Hailed by many as the founding father of "glam rock," David Bowie defied rock star conventions and blurred the lines between music and performance art. Embracing the avant-garde, Bowie created futuristic, androgynous characters to represent the music he released in the form of seminal rock albums such as Space Oddity , The Man Who Sold the World , and The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars . A musical chameleon, Bowie reinvented his persona with every album and live performance, from the decadent Ziggy Stardust, to the enigmatic Thin White Duke, and helped pioneer several genres of music, including New Wave, industrial, and electronic. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee's constant reinvention and love of theatrics also influenced artists like Madonna and Lady Gaga, while his enormous talent allowed him to enjoy equal success as an actor, working with filmmakers such as Martin Scorsese and David Lynch. Renowned for exploring the fringes of pop music, Bowie carved a successful career out of change, and retained his reputation as an experimental artist as well as a true music icon. After more than a decade of musical silence, marked by health concerns, David Bowie returned with an iconoclastic new album, The Next Day, in 2013, followed by an even more experimental release, Blackstar, released on his 69th birthday, January 8, 2015.
Sadly, David Bowie died following an 18-month battle with cancer only two days later, on January 10, 2015, at his home in New York City. Heathen was released in June 2002, preceded by first single Slow Burn featuring old friend Pete Townshend on lead guitar. Dave Grohl took the same role on the Neil Young cover I've Been Waiting For You. Guest turns aside though, Bowie played more instruments on Heathen than anything in memory, including the drums over his own loop on the Pixies cover Cactus, as well as nearly all the synth work and some of the piano.
As for the album title, "Heathenism is a state of mind", Bowie explained at the time. David performed Low in its entirety alongside Heathen as part of the festival. 1999 also saw David join Placebo at the annual BRIT Awards for a performance of the T Rex classic Twentieth Century Boy—a performance that went down so well that the UK's Mirror newspaper staged a campaign for the track to be released as a single.
That July saw David voted both biggest music star of the 20th century by readers of The Sun newspaper and sixth Greatest Star of The Century by Q Magazine's readers (the Q poll also saw David place as third highest-ranking living star). For something so influential, David Bowie's pansexual alien persona of Ziggy Stardust was relatively short-lived, and had come and gone before he was cast as an alien in his first starring role. In fact his characterisation of Thomas Jerome Newton in this indulgent but sporadically fascinating Nicholas Roeg oddity was based more on Bowie's next incarnation as the Thin White Duke. And with Bowie himself admitting this period saw his drug habit at its worst and that the emotionless, hollow, Ubermensch Duke became "an ogre" to him, you have some idea of the attraction and the repulsion that the character, and Roeg's capitalism-critiquing film, represent. A cult classic almost the second it opened, it feels like now that Bowie's song has been sung through to its end, this is definitely one of the films that future generations will look to to explain his legacy — and with as little luck as any of us have had.
"The Man Who Fell To Earth" will continue to defy straightforward comprehension, partly because of Roeg, but partly because however many times you may revisit it, at its core there is maybe the quintessential Bowie performance, and it is a perfect enigma. Just a few days after the release of Bowie's highly anticipated new albumBlackstar and his 69th birthday, David Bowie has passed away. During his career Bowie was constantly reinventing himself while crossing musical genres including glam rock, pop, and electronic. After DIAMOND DOGS, YOUNG AMERICANS could have been a more conventional "plastic soul" record from a white British guy. And while it was a plastic soul record from a white British guy, YOUNG AMERICANS was not conventional in its ultimate appeal.
Its title track is one of my favorite Bowie songs, an absolutely moving soul song with incredible backing vocals, and it kicks off a series of absolutely pleasing tracks. I've used the words "fun" and "challenging" to illustrate the Bowie dichotomy of, maybe, the old "one for them, one for me" maxim you find in the film industry, but with YOUNG AMERICANS, Bowie got his cake and ate it too. It's not experimental in the way of the Berlin Trilogy or something, but after the glam rock ramp up of the past half a decade, Bowie briefly reinvented himself and made a singularly soulful album. Eberts isn't entirely wrong — the film is a gigantic folly, one that didn't just destroy Goldcrest, but came close to crippling the British film industry as a whole.
But that doesn't mean it isn't fascinating, and Bowie's performance as well as his song, are one of the movie's major redeeming features. Temple takes Colin MacInnes' memoir of the birth of the teen in London's Soho in the 1950s and gives it an expressionistic, none-more-80s music video veneer, a cross between Alan Parker, Busby Berkeley and amateur dramatics. It's a hot mess, dramatically and aesthetically, but it's entirely fascinating for it, and Bowie has enormous fun as the near-satanic ad executive who takes lead Colin under his wing. Not enough of the star's film appearances let him flex his musical muscles, but both the title track and his lizardly seductive "That's Motivation," atop a giant typewriter, are heads and shoulders above the rest of the movie.
