David Bowie

David Robert Jones (born 8 January 1947), known by his stage name David Bowie ( /ˈboʊ.i/   boh  -ee),[1]  is an English musician, singer-songwriter, actor and arranger. Bowie has been a major figure in the world of popular music for over four decades, and is renowned as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s. He is known for his distinctive voice as well as the intellectual depth and eclecticism of his work.

Bowie first caught the eye and ear of the public in July 1969, when his song "Space Oddity" reached the top five of the UK Singles Chart. After a three-year period of experimentation he re-emerged in 1972 during the glam rock era with the flamboyant, androgynous alter ego Ziggy Stardust, spearheaded by the hit single "Starman" and the album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Bowie's impact at that time, as described by biographer David Buckley, "challenged the core belief of the rock music of its day" and "created perhaps the biggest cult in popular culture."[2]  The relatively short-lived Ziggy persona proved merely one facet of a career marked by continual reinvention, musical innovation and striking visual presentation.

In 1975, Bowie achieved his first major American crossover success with the number-one single "Fame" and the hit album Young Americans, which the singer characterised as "plastic soul". The sound constituted a radical shift in style that initially alienated many of his UK devotees. He then confounded the expectations of both his record label and his American audiences by recording the minimalist album Low (1977)—the first of three collaborations with Brian Eno over the next two years. These so-called "Berlin Trilogy" albums all 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 then reached a new commercial peak in 1983 with Let's Dance, which yielded several hit singles. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Bowie continued to experiment with musical styles, including blue-eyed soul, industrial, adult contemporary, and jungle. He has not toured since the 2003–04 Reality Tour and has not performed live since 2006. Bowie's latest studio album The Next Day was released in March 2013.

Buckley says of Bowie: "His influence has been unique in popular culture—he has permeated and altered more lives than any comparable figure."[2]  In the BBC's 2002 poll of the 100 Greatest Britons, Bowie was placed at number 29. Throughout his career, he has sold an estimated 140 million albums.[3]  In the UK, he has been awarded nine Platinum album certifications, 11 Gold and eight Silver, and in the US, five Platinum and seven Gold certifications. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked him 39th on their list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time", and 23rd on their list of the best singers of all time. ==Biography == ===1947–62: Early life<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-left:-0.25em;margin-right:0.25em;color:rgb(85,85,85);"> === <p style="line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">David Bowie was born David Robert Jones in Brixton, London, on 8 January 1947. His mother, Margaret Mary "Peggy" (née Burns), from Kent,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-4" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[4]  worked as a waitress,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-5" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[5]  while his father, Haywood Stenton "John" Jones, from Yorkshire,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-6" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[6] was a promotions officer for Barnardo's. The family lived at 40 Stansfield Road, located near the border of the south London areas of Brixton and Stockwell. 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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-7" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[7]

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">In 1953 the family moved to the suburb of Bromley, where, two years later, Bowie progressed to Burnt Ash Junior School. His voice was considered "adequate" by the school choir, and his recorder playing judged to demonstrate above-average musical ability.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-sandford18-19_8-0" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[8]  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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-sandford18-19_8-1" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[8] The same year, his interest in music was further stimulated when his father brought home a collection of American 45s by artists including Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, the Platters, Fats Domino, Elvis Presley and Little Richard.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-9" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[9] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-sandford19-20_10-0" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[10]  Upon listening to "Tutti Frutti", Bowie would later say, "I had heard God".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-11" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[11]  Presley's impact on him was likewise emphatic: "I saw a cousin of mine dance to ... 'Hound Dog' and I had never seen her get up and be moved so much by anything. It really impressed me, the power of the music. I started getting records immediately after that."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-sandford19-20_10-1" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[10]  By the end of the following year he had taken up the ukulele and tea-chest bass and begun to participate in skifflesessions 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."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-sandford19-20_10-2" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[10]  Failing his eleven plus exam at the conclusion of his Burnt Ash Junior education, Bowie joined Bromley Technical High School.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-bromleytech_12-0" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[12]

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">It was an unusual technical school, as biographer Christopher Sandford writes:

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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-bromleytech_12-1" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[12] <p style="line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">Bowie studied art, music and design, including layout and typesetting. After Terry Burns, his half-brother, introduced him to modern jazz, his enthusiasm for players like Charles Mingus and John Coltrane led his mother to give him a plastic alto saxophone in 1961; he was soon receiving lessons from a local musician.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-13" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[13]  Bowie 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. Doctors feared he would become blind in that eye. After a series of operations during a four-month hospitalisation,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-14" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[14]  his doctors determined that the damage could not be fully repaired and Bowie was left with faulty depth perception and apermanently dilated pupil. The latter condition has misled some to believe that Bowie has different coloured eyes, when in reality both irises are the same blue colour.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-15" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[15] <sup class="noprint Inline-Template" style="line-height:1em;"><span style="white-space:nowrap;" title=" since March 2013">[dead link]  Despite their altercation, Underwood and Bowie remained good friends, and Underwood went on to create the artwork for Bowie's early albums.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-16" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[16] ===1962–68: The Konrads to the Riot Squad<span class="mw-editsection mw-editsection-expanded" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;padding-right:0.25em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;direction:ltr;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-left:-0.25em;margin-right:0.25em;color:rgb(85,85,85);"> === Bowie in 1967<p style="line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">Graduating from his plastic saxophone to a real instrument in 1962, Bowie formed his first band at the age of 15. 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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-17" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[17]  When Bowie left the technical school the following year, he informed his parents of his intention to become a pop star. His mother promptly arranged his employment as an electrician's mate. Frustrated by his band-mates' 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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-sandford29-30_18-0" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[18]

