In September 2016 a box set was released covering Bowie's mid-70s soul period, including The Gouster, a previously unreleased 1974 album. 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 recorded during the Blackstar sessions, but were left off the album and appeared on the soundtrack album for the Lazarus musical in October 2016. 2017 and 2018 also saw the release of a series of posthumous live albums, covering the Diamond Dogs tour of 1974, the Isolar tour of 1976 and the Isolar II tour of 1978. In the two years following his death, Bowie sold 5 million records in the UK alone. In their top 10 list for the Global Recording Artist of the Year, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry named Bowie the second-bestselling artist worldwide in 2016, behind Drake.
Blackstar was released on 8 January 2016, Bowie's 69th birthday, and was met with critical acclaim. Following his death on 10 January, 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. It was poorly received by critics, but Bowie's theme song, also named "Absolute Beginners", rose to number two in the UK charts. He also appeared as Jareth, the Goblin King, in the 1986 Jim Henson film Labyrinth, for which he worked with composer Trevor Jones and wrote five original 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 number six in the UK, the album yielded the hits "Day-In, Day-Out", "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.
After uneven commercial success in the late 1970s, Bowie had UK number ones with the 1980 single "Ashes to Ashes", its album Scary Monsters , and "Under Pressure", a 1981 collaboration with Queen. He reached his commercial peak in 1983 with Let's Dance; its title track topped both the UK and US charts. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Bowie continued to experiment with musical styles, including industrial and jungle. 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 his death from liver cancer at his home in New York City, two days after his 69th birthday and the release of his final album, Blackstar . The singer's debut single, "Liza Jane", credited to Davie Jones with the King Bees, was not commercially successful. 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. Presided over by Bowie and Nile Rodgers, 1983's album Let's Dance sold in the region of 7m copies worldwide, making it Bowie's most successful album to date. Modern Love bursts with the kind of ebullience that was more characteristic of another stateside-straddling British solo singer – Elton John – at the time, and it's not difficult to imagine how it might sound with Elton's vocal over the top. While we'd now moved into an era where the certainty everything Bowie touched would become a stone-cold classic was behind us, Modern Love, with its sassy, sophisticated brass and nod to the call and response stylings of Little Richard, is just that. The insights Bowie's former bandmates provide about his life and these final records is valuable, but limited, and there's a yawning chasm of difference between the best and worst interview subjects. Listening to Carlos Alomar, Bowie's rhythm guitarist for most of the '70s, talk about his creative process during the recording of the album Heroes is humbling and fascinating, and it doesn't last longer than two minutes.
Including a few seconds about it, in the middle of a movie about The Next Day and Blackstar, doesn't really make any sense. Early in the movie, Whately decides upon an interesting if ultimately frustrating device where the session players on the final albums play vocal-free versions of the songs from both albums, so we can see the way they're constructed. He abandons this approach after two songs on The Next Day, and only kind of picks it up again in the home stretch when discussing the creation of Blackstar with composers Maria Schneider and Donny McCaslin.
Whately also talks to the directors of his last music videos, a mixed bag of information. Floria Sigismondi just describes the transparent thematic ideas behind her video for "The Stars Are Out Tonight" in the most ludicrously pretentious yet completely basic terms. Johan Renck, who directed the arresting "Blackstar" video, has the film's only real emotional moment when he describes Bowie skyping in to tell him he was dying of cancer. 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. In 1993, Bowie released his first solo offering since his Tin Machine departure, the soul, jazz, and hip-hop influenced Black Tie White Noise.
Bowie explored new directions on The Buddha of Suburbia , 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 number 87 in the UK charts. It wasn't just that the song was great, but it was also about how it arrived, from out of nowhere on a bleak January morning in 2013.
Rumours had persisted about Bowie's health, and many assumed he would never make another record. And then there it was, a single video uploaded to YouTube, proof that Bowie was back and he meant business. Among all the topical cavalcades and the shitstorms, this song represented a genuine moment of unbridled joy for his fans, a distillation of all their hopes into one song, hopes that he might one day return with something we could fall in love with again. Here the Thin White Duke took the opportunity to look back again, this time at his Berlin years, and the unashamed fragility in his voice was all too much for some people. The old master had outfoxed us again, and the mind boggled at how he'd managed to keep this operation a secret (with military precision and signed contracts threatening to sue anyone who opened their mouths, that's how).
Each had their own variations and gimmicks, but it was Bowie who did it first. A few months later, and finally we had a new Bowie album that could genuinely lay claim to being his best since Scary Monsters. And yet Outside doesn't fit easily alongside Nine Inch Nails or Ministry as industrial rock, nor does it sit beside Tricky or Portishead as trip-hop. The cover art for The Strokes' sophomore album comes from English pop artist Peter Phillips' 1961 painting "War/Game," which the band felt matched the lyrics on several of their tracks.
The Strokes felt like it was impossible to live up to the success of their first album, "Is This It," and many critics have noted the similarities between the band's debut album and "Room on Fire." The album peaked at #4 on the Billboard chart. On 8 January 2013, his 66th birthday, his website announced a new album, to be titled The Next Day and scheduled for release in March. Bowie's first studio album in a decade, The Next Day contains 14 songs plus 3 bonus tracks.
Producer and longtime collaborator 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 Visconti. 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.
