one of the supreme careers
in popular music, art and culture of the 20th
century" and "he was too inventive, too mercurial,
too strange for all but his most devoted fans
to keep up with".
The BBC's Mark Easton argued that Bowie provided
fuel for "the creative powerhouse that Britain
has become" by challenging future generations
"to aim high, to be ambitious and provocative,
to take risks".
Easton concluded that Bowie had "changed the
way the world sees Britain.
And the way Britain sees itself".
Annie Zaleski of Alternative Press wrote,
"Every band or solo artist who's decided to
rip up their playbook and start again owes
a debt to Bowie".
In 2016, he was dubbed "The Greatest Rock
Star Ever" by Rolling Stone magazine.Numerous
figures from the music industry whose careers
Bowie had influenced paid tribute to him following
his death; panegyrics on Twitter (tweets about
him peaked at 20,000 a minute an hour after
the announcement of his death) also came from
outside the entertainment industry and pop
culture, such as those from the Vatican, namely
Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, who quoted "Space
Oddity", and the Federal Foreign Office, which
thanked Bowie for his part in the fall of
the Berlin Wall and referenced "Heroes".On
7 January 2017 the BBC broadcast the 90-minute
documentary David Bowie: The Last Five Years,
taking a detailed look at Bowie's last albums,
The Next Day and Blackstar, and his play Lazarus.
On 8 January 2017, which would have been Bowie's
70th birthday, a charity concert in his birthplace
of Brixton was hosted by the actor Gary Oldman,
a close friend.
A David Bowie walking tour through Brixton
was also launched, and other events marking
his birthday weekend included concerts in
New York, Los Angeles, Sydney, and Tokyo.On
6 February 2018 the maiden flight of the SpaceX
Falcon Heavy rocket carried Elon Musk's personal
Tesla Roadster and a mannequin affectionately
named Starman into space.
"Space Oddity" and "Life on Mars?" were looping
on the car's sound system during the launch.
=== Stardust biopic ===
It was announced on 31 January 2019 that musician
and actor Johnny Flynn would be playing Bowie
in an upcoming biopic titled Stardust which
will be set around Bowie's first trip to the
United States in 1971.
Christopher Bell is writing the script and
Gabriel Range will direct.
Actress Jena Malone has signed on to play
Bowie's wife Angie while actor Marc Maron
will play Bowie's record company publicist.On
1 February 2019, Bowie's son Duncan Jones
spoke out against the film saying that he
knew nothing about the movie and was informed
about it by a fan on Twitter.
Jones also said that the film would not have
permission to use any of Bowie's music.
"Pretty certain nobody has been granted music
rights for ANY biopic...
I would know.
I'm not saying this movie is not happening.
I honestly wouldn't know.
I'm saying that as it stands, this movie won't
have any of dads music in it, & I can't imagine
that changing."
== 
Musicianship ==
From the time of his earliest recordings in
the 1960s, Bowie employed a wide variety of
musical styles.
His early compositions and performances were
strongly influenced by rock and rollers like
Little Richard and Elvis Presley, and also
the wider world of show business.
He particularly strove to emulate the British
musical theatre singer-songwriter and actor
Anthony Newley, whose vocal style he frequently
adopted, and made prominent use of for his
1967 debut release, David Bowie (to the disgust
of Newley himself, who destroyed the copy
he received from Bowie's publisher).
Bowie's music hall fascination continued to
surface sporadically alongside such diverse
styles as hard rock and heavy metal, soul,
psychedelic folk, and pop.Musicologist James
Perone observes Bowie's use of octave switches
for different repetitions of the same melody,
exemplified in his commercial breakthrough
single, "Space Oddity", and later in the song
"Heroes", to dramatic effect; Perone notes
that "in the lowest part of his vocal register
... his voice has an almost crooner-like richness."Voice
instructor Jo Thompson describes Bowie's vocal
vibrato technique as "particularly deliberate
and distinctive".
Schinder and Schwartz call him "a vocalist
of extraordinary technical ability, able to
pitch his singing to particular effect."
Here, too, as in his stagecraft and songwriting,
the singer's role playing is evident: historiographer
Michael Campbell says that Bowie's lyrics
"arrest our ear, without question.
But Bowie continually shifts from person to
person as he delivers them ... His voice changes
dramatically from section to section."
In a 2014 analysis of 77 "top" artists' vocal
ranges, Bowie was 8th, just behind Christina
Aguilera and just ahead of Paul McCartney.
In addition to the guitar, Bowie also played
a variety of keyboards, including piano, Mellotron,
Chamberlin, and synthesizers; harmonica; alto
and baritone saxophones; stylophone; viola;
cello; koto (in the Heroes track "Moss Garden");
thumb piano; drums (on the Heathen track "Cactus"),
and various percussion instruments.