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">Conn quickly began to promote Bowie. The singer's debut single, "Liza Jane", credited to Davie Jones and the King Bees, had no commercial success. Dissatisfied with the King Bees and their repertoire of Howlin' Wolf and Willie Dixon blues numbers, 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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-sandford29-30_18-1" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[18]  "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 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 a Bowie number and Velvet Underground material, went unreleased. Ken Pitt, introduced by Horton, took over as Bowie's manager.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-19" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[19]

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">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 Americanfrontiersman Jim Bowie and the knife he had popularised.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-20" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[20]  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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-albumdebut_21-0" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[21]

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">Bowie's fascination with the bizarre was fuelled when he met dancer Lindsay Kemp: "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."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-buckley41-42_22-0" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[22]  Kemp, for his part, recalled, "I didn't really teach him to be a mime artiste but to be more of himself on the outside, ... I enabled him to free the angel and demon that he is on the inside."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-buckley41-42_22-1" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[22]  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-penned "Over the Wall We Go" became a 1967 single for Oscar; another Bowie composition, "Silly Boy Blue", was released by Billy Fury the following year.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-23" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[23]  After Kemp cast Bowie with Hermione Farthingale for a poetic minuet, the pair began dating; they soon moved into a London flat together. Playing acoustic guitar, she formed a group with Bowie and bassist John Hutchinson; between September 1968 and early 1969, when Bowie and Farthingale broke up, the trio gave a small number of concerts combining folk, Merseybeat, poetry and mime.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-24" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[24] ===1969–73: Psychedelic folk to glam rock<span class="mw-editsection mw-editsection-expanded" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;padding-right:0.25em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;direction:ltr;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-left:-0.25em;margin-right:0.25em;color:rgb(85,85,85);"> === ====Space Oddity to Hunky Dory<span class="mw-editsection mw-editsection-expanded" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;padding-right:0.25em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;direction:ltr;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-left:-0.25em;margin-right:0.25em;color:rgb(85,85,85);"> ==== <p style="line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">Because of his lack of commercial success, Bowie was forced to try to earn a living in different ways. He featured in a Lyons Maid ice cream commercial, but was rejected for another by Kit Kat.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-sandford49-50_25-0" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[25]  Love You till Tuesday, was a 30-minute film featuring performances from his repertoire and was intended as a vehicle to promote the singer. Although the film was not released until 1984, the filming sessions in January 1969 led to unexpected success when Bowie told the producers, "That film of yours—I've got a new song for it." He then demoed the song that provided his commercial breakthrough. "Space Oddity" was released on 11 July, five days ahead of the Apollo 11 launch, to become a UK top five hit.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-sandford49-50_25-1" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[25]  Breaking up with Farthingale shortly after completion of the film, Bowie moved in with Mary Finnigan as her lodger.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-sandford53_26-0" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[26]  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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-sandford53_26-1" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[26]  This soon morphed into the Beckenham Arts Lab, and became extremely popular. The Arts Lab hosted a free festival in a local park, later immortalised by Bowie in his song "Memory of a Free Festival".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-27" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[27]  Bowie's second album, Space Oddity, 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. 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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-28" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[28]

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-sandford54-60_29-0" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[29]  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".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-sandford62-63_30-0" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[30]  The shortcoming was underlined by his artistic rivalry with Marc Bolan, who was at the time acting as his session guitarist.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-sandford62-63_30-1" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[30]  A band was duly assembled. John Cambridge, a drummer Bowie met at the Arts Lab, was joined by Tony Visconti on bass and Mick Ronson on electric guitar. Known asthe 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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-sandford62-63_30-2" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[30] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-31" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[31]  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 Bowie, enraged, accused, "You're fucking up my album." Cambridge summarily quit and was replaced by Mick Woodmansey.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-sandford67_32-0" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[32]  Not long after, in a move that resulted in years of litigation, at the conclusion of which Bowie was forced to pay Pitt compensation, the singer fired his manager, replacing him with Tony Defries.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-sandford67_32-1" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[32]

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">The studio sessions continued and resulted in Bowie's third album, The Man Who Sold the World (1970). 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 in which Bowie, between January and February 1971, was interviewed by radio stations and the media. Exploiting hisandrogynous 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".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-sandford73-74_33-0" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[33] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-34" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[34]  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".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-sandford73-74_33-1" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[33]  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".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-sandford73-74_33-2" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[33]