Stevie Ray Vaughan was a 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. At the 1984 MTV Video Music Awards Bowie received two awards including the inaugural Video Vanguard Award.
Station to Station , 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.
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. The fruit of the Philadelphia recording sessions was Young Americans . 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 , existed essentially on loose change." In 1975, in a move echoing Ken Pitt's acrimonious dismissal five years earlier, Bowie fired his manager. Born in Brixton, South London, Bowie developed an interest in music as a child. He studied art, music and design before embarking on a professional career as a musician in 1963. "Space Oddity", released in 1969, was his first top-five entry on the UK Singles Chart.
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 Bowie's 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 towards a sound he characterised as "plastic soul", initially alienating many of his UK fans 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. In 1977, he further confounded expectations with the electronic-inflected album Low, the first of three collaborations with Brian Eno that came to be known as the "Berlin Trilogy".
"Heroes" and Lodger followed; each album reached the UK top five and received lasting critical praise. The musical mostly consists of old Bowie songs, but it feels like much more than a jukebox musical. All of the songs have been completely revamped with new arrangements and production, which makes the cast recording so fresh and interesting. The lyrics of the old songs, while not changed, offer a completely different meaning when combined with the story and the characters of the musical. For example, The Man Who Sold The World is sang from a perspective of Newton's old friend, the friend reminiscing about their past. Valentine's Day is sang by the antagonist of the show, a psychopath named Valentine.
The songs lyrics for the first time made sense to me, it is obviously about murder. There are also four different original songs written for the play, Lazarus, No Plan, Killing A Little Time and When I Met You, which are all excellent and Bowie at his prime. The final studio recordings were also released as a stand alone No Plan EP in 2017.
Scaggs was a member of Steve Miller's San Francisco psychedelic band before leaving to pursue a career as a blue-eyed soul boy. On his seventh solo album, he hit commercial paydirt with a set of mellifluous R&B, including Lowdown and Lido Shuffle, making him an unlikely star of the late 70s. Mixing hard rock with gospel and soul, James Brown funk jams with Hendrix guitar freak-outs, Funkadelic's music was a kind of post-psychedelic cosmic slop. The title track is a classic showcase for the mind-bending extrapolations of Eddie Hazel, whom bandleader George Clinton ordered to play "like your momma just died". But Whately either didn't have enough material or wasn't interested in making those projects the sole focus of the film, so he also spends a lot of time looking back on Bowie's life and career, his songs, his characters, and his final tour.
The film begins with The Reality Tour, his last series of public performances, and the health crisis that pulled him from touring after nearly 40 years on the road. When he resurfaced in 2011 to record in secret, it shocked even his closest friends. The resulting albums are correctly regarded as fascinating and brilliant, a worthy addition to his catalog of genre bending classics. Björk became the toast of clubland, a chart star, not to mention an influential cultural icon to rival Madonna with the release of her debut solo album proper, Debut, in 1993, a record full of accessible pop with dance beats.
And then, almost as if in violent reaction to being the It Girl of the period, she recorded the harder, darker Post and Homogenic . Although the record is a gently unfolding blanket of sound, there is a vibrant effervescence to Autotelia's kosmische sound-shapes. The suite-like instrumentals will wrap themselves around you, inspiring deep-thought relaxation, without boring anybody's pants off.
This one in particular is crying out to be played over a massive soundsystem, whenever that'll be allowed again. 'Thinking Makes It' uses spidery psychedelic guitar patterns before growing heavier and more ominous towards the end. The album was recorded with Castellanos and Relleen aiming to free their playing from any baggage or expectation. While much ambient music of this nature can seem languid and often inessential, Autotelia sounds - and hopefully this doesn't seem crass - more alive than comparable records. Canadian indie rock band Arcade Fire made their studio album debut with "Funeral," a title inspired by the many deaths the band experienced while making the album.
Nominated for a Grammy Award, "Funeral"came in second on NME's list of the best albums of 2005. The band even went on to sing "Wake Up," considered one of their best songs, with David Bowie. The title for Wilco's fourth studio album came from shortwave radio's phonetic alphabet.
"Kid A," the band's fourth studio album, was written and recorded at the same time as "Amnesiac," though the two were released eight months apart and have completely different sounds. His interest in Philly R&B was waning and his interest in the new electronic music coming out of Germany was increasing. The result is an album that represents a microcosm of Bowie's entire career up till that point. There's pop, there's rock, there's rhythm and there's blues, but most of all there's Bowie, shedding his previous personas even as he revisits them to emerge reborn as the Thin White Duke.
It's not just a record of songs, it's a record of a life, and for that reason if nothing else, it deserves the top spot on our list of the 10 best David Bowie albums. 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 roll singers like Little Richard and Elvis Presley, and also the wider world of show business. Bowie's fascination with music hall continued to surface sporadically alongside such diverse styles as hard rock and heavy metal, soul, psychedelic folk, and pop. 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.
In June 2008 a live album was released of a Ziggy Stardust-era concert from 1972. A Reality Tour, a double album of live material from the 2003 concert tour, was released in January 2010. The album Low , partly influenced by the Krautrock sound of Kraftwerk and Neu! Although he completed the album in November 1976, it took his unsettled record company another three months to release it.
Despite these forebodings, Low yielded the UK number three single "Sound and Vision", and its own performance surpassed that of Station to Station in the UK chart, where it reached number two. 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".