== Painter and art collector ==
Bowie was also a painter and artist.
One of his paintings sold at auction in late
1990 for $500, and the cover for his 1995
album Outside is a close-up of a self-portrait
(from a series of five) he painted that same
year.
His first solo show was at The Gallery, Cork
Street in 1995, entitled 'New Afro/Pagan and
Work: 1975–1995'.
He was invited to join the editorial board
of the journal Modern Painters in 1998, and
participated in the Nat Tate art hoax later
that year.In 1998 during an interview with
Michael Kimmelman for The New York Times he
said "Art was, seriously, the only thing I'd
ever wanted to own.", subsequently in 1999,
in an interview for the BBC, he said "The
only thing I buy obsessively and addictively
is art".
His art collection, which included works by
Damien Hirst, Frank Auerbach, Henry Moore,
and Jean-Michel Basquiat among others, was
valued at over £10m in mid-2016.After his
death his family decided to sell most of the
collection because they "didn't have the space"
to store it.
On 10 and 11 November three auctions were
held at Sotheby's in London, first with 47
lots and second with 208 paintings, drawings,
and sculptures, third with 100 design lots.
The items on sale represented about 65 percent
of the collection.
Exhibition of the works in the auction attracted
51,470 visitors, the auction itself was attended
by 1,750 bidders, with over 1,000 more bidding
online.
The auctions has overall sale total £32.9
million (app. $41.5 million), while the highest-selling
item, Jean-Michel Basquiat's graffiti-inspired
painting Air Power, sold for £7.09 million.
== Personal life ==
=== 
Family ===
Bowie married his first wife, Mary Angela
Barnett on 19 March 1970 at Bromley Register
Office in Bromley, London.
They had an open marriage.
Angela described their union as a marriage
of convenience.
"We got married so that I could work [to get
a permit].
I didn't think it would last and David said,
before we got married, 'I'm not really in
love with you' and I thought that's probably
a good thing," she said.
Bowie said about Angela that "living with
her is like living with a blow torch."
Their son Duncan, born on 30 May 1971, was
at first known as Zowie.
Bowie and Angela divorced on 8 February 1980
in Switzerland.
Bowie received custody of their son.
After the gag order that was part of their
divorce agreement ended, Angela wrote, Backstage
Passes: Life on the Wild Side with David Bowie,
a memoir of their turbulent marriage.
On 24 April 1992, Bowie married Somali-American
model Iman in a private ceremony in Lausanne.
The wedding was later solemnised on 6 June
in Florence.
They had one daughter, Alexandria "Lexi" Zahra
Jones, born in August 2000.
The couple resided primarily in New York City
and London, as well as owning an apartment
in Sydney's Elizabeth Bay and Britannia Bay
House on the island of Mustique, now renamed
Mandalay Estate.
=== Sexuality ===
Bowie declared himself gay in an interview
with Michael Watts for a 1972 issue of Melody
Maker, coinciding with his campaign for stardom
as Ziggy Stardust.
According to Buckley, "If Ziggy confused both
his creator and his audience, a big part of
that confusion centred on the topic of sexuality."
In a September 1976 interview with Playboy,
Bowie said, "It's true—I am a bisexual.
But I can't deny that I've used that fact
very well.
I suppose it's the best thing that ever happened
to me."
His first wife, Angie, supports his claim
of bisexuality and alleges that Bowie had
a relationship with Mick Jagger.In a 1983
interview with Rolling Stone, Bowie said his
public declaration of bisexuality was "the
biggest mistake I ever made" and "I was always
a closet heterosexual."
On other occasions, he said his interest in
homosexual and bisexual culture had been more
a product of the times and the situation in
which he found himself than of his own feelings.Blender
asked Bowie in 2002 whether he still believed
his public declaration was his biggest mistake.
After a long pause, he said, "I don't think
it was a mistake in Europe, but it was a lot
tougher in America.
I had no problem with people knowing I was
bisexual.
But I had no inclination to hold any banners
nor be a representative of any group of people."
Bowie said he wanted to be a songwriter and
performer rather than a headline for his bisexuality,
and in "puritanical" America, "I think it
stood in the way of so much I wanted to do."Buckley
wrote that Bowie "mined sexual intrigue for
its ability to shock", and was probably "never
gay, nor even consistently actively bisexual",
instead experimenting "out of a sense of curiosity
and a genuine allegiance with the 'transgressional'."
Biographer Christopher Sandford said, according
to Mary Finnigan—with whom Bowie had an
affair in 1969—the singer and his first
wife Angie "created their bisexual fantasy".
Sandford wrote that Bowie "made a positive
fetish of repeating the quip that he and his
wife had met while 'fucking the same bloke'
... Gay sex was always an anecdotal and laughing
matter.