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-buckley95-99_35-0" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[35]  (His parents chose "his kooky name"—he was known as Zowie for the next 12 years—after the Greek word zoe, life.)<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-sandford80_36-0" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[36]  Elsewhere, the album explored more serious themes, 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<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-37" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[37]  but was ranked number 58 by voters on the All Time Top 1000 Albums list. ====Ziggy Stardust<span class="mw-editsection mw-editsection-expanded" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;padding-right:0.25em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;direction:ltr;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-left:-0.25em;margin-right:0.25em;color:rgb(85,85,85);"> ==== David Bowie during the Ziggy Stardust Tour<p style="line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">With his next venture, Bowie, in the words of biographer David Buckley, "challenged the core belief of the rock music of its day" and "created perhaps the biggest cult in popular culture".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-buckley_legacy_2-2" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[2]  Dressed in a striking costume, his hair dyed red, Bowie launched his Ziggy Stardust stage show with the Spiders from Mars—Ronson, Bolder and Woodmansey—at the Toby Jug pub in Tolworth on 10 February 1972.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-buckley135-6_38-0" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[38]  The show was hugely popular, catapulting him to stardom as he toured the UK over the course of 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."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-buckley135-6_38-1" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[38]  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, became UK hits. The Ziggy Stardust Tour continued to the United States.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-39" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[39]

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">Bowie contributed backing vocals to Lou Reed's 1972 solo breakthrough Transformer, co-producing the album with Mick Ronson.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-40" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[40]  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".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-41" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[41] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-42" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[42]

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">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."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-43" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[43]  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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Bowie:_An_Illustrated_Record_p.7_44-0" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[44]  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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-45" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[45] <p style="line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">After break-up the Spiders from Mars, Bowie attempted to move on from his Ziggy persona. His back catalogue was now highly sought: 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 made number three in the UK singles chart. Entering the same chart in September, Bowie's novelty record from 1967, "The Laughing Gnome", reached number six.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-46" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[46]  Pin Ups, a collection of covers of his 1960s favourites, followed in October, producing a UK number three hit in "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 currently in the UK chart to six.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-47" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[47] ===1974–76: Soul, funk and the Thin White Duke<span class="mw-editsection mw-editsection-expanded" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;padding-right:0.25em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;direction:ltr;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-left:-0.25em;margin-right:0.25em;color:rgb(85,85,85);"> === Bowie filming a video for "Rebel Rebel" in 1974<p style="line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">Bowie moved to the US in 1974, initially staying in New York City before settling in Los Angeles.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-48" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[48]  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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-49" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[49]  The album went to number one in the UK, spawning the hits "Rebel Rebel" and "Diamond Dogs", and number five 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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-buckley_204-5_50-0" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[50]  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 number two in the UK and number eight in the US. It also spawned a UK number ten hit in Bowie's cover of "Knock on Wood". After a break in Philadelphia, where Bowie recorded new material, the tour resumed with a new emphasis on soul.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-51" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[51]

Bowie performing with Cher on the Chershow, 1975<p style="line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">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."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-52" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[52]  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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-53" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[53]  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".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-54" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[54]  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,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-sandfordoctobersingle_55-0" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[55]  that was offered to Elvis Presley to perform, but Presley declined it.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-sandfordoctobersingle_55-1" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[55]  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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-56" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[56]  Despite his by now well established superstardom, Bowie, in the words of biographer Christopher Sandford, "for all his record sales (over a million copies of Ziggy Stardust alone), existed essentially on loose change."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-firesDefries_57-0" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[57]  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."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-firesDefries_57-1" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[57]  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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-58" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[58]

Bowie as the Thin White Duke at Maple Leaf Gardens, Toronto 1976<p style="line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">Station to Station (1976) 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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-59" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[59]  Developing the funk and soul of Young Americans, Station to Station also prefigured the Krautrock and synthesiser 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 General 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 conversation with Harty, as described by biographer David Buckley, "the singer made hardly any sense at all throughout what was quite an extensive interview. ... Bowie looked completely disconnected and was hardly able to utter a coherent sentence."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-60" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[60]  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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-buckley_204-5_50-1" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[50] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-sandford158_61-0" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[61]

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">Station to Station ' s January 1976 release was followed in February by a 3-and-a-half-month concert tour of Europe and North America. Featuring a starkly lit set, the Isolar – 1976 Tourhighlighted 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 around this album and tour—rhythm guitarist 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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Buckley_pp.289.E2.80.9391_62-0" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[62]  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, the singer 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 simply caught him in mid-wave.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-63" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[63]  He later blamed his pro-Fascism comments and his behaviour during the period on his addictions and the character of the Thin White Duke.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-64" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[64]  "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 ...".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-sandford158_61-1" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[61]  According to playwright Alan Franks, writing later in The Times, "he was indeed 'deranged'. He had some very bad experiences with hard drugs."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-65" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[65] ===1976–79: The Berlin era<span class="mw-editsection mw-editsection-expanded" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;padding-right:0.25em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;direction:ltr;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-left:-0.25em;margin-right:0.25em;color:rgb(85,85,85);">  === Bowie performing in Oslo on 5 June 1978<p style="line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">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 increased; so too did his interest in pursuits outside his musical career. He took up 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".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-66" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[66]