Not only did Bowie shed the character that gave him such an edge in the glam rock scene, but he took on a new one and a little bit of a rougher sound . Each of the tracks was based on different experiences in different cities across the good ol' USA. You can probably guess what inspired "Panic in Detroit," but if you listen to it, you'll also find ALADDIN SANE's best track. The rest of the album covers so much ground it's hard to believe that Bowie produced this immediately after ZIGGY STARDUST and a major American tour. "Cracked Actor" is an all-time great, and "The Prettiest Star" and "The Jean Genie" are kind of warped, sensual experiences.
The whole album feels like the dark side of the more whimsical ZIGGY STARDUST, which didn't exactly play like an innocent fairy tale. In the hall of "follow ups to some of the best/most important albums of all time," ALADDIN SANE deserves a special commendation. Otherwise, he had been turning out an ever-increasingly praised series of albums for a decade. So it's really interesting that Bowie came out of his longest hiatus yet to produce what would come to be one of his biggest successes, and one that would haunt him for the rest of the '80s. In spite of critical dismissal, LET'S DANCE is nevertheless a really good album. Bowie tapped into '80s new wave and made something richer, dirtier, and yet somehow more fun than his contemporaries.
"China Girl," a version of a song Bowie had co-written with Iggy Pop for Iggy's THE IDIOT , is the best example of that on the record. After the credits roll on Dolemite Is My Name, we guarantee you'll be 10,000 times more likely to go out and stage a horndog nude photo shoot for your next cult comedy record. The only person having anywhere near as much fun as Eddie Murphy, playing real life club comedian/singer Rudy Ray Moore, is Wesley Snipes, goofing around as the actor-director D'Urvill Martin. Together with a madcap crew, they make a truly terrible 1975 Blaxploitation kung fu movie based on Moore's pimp alter ego, Dolemite.
A brash, OTT showbiz movie with a heart of gold, there's shades of The Disaster Artist and music legend biopics. And with the cast flexing in Ruth Carter's glorious costumes – the suits! – and a couple of triumphant sex and shoot out scenes, it's a wild ride, whether you know the original story or not.
Not long after Young Americans' release, Bowie moved to Los Angeles and starred in the cult classic Nic Roeg science fiction film The Man Who Fell To Earth. This period also saw RCA's release of David's first compilation of hits, ChangesOneBowie, in May 1976. Never one to stay in one place too long, shortly after his tour finished, David relocated to the Schonenberg section of Berlin. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, securing Bowie's involvement as the Goblin King Jareth was such a major feat in the development of Jim Henson's fairy tale fable "Labyrinth," that the orbit of the film shifted slightly to accommodate him. The film's writer, Terry Jones of 'Monty Python' fame, rewrote the script to allow more screen time for the character and for his songs, and when Bowie reportedly felt the script lacked humor thereafter, it was again rewritten to keep him onside. Also featuring a polish from Elaine May, the family film is the story of a young girl who has to face all sorts of otherworldly dangers and adventures when her little brother is taken, on her urging, by Goblins, whose king falls in love with her.
It was a flop on release, which allegedly depressed Henson so much he never directed again, and critically the reception was mixed at best. But the film developed a life on VHS thereafter and for a whole generation of sleepover-aged kids, Bowie's Jareth, with his 80s fright wig and "you remind me of the babe" nonsense dialogue, is one of his most indelible creations. But if originality were the only mark of appeal for an artist, there would be many more that I'd think of as highly as Bowie.
His skill, however, and this cannot get lost in the thousands of words I've written about him here, was that he wrote such good music. And the best he ever wrote was presented on THE RISE AND FALL OF ZIGGY STARDUST AND THE SPIDERS FROM MARS. Hyperbole matches the very nature of this record, this silly, aspirational album with songs every one has heard a million times over. Just how radical this record was should not be obscured, however, and I think it isn't if you sit down and listen to the entirety of ZIGGY STARDUST, in one sitting, rather than through its biggest hits in the supermarket or on the radio in your car.