That Bowie's actual tastes swung the other
way is clear from even a partial tally of
his affairs with women."
The BBC's Mark Easton wrote in 2016 that Britain
was "far more tolerant of difference" and
that gay rights, such as same-sex marriage,
and gender equality would not have "enjoyed
the broad support they do today without Bowie's
androgynous challenge all those years ago".
=== Spirituality and religion ===
Over the years, Bowie made numerous references
to religions and to his evolving spirituality.
Beginning in 1967, he became interested in
Buddhism and considered becoming a Buddhist
monk.
After a few months' study at Tibet House in
London, he was told by a Lama, "You don't
want to be Buddhist.
... You should follow music."
By 1975, Bowie admitted, "I felt totally,
absolutely alone.
And I probably was alone because I pretty
much had abandoned God."
In his will, Bowie stipulated that he be cremated
and his ashes scattered in Bali "in accordance
with the Buddhist rituals".After Bowie married
Iman in a private ceremony in 1992, he said
they knew that their "real marriage, sanctified
by God, had to happen in a church in Florence".
Earlier that year, he knelt on stage at The
Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert and recited
the Lord's Prayer before a television audience.
In 1993, Bowie said he had an "undying" belief
in the "unquestionable" existence of God.
In a separate 1993 interview, while describing
the genesis of the music for his album Black
Tie White Noise, he said " … it was important
for me to find something [musically] that
also had no sort of representation of institutionalized
and organized religion, of which I'm not a
believer, I must make that clear."
Interviewed in 2005, Bowie said whether God
exists "is not a question that can be answered.
... I'm not quite an atheist and it worries
me.
There's that little bit that holds on: 'Well,
I'm almost an atheist.
Give me a couple of months.
... I've nearly got it right.'""Questioning
[his] spiritual life [was] always ... germane"
to Bowie's songwriting.
The song "Station to Station" is "very much
concerned with the Stations of the Cross";
the song also specifically references Kabbalah.
Bowie called the album "extremely dark ... the
nearest album to a magick treatise that I've
written".
Earthling showed "the abiding need in me to
vacillate between atheism or a kind of gnosticism
... What I need is to find a balance, spiritually,
with the way I live and my demise."
Released shortly before his death, "Lazarus"—from
his final album, Blackstar—began with the
words, "Look up here, I'm in Heaven" while
the rest of the album deals with other matters
of mysticism and mortality.
=== Politics ===
In 1976, speaking as The Thin White Duke,
Bowie's persona at the time, and "at least
partially tongue-in-cheek", he made statements
that expressed support for fascism and perceived
admiration for Adolf Hitler in interviews
with Playboy, NME, and a Swedish publication.
Bowie was quoted as saying: "Britain is ready
for a fascist leader...
I think Britain could benefit from a fascist
leader.
After all, fascism is really nationalism...
I believe very strongly in fascism, people
have always responded with greater efficiency
under a regimental leadership."
He was also quoted as saying: "Adolf Hitler
was one of the first rock stars" and "You've
got to have an extreme right front come up
and sweep everything off its feet and tidy
everything up."
Bowie later retracted these comments in an
interview with Melody Maker in October 1977,
blaming them on mental instability caused
by his drug problems at the time, saying:
"I was out of my mind, totally, completely
crazed."In the 1980s and 1990s, Bowie's public
statements shifted sharply towards anti-racism
and anti-fascism.
In an interview with MTV in 1983, Bowie criticised
the channel for not providing enough coverage
of black musicians, and the music videos for
"China Girl" and "Let's Dance" were described
by Bowie as a "very simple, very direct" statement
against racism.
The album Tin Machine took a more direct stance
against fascism and Neo-Nazism, and was criticised
for being too preachy.In 2016, filmmaker and
activist Michael Moore said he had wanted
to use "Panic in Detroit" for his 1998 documentary
The Big One; denied at first, he was given
the rights after calling Bowie personally.
"I've read stuff since his death saying that
he wasn't that political and he stayed away
from politics.
But that wasn't the conversation that I had
with him."
== 
Death ==
On 10 January 2016, two days after his 69th
birthday and the release of the album Blackstar,
Bowie died from liver cancer in his New York
City apartment.
He had been diagnosed 18 months earlier but
had not made the news of his illness public.
The Belgian theatre director Ivo van Hove,
who had worked with the singer on his Off-Broadway
musical Lazarus, explained that Bowie was
unable to attend rehearsals due to the progression
of the disease.
He noted that Bowie had kept working during
the illness.Bowie's producer Tony Visconti
wrote:
He always did what he wanted to do.
And he wanted to do it his way and he wanted
to do it the best way.
His death was no different from his life – a
work of art.