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">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. Working withBrian Eno while sharing an apartment in Schöneberg 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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-67" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[67]  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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-68" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[68]  Low (1977), partly influenced by the Krautrock sound of Kraftwerk and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neu! Neu!], evidenced a move away from narration in Bowie's songwriting to a more abstract musical form in which lyrics were sporadic and optional. 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 ex-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 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. Leading contemporary composer Philip Glass describedLow 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".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-low_69-0" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[69] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-70" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[70] Glass has praised Bowie's gift for creating "fairly complex pieces of music, masquerading as simple pieces".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-71" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[71] <p style="line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-72" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[72]  Incorporating ambient sounds from a variety of sources including white noise generators, synthesisers and koto, the album was another hit, reaching number three in the UK. Its title track, though only reaching number 24 in the UK singles chart, gained lasting popularity, and within months had been released in both German and French.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-heroes_73-0" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[73]  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 televised 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 number three on Christmas Day, 1982.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-74" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[74]

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">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."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-75" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[75]  Recordings from the tour made up the live album Stage, released the same year.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-76" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[76]

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">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 Hejaz 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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-77" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[77] 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 number 4 in the UK and number 20 in the US, and yielded the UK hit singles "Boys Keep Swinging" and "DJ".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-78" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[78] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-lodger_79-0" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[79]  Towards the end of the year, Bowie and Angela initiated divorce proceedings, and after months of court battles the marriage was ended in early 1980.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-80" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[80] ===1980–89: From superstar to megastar<span class="mw-editsection mw-editsection-expanded" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;padding-right:0.25em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;direction:ltr;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-left:-0.25em;margin-right:0.25em;color:rgb(85,85,85);"> === Serious Moonlight Tour 1983<p style="line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-81" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[81]  While Scary Monsters utilised 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, Pete Townshend,Chuck Hammer and Tom Verlaine.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-82" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[82]  As "Ashes to Ashes" hit number one on the UK charts, Bowie opened a three-month run on Broadway on 24 September, starring in The Elephant Man.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-elephantman_83-0" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[83]  The same year, he made a cameo appearance in the German film Christiane F., a real-life story of teenage drug addiction in 1970s Berlin. The Christiane F. soundtrack album, which featured Bowie's music prominently, was released a few months later.

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">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 1981 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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-84" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[84]

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">Bowie reached a new 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 twenty hits in both countries, where its title track reached number one. "Modern Love" and "China Girl" made number two in the UK, accompanied by a pair of acclaimed promotional videos that, as described by biographer David Buckley, "were totally absorbing and 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. 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."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-85" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[85]  Stevie Ray Vaughan was guest guitarist playing solo on "Let's Dance".

Performing during the critically maligned Glass Spider Tour, 1987<p style="line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">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 ten 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 in 1985 for Live Aid, a multi-venue benefit concert for Ethiopian famine relief. During the event, the video for a fundraising single was premièred, 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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-86" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[86]

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">Bowie was given a role in the 1986 film Absolute Beginners. It was poorly received by critics, but Bowie's theme song 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 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 number six 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".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-87" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[87]  Supporting Never Let Me Down, and preceded by nine promotional press shows, the 86-concert Glass Spider Tourcommenced on 30 May. Bowie's backing band included Peter Frampton on lead guitar. Critics maligned the tour as overproduced, saying it pandered to the current stadium rock trends in its special effects and dancing.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-88" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[88] ===1989–91: Tin Machine<span class="mw-editsection mw-editsection-expanded" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;padding-right:0.25em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;direction:ltr;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-left:-0.25em;margin-right:0.25em;color:rgb(85,85,85);"> === <p style="line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">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 drums and bass respectively, to Iggy Pop's 1977 album Lust For Life.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-89" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[89]

Bowie in Chile during the 1990Sound+Vision Tour<p style="line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">Though he intended Tin Machine to operate as a democracy, Bowie dominated, both in songwriting and in decision-making.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-90" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[90]  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."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-tinmachine1_91-0" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[91]  EMI complained of "lyrics that preach" as well as "repetitive tunes" and "minimalist or no production".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-92" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[92]  The album nevertheless reached number three in the UK.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-tinmachine1_91-1" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[91]  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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-93" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[93]  A series of Tin Machine singles failed to chart, and Bowie, after a disagreement with EMI, left the label.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-94" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[94]  Like his audience and his critics, Bowie himself became increasingly disaffected with his role as just one member of a band.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-95" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[95]  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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-96" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[96]