"Starman" is phenomenal, sure, it's my single favorite track from the album, but the power of THE RISE AND FALL OF ZIGGY STARDUST AND THE SPIDERS FROM MARS is hearing that whole story told to you, musically and intuitively. David Bowie was many things in his life and career, and Ziggy Stardust was just one of them. "HEROES," released the same year as LOW, softened its predecessor's avant-garde leanings with stronger pop hooks. The most significant result is the title track, one of my favorite Bowie songs, but another outcome is a more cohesive bridge between the more "conventional" side one and the more experimental side two. The first of two self-titled records released just two years apart at the end of the '60s, this 1967 release was David Bowie's debut album.
I love going back and listening to the early careers that, at first blush, don't contain the hallmarks we come to know from an artist. Because DAVID BOWIE feels a little too…silly, or whimsical, to be something from the man who was able to channel that kind of energy into something more elevated. And yet Ziggy Stardust is here, as is the elocution and expression the world would come to expect of David Bowie. "Love You Till Tuesday," maybe, technically, Bowie's biggest hit at the time, wasn't enough to carry the album, and he wallowed in some music industry troubles for a couple years before he would get another shot. And while it didn't send him into retirement, NEVER LET ME DOWN also caused Bowie to leave something behind. After chasing the ghost of LET'S DANCE's success throughout the '80s, a period many critics now consider the artist's fallow period, Bowie created this much maligned record.
I think it's widely considered one of Bowie's worst from what I can gather, and as is clear, I nearly agree. I don't think any artists from the '60s or '70s escaped the '80s without at least a couple of embarrassing records, but Bowie transcended trends to the point that NEVER LET ME DOWN is a little more than tolerable. But Bowie couldn't quite escape the musical tropes of the '80s, and much of the rest of the album is mired in them. It speaks to Bowie's innate musical ability, then, that NEVER LET ME DOWN ultimately isn't a slog. However, it, in addition to the massively expensive and incredibly theatrical Glass Spider tour, disillusioned Bowie in regards to his own artistic direction, and he formed the band Tin Machine to ultimately create two records and get back to his rock roots.
The albums are pretty good, but they aren't considered in this piece. Chadwick Boseman's final film before his untimely death is one set almost entirely in a sweaty recording studio in 1920s Chicago. Ma Rainey's Black Bottom centres around the mother of blues, played by Viola Davis, as she clashes with bandmates and white producers whilst trying to record an album. Davis delivers a stellar performance, perfectly reflecting the tensions of the time.
But it's Boseman who is completely electrifying on-screen, stealing every scene he's in. The actor truly couldn't have done any better for his final outing as trumpeter Levee. When people think of director Christopher Nolan, they tend to remember his blockbuster epics The Dark Knight, Inception and Interstellar, but his 2006 film The Prestige is worthy of equal acclaim. Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale star as warring magicians in 19th century London, whose rivalry escalates to unhealthy and dangerous levels. There are great performances throughout, including a small and important one from David Bowie playing Nicola Tesla, as Nolan weaves a complex, non-linear story, but the genius is this isn't just a film about magic, the film itself is a magic trick.
It's a must watch for any Nolan fan and a useful touchstone for his later work. Though he played many personas in order to get an album or a performance across, he doesn't play the part of a rock star, glam star, elder statesman or serious musician. From the mounting frustration of his sexual revolution in "We Are The Dead" to the nostalgic regret of "Slip Away" the consummate actor always hit all his marks. From the time he channeled his inner Lauren Bacall for the cover art to The Man Who Sold The World, the Thin White Duke married cinematic glamor with audio glam. The guy who busted out in the music scene singing a song about a junkie astronaut made his film debut as an alien. He put them all together as a kind of anthology of creatures on Scary Monsters.
The result was the concept album Outside, released in 1995 as the first installment of a new deal with Virgin Records. The complex project explored the increasing obsession with the mutilation of the human body as art and the paganization of western society. At age 13, inspired by the jazz of the London West End, he picked up the saxophone and called up Ronnie Ross for lessons. Early bands he played with – The Kon-Rads, The King Bees, the Mannish Boys and the Lower Third –provided him with an introduction into the showy worlds of pop and mod, and by 1966 he was David Bowie, with long hair and aspirations of stardom rustling about his head. Kenneth Pitt signed on as his manager, and his career began with a handful of mostly forgotten singles and a head full of ideas. It was not until 1969 that the splash onto the charts would begin, with the legendary Space Oddity (which peaked at #5 in the UK).
Amidst his musical wanderings in the late '60s, the young Bowie experimented with mixed media, cinema, mime, Tibetan Buddhism, acting and love. From the very outset, it's clear that David Lynch was going to be unlike any other director working. The experimental nature of his work, combined with his frequent themes and motifs, are all on shown in his first feature-length film, 'Eraserhead'.
