David Bowie Part 1: The 1960s and '70s

In 1965, struggling British R&B singer Davey Jones invented a character named David Bowie and has portrayed him ever since. Bowie is an alienated aesthete, a willowy, glamorously dressed, sexually voracious creature whose natural habitat is outer space, or the future, or the even more unreal fantasy zone of the recording studio. He adores big, plastic-sounding pop music because it’s artificial and therefore suited to art that rejects dull reality. “Jones is real. Bowie isn’t real,” he has said. In any case, his high-octane singles and high-concept albums sometimes seem like by-products of the real artwork: the evolving Bowie persona.

Following dubious early experiments with folk music, novelty songs and — yeesh — mime, Bowie became a rock star in the early ’70s by acting like one — specifically, the pervy glam emperor Ziggy Stardust. (He was the only person alive who could remain sexually ambiguous after announcing, “I’m gay, and always have been.”) Then he killed off Ziggy and spent a few years indulging his passions for American soul music and Bolivian marching powder, wrapping up a crazily eccentric decade by collaborating with Brian Eno on a trio of remarkable experimental pop albums.

ESSENTIAL
Hunky Dory
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust
Low

GREAT
Station to Station

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