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">In October 1990, a decade after his divorce from Angela, 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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-97" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[97]  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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-98" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[98]  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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-99" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[99] ===1992–99: Electronic experimentation<span class="mw-editsection mw-editsection-expanded" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;padding-right:0.25em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;direction:ltr;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-left:-0.25em;margin-right:0.25em;color:rgb(85,85,85);"> === Bowie performing in Finland in 1997<p style="line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">In April 1992 Bowie appeared at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert, following the Queen frontman'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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-100" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[100]  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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-101" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[101]

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">1993 saw the release of Bowie's 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 song "Jump They Say".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-102" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[102]  Bowie explored new directions on The Buddha of Suburbia (1993), a soundtrack album of incidental music composed for the TV series adaptation of Hanif Kureishi's novel. 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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-103" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[103]

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">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 US and UK chart success, and yielded three top 40 UK singles.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-104" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[104]  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 the following year, the tour saw the return of Gabrels as Bowie's guitarist.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-105" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[105]

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">Bowie was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on 17 January 1996.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-rockhall_106-0" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[106]  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 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 Reznor, contributed to the song's 16-week stay in the US Billboard Hot 100. The Earthling Tour took in Europe and North America between June and November 1997.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Buckley_pp._533.E2.80.9334_107-0" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[107]  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'".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-108" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[108]  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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-109" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[109] ===1999–2013: Neoclassicist Bowie<span class="mw-editsection mw-editsection-expanded" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;padding-right:0.25em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;direction:ltr;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-left:-0.25em;margin-right:0.25em;color:rgb(85,85,85);"> === Bowie on-stage with Sterling Campbellduring the Heathen Tour in 2002.<p style="line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">Bowie created the soundtrack for Omikron, a 1999 computer game in which he and Iman also appeared as characters. 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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-110" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[110]  Making extensive use of live instruments, the album was Bowie's exit from heavy electronica.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-111" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[111]  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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-112" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[112]  Alexandria Zahra Jones, Bowie and Iman's daughter, was born on 15 August.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-113" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[113]

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">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".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-114" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[114]  2002 saw the release of Heathen, and, during the second half of the year, the Heathen Tour. Taking 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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-115" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[115]  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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-116" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[116]

Bowie in 2009 with his son Duncan Jones at the premiere of Jones' directorial debut Moon<p style="line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">Following recuperation from the heart attack, Bowie has reduced his musical output, making only one-off appearances on stage and in the studio. He sang in a duet of his 1972 song "Changes" with Butterfly Boucher for the 2004 animated film Shrek 2.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-117" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[117]  During a relatively quiet 2005, he recorded the vocals for the song "(She Can) Do That", co-written with Brian Transeau, for the filmStealth.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-118" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[118]  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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-119" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[119]  He contributed backing vocals on TV on the Radio's song "Province" for their album Return to Cookie Mountain,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-120" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[120]  made a commercial with Snoop Dogg for XM Satellite Radio,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-121" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[121]  and joined with Lou Reed on Danish alt-rockers Kashmir's 2005 album No Balance Palace.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-122" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[122]

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">Bowie was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award on 8 February 2006.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-123" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[123]  In April, he announced, "I'm taking a year off—no touring, no albums."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-124" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[124]  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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-125" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[125]  He performed again in November, alongside Alicia Keys, at the Black Ball, a New York benefit event for Keep a Child Alive,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-126" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[126]  a performance that marks the last time Bowie performed his music on stage.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-RS1149_127-0" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[127]

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">Bowie was chosen to curate the 2007 High Line Festival, selecting musicians and artists for the Manhattan event,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-128" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[128]  and performed on Scarlett Johansson's 2008 album of Tom Waits covers,Anywhere I Lay My Head.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-129" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[129]  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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-130" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[130]  A Reality Tour, a double album of live material from the 2003 concert tour, was released in January 2010.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-131" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[131]

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-132" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[132] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-133" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[133] ===2013–present: The Next Day<span class="mw-editsection mw-editsection-expanded" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;padding-right:0.25em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;direction:ltr;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-left:-0.25em;margin-right:0.25em;color:rgb(85,85,85);"> === <p style="line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-134" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[134]  Bowie's first studio album in a decade, The Next Day contains 14 songs plus 3 bonus tracks.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-birthday_boy_135-0" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[135] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-spin_136-0" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[136]  His website acknowledged the length of his hiatus, saying "In recent years radio silence has been broken only by endless speculation, rumour and wishful thinking ... a new record ... who would have ever thought it, who'd have ever dreamed it! After all David is the kind of artist who writes and performs what he wants when he wants ... when he has something to say as opposed to something to sell. Today he definitely has something to say."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-nmenextday_137-0" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[137]  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 Tony Visconti.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-nmenextday_137-1" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[137]  A music video for the single was released onto Vimeo the same day, directed by New York artist Tony Oursler.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-nmenextday_137-2" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[137]  The single topped the UK iTunes Chart within hours of its release,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-138" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[138]  and debuted in the UK Singles Chart at No. 6,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-139" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[139]  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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-charthistory_140-0" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[140]  On 1 March, the album was made available to stream for free through iTunes.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-141" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[141]  The Next Day debuted at No. 1 on the UK Albums Chart, his first since Black Tie White Noise (1993), and is currently the fastest-selling album of 2013.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-nextdayukchart_142-0" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[142]