He made Blackstar for us, his parting gift.
I knew for a year this was the way it would
be.
I wasn't, however, prepared for it.
He was an extraordinary man, full of love
and life.
He will always be with us.
For now, it is appropriate to cry.
Following Bowie's death, fans gathered at
impromptu street shrines.
At the mural of Bowie in his birthplace of
Brixton, south London, which shows him in
his Aladdin Sane character, fans laid flowers
and sang his songs.
Other memorial sites included Berlin, Los
Angeles, and outside his apartment in New
York.
After news of his death, sales of his albums
and singles soared.
Bowie had insisted that he did not want a
funeral, and according to his death certificate
he was cremated in New Jersey on 12 January.
As he wished in his will, his ashes were scattered
in a Buddhist ceremony in Bali, Indonesia.
== Awards and recognition ==
Bowie's 1969 commercial breakthrough, the
song "Space Oddity", won him an Ivor Novello
Special Award For Originality.
For his performance in the 1976 science fiction
film The Man Who Fell to Earth, he won a Saturn
Award for Best Actor.
In the ensuing decades he was honoured with
numerous awards for his music and its accompanying
videos, receiving, among others, six Grammy
Awards and four Brit Awards—winning Best
British Male Artist twice; the award for Outstanding
Contribution to Music in 1996; and the Brits
Icon award for his "lasting impact on British
culture", given posthumously in 2016.In 1999,
Bowie was made a Commander of the Ordre des
Arts et des Lettres by the French government.
He received an honorary doctorate from Berklee
College of Music the same year.
He declined the royal honour of Commander
of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in
2000, and turned down a knighthood in 2003.
Bowie later stated "I would never have any
intention of accepting anything like that.
I seriously don't know what it's for.
It's not what I spent my life working for."
The Telegraph in 2016 estimated Bowie's total
worldwide sales at 140 million records.
In the United Kingdom, he was awarded 9 platinum,
11 gold, and 8 silver albums, and in the United
States, 5 platinum and 9 gold.In 2003, six
of Bowie's albums appeared on Rolling Stone's
list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.
In 2004, four of Bowie's songs appeared on
the Rolling Stone list of the 500 Greatest
Songs of All Time.
Additionally, four of his songs are included
in The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs
that Shaped Rock and Roll.In the BBC's 2002
poll of the 100 Greatest Britons, he was ranked
29.
In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked him
39th on their list of the 100 Greatest Rock
Artists of All Time.
Bowie was inducted into the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame in 1996.
He was inducted into the Science Fiction and
Fantasy Hall of Fame in 2013.
In 2016, Rolling Stone proclaimed Bowie "the
greatest rock star ever".In 2008, the spider
Heteropoda davidbowie was named in Bowie's
honour.
On 5 January 2015, a main-belt asteroid was
named 342843 Davidbowie.
On 13 January 2016, Belgian amateur astronomers
at MIRA Public Observatory created a "Bowie
asterism" of seven stars which had been in
the vicinity of Mars at the time of Bowie's
death; the "constellation" forms the lightning
bolt on Bowie's face from the cover of his
Aladdin Sane album.On 25 March 2018 a statue
of Bowie was unveiled in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire,
the town where he debuted Ziggy Stardust.
The statue features a likeness of Bowie in
2002 accompanied with various characters and
looks from over his career, with Ziggy at
the front.
== Discography ==
=== 
Studio albums ===
David Bowie (1967)
David Bowie (re-released as Space Oddity in
1972) (1969)
The Man Who Sold the World (1970)
Hunky Dory (1971)
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the
Spiders from Mars (1972)
Aladdin Sane (1973)
Pin Ups (1973)
Diamond Dogs (1974)
Young Americans (1975)
Station to Station (1976)
Low (1977)
"Heroes" (1977)
Lodger (1979)
Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) (1980)
Let's Dance (1983)
Tonight (1984)
Never Let Me Down (1987)
Black Tie White Noise (1993)
Outside (1995)
Earthling (1997)
Hours (1999)
Heathen (2002)
Reality (2003)
The Next Day (2013)
Blackstar (2016)
=== Soundtrack albums ===
Labyrinth (1986)
The Buddha of Suburbia (1993)
=== with Tin Machine ===
Tin Machine (1989)
Tin Machine II (1991)
== Filmography ==
Selected film roles
== 
See also ==
Nat Tate: An American Artist 1928–1960
Celebrity bond
List of ambient music artists
List of artists by number of UK Albums Chart
number ones
List of artists who reached number one in
the United States
List of artists who reached number one on
the US Dance Club Songs chart
List of best-selling music artists
List of David Bowie concert tours
List of Billboard number-one Dance Club songs
List of Billboard number-one singles
== Notes