Trying to describe the plot is like trying to describe a dream, but that's how Lynch wants it. It's supposed to be off-putting, surrealist and dream-like, but not a good dream - a weird dream where everything's in black and white, industrialised and frequently disturbing. The performances are heightened, the constant low-level noise in the background is off-putting, the music is jarring and scary.
From the very beginning of watching 'Eraserhead', you're on tenterhooks. In fact, that sense of dread and foreboding was exactly what Stanley Kubrick wanted in 'The Shining'. Kubrick even screened 'Eraserhead' for the cast and crew of 'The Shining', explaining that the tone and feeling was what he wanted to recreate in his movie. Despite this, Stardust reminds us that Bowie's role as an artist expanded beyond that of a stage performer. He took on many roles during his prolific career, including several in movies.
Bowie's essence played very well on camera, leading him to accept a series of compelling parts in a variety of films. For an artist who created several masterpieces, perhaps his finest one was the 1969 track "Space Oddity" – the No. 1 item on our list of the Top 10 David Bowie Songs. To think that Bowie was only 22 years old when this was released is mind-blowing. In a five-minute turn, Bowie manages to tell a story that can easily serve as the plot to a two-hour sci-fi film.
The song was revolutionary for its time, musically and lyrically, and helped introduce the masses to one of the most dynamic and creative music acts we will ever know. Previously recorded under Bowie's Arnold Corns project, "Moonage Daydream" was given new life on his Ziggy Stardust album and proved to be one of the most powerful songs on the disc – and of his career. Featuring in-your-face, sexually charged lyrics and a monster guitar riff by Ronson, "Moonage Daydream" is a rock 'n' roll tour de force. The tune is also significant in that it serves as a musical introduction to the Ziggy Stardust character.
From then Smith has continued to be a big bankable star though it dipped in the early 2010s, and his music career has become somewhat dormant as he creates his weird family dynasty. Perhaps the success of Aladdin might bring Big Willie back the way he was and some new songs – he didn't even do the song for Men in Black 3, and that is a crime. Despite its wonky pop politics, this is a movie about fame, and creativity, and romance, and most of the ideals and pitfalls that motivate the other films on this list. Range and his co-writer, Christopher Bell, attempt to give the movie a dramatic core by emphasizing Bowie's relationship with his half-brother, Terry Burns , who began to develop symptoms of schizophrenia around the time his younger sibling started to pursue a musical career. There is debate among biographers and Bowie gurus about the role that references to Terry's mental illness played in the development of his songwriting. However, reducing a multifaceted artist's body of work to a single cause has the opposite of illuminating the subject.
Lacking the real-life Bowie's music, artistry, or charisma, Stardust's lackluster version is simply a mediocre jerk who needs roleplaying therapy to deal with his demons. After finding Oscar success with BlacKkKlansman, Spike Lee is back with an even more powerful, violent, anguished take on another aspect of America's history with racial injustice. This time we're in Vietnam, where four black veterans have returned to find the remains of their fallen squad leader and a gold fortune that they left behind.
As you would expect, a film that focuses so closely on these difficult themes is no easy watch, and there are moments of intense brutality. But at the heart of Da 5 Bloods is an incredibly human story of friendship, humanity and the inherited trauma our main characters experience. Delroy Lindo gives a particularly gut-wrenching performance; still heavy with the burden of fighting in the war, at the peak of his character's disassociation with the world around him, Lindo gives an unforgettable Shakespearean-esque monologue that rocks you to your core. Kids Kids "Changes" is a song by David Bowie, originally released on the album Hunky Dory in December 1971 and as a single in January 1972. Despite missing the Billboard top 40, "Changes" became one of Bowie's best-known songs. The lyrics are often seen as a manifesto for his chameleonic personality, the frequent change of the world today, and frequent reinventions of his musical style throughout the 1970s.
This single is cited as David Bowie's official North American debut, despite the fact that the song "The Man Who Sold the World" was released in North America two years prior. This was the last song Bowie performed live on stage before his retirement from live performances at the end of 2006. "Stardust" uses both of those techniques, with Flynn performing some cover songs that Bowie did perform, and also doing new songs that are meant to sound like old ones. Perhaps Bowie's best known acting role, Labyrinth has become a major cult classic and many people know Bowie just from this role. The story is about teenage Sarah Williams who has to go into a Labyrinth and has to save her baby brother from the Goblin King . While the movie is pretty campy, it features great visuals from director Jim Henson and the story is actually pretty good.