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">The music video for the song "The Next Day" has 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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-CBS_video_controversy_143-0" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[143]

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">According to The Times, Bowie has ruled out ever giving an interview again, with producer Visconti agreeing with the interviewer's suggestion that he is now Bowie's "voice on earth". Visconti also revealed to The Times that Bowie has no intention of going on tour, noting that all "he wants to do is make records."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Times_144-0" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[144]

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">From March 2013 the Victoria and Albert Museum is running a David Bowie exhibition titled "David Bowie Is".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-145" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[145]  The exhibition features vast amounts of artefacts from Bowie's career, from outfits to original lyric notes. The Exhibition sold out its 5 month span in weeks and has been widely praised. ==Acting career<span class="mw-editsection mw-editsection-expanded" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;padding-right:0.25em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;direction:ltr;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-left:-0.25em;margin-right:0.25em;color:rgb(85,85,85);"> == <p style="line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">Biographer David Buckley writes, "The essence of Bowie's contribution to popular music can be found in his outstanding ability to analyse and select ideas from outside the mainstream—from art, literature, theatre and film—and to bring them inside, so that the currency of pop is constantly being changed."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-146" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[146]  Buckley says, "Just one person took glam rock to new rarefied heights and invented character-playing in pop, marrying theatre and popular music in one seamless, powerful whole."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-buckley05p2_147-0" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[147]  Bowie's career has also been punctuated by various roles in film and theatre productions, earning him some acclaim as an actor in his own right.

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">The beginnings of his 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).<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-148" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[148]  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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Buckley_2005:_p._49_149-0" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[149]  The same year, the film of Leslie Thomas's 1966 comic novel The Virgin Soldiers saw Bowie make a brief appearance as an extra.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Buckley_2005:_p._49_149-1" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[149]  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 Nic 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.

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">Bowie took the title role 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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-elephantman_83-1" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[83]  ''[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christiane_F._%E2%80%93_Wir_Kinder_vom_Bahnhof_Zoo_(film) Christiane F. – Wir Kinder vom 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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-150" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[150]  Bowie starred in The Hunger (1983), a revisionist vampire film, 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).<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-151" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[151]

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">Absolute Beginners (1986), a rock musical based on Colin MacInnes's 1959 novel about London life, 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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-152" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[152]  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 inThe 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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-153" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[153]  He played the ageing gangster Bernie in Andrew Goth's Everybody Loves Sunshine (1999), and appeared in the TV horror serial 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.

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">Bowie portrayed physicist Nikola Tesla in the Christopher Nolan film, The Prestige (2006), which was about the bitter rivalry between two magicians in the late 19th century. He voice-acted in the animated film Arthur and the Invisibles as the powerful villain Maltazard, and 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 1976 for The Man Who Fell to Earth.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-154" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[154] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-155" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[155] ==Sexual orientation<span class="mw-editsection mw-editsection-expanded" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;padding-right:0.25em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;direction:ltr;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-left:-0.25em;margin-right:0.25em;color:rgb(85,85,85);"> == <p style="line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">Buckley writes, "If Ziggy confused both his creator and his audience, a big part of that confusion centred on the topic of sexuality."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-156" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[156]  Bowie declared himself gay in an interview with Michael Watts in the 22 January 1972 issue ofMelody Maker,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-157" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[157]  a move which coincided with the first shots in his campaign for stardom as Ziggy Stardust.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Bowie:_An_Illustrated_Record_p.7_44-1" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[44]  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."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-playboy_158-0" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[158]

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">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".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-159" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[159]  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 his own feelings; as described by Buckley, he said he had been driven more by "a compulsion to flout moral codes than a real biological and psychological state of being".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-160" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[160] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-161" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[161]

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">Asked in 2002 by Blender whether he still believed his public declaration was the biggest mistake he ever made, he replied:

Interesting. [Long pause] 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. I knew what I wanted to be, which was a songwriter and a performer, and I felt that bisexuality became my headline over here for so long. America is a very puritanical place, and I think it stood in the way of so much I wanted to do.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-162" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[162] <p style="line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">Buckley's view of the period is that Bowie, "a taboo-breaker and a dabbler ... mined sexual intrigue for its ability to shock",<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-163" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[163]  and that "it is probably true that Bowie was never gay, nor even consistently actively bisexual ... he did, from time to time, experiment, even if only out of a sense of curiosity and a genuine allegiance with the 'transgressional'."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-164" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[164]  Biographer Christopher Sandford says that according to Mary Finnigan, with whom Bowie had an affair in 1969, the singer and his first wife Angie "lived in a fantasy world ... and they created their bisexual fantasy."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-sandford48_165-0" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[165]  Sandford tells how, during the marriage, 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."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-sandford48_165-1" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[165] ==Musicianship<span class="mw-editsection mw-editsection-expanded" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;padding-right:0.25em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;direction:ltr;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-left:-0.25em;margin-right:0.25em;color:rgb(85,85,85);">  == Bowie's guitar located in Hard Rock Café Warsaw<p style="line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">From the time of his earliest recordings in the 1960s, Bowie has employed a wide variety of musical styles. His early compositions and performances were strongly influenced by not only rock and rollers like Little Richard and Elvis Presley but 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).<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-albumdebut_21-1" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[21] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-166" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[166]  Bowie's music hall fascination continued to surface sporadically alongside such diverse styles as hard rock and heavy metal, soul, psychedelic folk and pop.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-167" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[167]

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">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."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-168" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[168]

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">Voice instructor Jo Thompson describes Bowie's vocal vibrato technique as "particularly deliberate and distinctive".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-169" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[169]  Schinder and Schwartz call him "a vocalist of extraordinary technical ability, able to pitch his singing to particular effect."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-170" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[170]  Here, too, as in his stagecraft and songwriting, the singer's chamaeleon-like nature 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."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-171" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[171]

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">Bowie plays various instruments, among them electric and acoustic (6 and 12-string) guitars; alto, tenor and baritone saxophone; keyboards including piano, synthesizers and Mellotron; harmonica, stylophone, xylophone, vibraphone, koto, drums and percussion, and strings including viola and cello.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-172" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[172] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-173" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[173] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-174" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[174] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-175" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[175] ==Legacy<span class="mw-editsection mw-editsection-expanded" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;padding-right:0.25em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;direction:ltr;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-left:-0.25em;margin-right:0.25em;color:rgb(85,85,85);"> == David Bowie's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame<p style="line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">Bowie's innovative songs and stagecraft brought a new dimension to popular music in the early 1970s, strongly influencing both its immediate forms and its subsequent development. A pioneer of glam rock, Bowie, according to music historians Schinder and Schwartz, has joint responsibility with Marc Bolan for creating the genre.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Schinder_.26_Schwartz_2007:_p._482_176-0" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[176]  At the same time, he inspired the innovators of the punk rock music movement—historian Michael Campbell calls him "one of punk's seminal influences". While punk musicians trashed the conventions of pop stardom, Bowie moved on again—into a more abstract style of music making that in turn became a transforming influence. Biographer David Buckley writes, "At a time when punk rock was noisily reclaiming the three-minute pop song in a show of public defiance, Bowie almost completely abandoned traditional rock instrumentation."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-177" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[177] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-178" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[178]  Bowie's record company sought to convey his unique status in popular music with the slogan, "There is old wave, there is new wave, and there is Bowie ..."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-179" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[179]  Musicologist James Perone credits him with having "brought sophistication to rock music", and critical reviews frequently acknowledge the intellectual depth of his work and influence.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Schinder_.26_Schwartz_2007:_p._482_176-1" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[176] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-180" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[180] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-181" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[181]

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">Buckley writes that, in an early 1970s pop world that was "Bloated, self-important, leather-clad, self-satisfied, ... Bowie challenged the core belief of the rock music of its day." As described byJohn Peel, "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 says that Bowie "subverted the whole notion of what it was to be a rock star", with the result that "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 concludes that "Bowie is 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."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-buckley_legacy_2-3" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[2]

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">Bowie was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-rockhall_106-1" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[106]  Through perpetual reinvention, he has seen his influence continue to broaden and extend: music reviewer Brad Filicky writes that over the decades, "Bowie has become known as a musical chameleon, changing and dictating trends as much as he has altered his style to fit, influencing fashion and pop culture."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-182" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[182]  Biographer Thomas Forget adds, "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."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-183" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[183] ==Personal life<span class="mw-editsection mw-editsection-expanded" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;padding-right:0.25em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;direction:ltr;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-left:-0.25em;margin-right:0.25em;color:rgb(85,85,85);"> == Bowie and wife Iman<p style="line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">Bowie married Mary Angela Barnett (also known as Angie Bowie) on 19 March 1970 at Bromley Register Office on Beckenham Lane, Bromley, London. They had a son together, Zowie Bowie (now known as Duncan Jones, film director), and divorced on 8 February 1980 in Switzerland.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-184" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[184]

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">In 1992, Bowie married Somali-American model Iman. They have one daughter, Alexandria "Lexi" Zahra Jones, born in August 2000.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Fltnib_185-0" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[185]  The couple reside primarily in New York City'sManhattan and London.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Fmdiman_186-0" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[186]

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">Regarding his religion, in 2005 he said "Questioning my spiritual life has always been germane to what I was writing. Always.", because he is "not quite an atheist and it bothers me."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-DeCurtis2005_187-0" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[187]  In theEsquire interview "What I've Learned", he stated "I'm in awe of the universe, but I don't necessarily believe there's an intelligence or agent behind it. I do have a passion for the visual in religious rituals, though, even though they may be completely empty and bereft of substance. The incense is powerful and provocative, whether Buddhist or Catholic."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-188" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[188]

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">Bowie has shown an interest in Buddhism since 1967. He frequently studied in London under the Tibetan Lama Chime Rinpoche before becoming a solo artist. During a 2001 interview, Bowie claimed that "after a few months of study, he told me, 'You don't want to be Buddhist ... You should follow music."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-newsday.com_189-0" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[189]

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">Bowie later wrote the song 'Silly Boy Blue' and repeatedly sang Chime's name at the end of the track on his 1967 album David Bowie. Bowie also became a student of the Crazy wisdom TulkuChögyam Trungpa.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-_190-0" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[190] ==Awards and recognition<span class="mw-editsection mw-editsection-expanded" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;padding-right:0.25em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;direction:ltr;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-left:-0.25em;margin-right:0.25em;color:rgb(85,85,85);"> == Main article: List of awards and nominations received by David Bowie<p style="line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">Bowie's 1969 commercial breakthrough, the song "Space Oddity", won him an Ivor Novello Special Award For Originality.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-191" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[191]  For his performance in the 1976 science fiction film The Man Who Fell to Earth, he won a Saturn Award for Best Actor.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-192" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[192]  In the ensuing decades he has been honoured with numerous awards for his music and its accompanying videos, receiving, among others, two Grammy Awards<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-193" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[193] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-194" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[194]  and two BRIT Awards.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-195" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[195]

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">In 1999, Bowie was made a Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-196" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[196]  He received an honorary doctorate from Berklee College of Music the same year.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-197" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[197]  He declined the royal honour ofCommander of the British Empire in 2000, and turned down a knighthood in 2003,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-198" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[198]  stating: "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."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-199" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[199]

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">Throughout his career he has sold an estimated 140 million albums.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-dailymail2009_200-0" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[200]  In the United Kingdom, he has been awarded 9 Platinum, 11 Gold and 8 Silver albums, and in the United States, 5 Platinum and 7 Gold.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-201" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[201] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-202" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[202]  In the BBC's 2002 poll of the 100 Greatest Britons, he was ranked 29.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-dailymail2009_200-1" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[200]  In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked him 39th on their list of the 100 Greatest Rock Artists of All Time<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-203" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[203]  and the 23rd best singer of all time.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-204" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[204]  Bowie was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on 17 January 1996.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-rockhall_106-2" style="line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[106] ==Discography<span class="mw-editsection mw-editsection-expanded" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;padding-right:0.25em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;direction:ltr;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-left:-0.25em;margin-right:0.25em;color:rgb(85,85,85);"> == Main article: David Bowie discography ==Filmography<span class="mw-editsection mw-editsection-expanded" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;padding-right:0.25em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;direction:ltr;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-left:-0.25em;margin-right:0.25em;color:rgb(85,85,85);"> == ===As actor<span class="mw-editsection mw-editsection-expanded" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;padding-right:0.25em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;direction:ltr;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-left:-0.25em;margin-right:0.25em;color:rgb(85,85,85);"> === ===As musician<span class="mw-editsection mw-editsection-expanded" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;padding-right:0.25em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;direction:ltr;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-left:-0.25em;margin-right:0.25em;color:rgb(85,85,85);"> === ===As producer<span class="mw-editsection mw-editsection-expanded" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;padding-right:0.25em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;direction:ltr;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-left:-0.25em;margin-right:0.25em;color:rgb(85,85,85);"> === ===Documentaries<span class="mw-editsection mw-editsection-expanded" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;padding-right:0.25em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;direction:ltr;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-left:-0.25em;margin-right:0.25em;color:rgb(85,85,85);"> ===
 * Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars: The Motion Picture (1983) (VHS, DVD in 2003)
 * Love You Till Tuesday (1984) (VHS, DVD in 2005)
 * Serious Moonlight (1984) (VHS, unofficial DVD in 1999, official DVD in 2006)
 * Glass Spider (1988) (VHS, unofficial DVD as Glass Spider Tour in 2001, official DVD in 2007)
 * Bowie – The Video Collection (1993) (VHS)
 * Black Tie White Noise (1993) (VHS, DVD in 2005)
 * Best of Bowie (2002) (DVD)
 * A Reality Tour (2004) (DVD)
 * Büvös vadász (1994) (... aka Magic Hunter)
 * Passaggio per il paradiso (1998) (... aka Gentle Into the Night, ... aka Passage to Paradise)
 * Scott Walker: 30 Century Man (2006)
 * Love You Till Tuesday (1969) (as the subject, short)
 * Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1973) (as the subject, documentary/concert film)
 * Cracked Actor (1974) (as the subject, BBC)
 * Group Madness (1983)
 * Cool Cats: Twenty-Five Years of Rock 'N' Roll Style (1983)
 * Queen: The Magic Years (1987)
 * Imagine: John Lennon (1988)
 * Superstar: The Life and Times of Andy Warhol (1990)
 * Travelling Light (1992)
 * Inspirations (1997)
 * Lou Reed: Rock and Roll Heart (1998)
 * Mayor of the Sunset Strip (2003)