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David Bowie

David Bowie

photo: Frank Ockenfels

396 articles

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David Bowie: Aladdin Scotland

Report and Interview by Ray Fox-Cumming, Disc, 26 May 1973

RAY FOX-CUMMING WATCHES THAT MAN STUN THE SCOTS IN ABERDEEN ...

David Bowie: Lodger

Review by Jon Savage, Melody Maker, 26 May 1979

ANOTHER YEAR, another record. Like Burroughs, David Jones, rootless, looks for unconventional commitment: Burroughs found it in junk, control-systems and predatory homosexuality; Jones found it ...

Fifty Ways To Love Your Bowie: Half a Ton of Fave Daves

Guide by William Higham, Rock's Backpages, October 2002

WITH THE Bard of Beckenham on a critical high right now (and yes, new album Heathen IS his best in years), it seems an opportune ...

How David Bowie, Brian Eno Revolutionized Rock on Low

Retrospective by Will Hermes, Rolling Stone Online, 13 January 2017

Singer-songwriter, producer devised 'a new musical language' in Berlin with help from Tony Visconti ...

Audio interviews

David Bowie (& the Spiders from Mars) (1972)

Interview by uncredited writer, Rock's Backpages audio, 11 December 1972

A press conference, held at RCA's New York studios, in which Bowie is asked about hair dye; his style; influences; US audiences; Ziggy Stardust; producing Iggy Pop, Lou Reed and Mott the Hoople; his impressions of America; the future of rock; homosexuality; violence in rock... and his relationship with Marc Bolan.

File format: mp3; file size: 47.7mb, interview length: 49' 42" sound quality: ** (some inaudible questions)

The Spiders from Mars' Trevor Bolder (1979)

Interview by Ian Ravendale, Rock's Backpages audio, 4 March 1979

The Spider from Mars bass-man talks about his roots (and Rats) in Hull with Mick Ronson and getting together with David Bowie: Ziggy Stardust, glamming up and the end of the band.

File format: mp3; file size: 13.6mb, interview length: 14' 51" sound quality: ****

David Bowie (1995)

Interview by Simon Witter, Rock's Backpages audio, 4 October 1995

The Great Dame talks at length about art, drugs, role play, Brian Eno, successes and failures, and his place in the greater scheme of things.

File format: mp3; file size: 56.9mb; interview length: 1h 02' 09"; sound quality: *****

David Bowie (1999)

Interview by Chris Roberts, Rock's Backpages audio, 29 July 1999

The Dame, surrounded by some splendid NYC ambience, talks about where he's at today; his workaholism; being part of Tin Machine; some of the personae he has adopted; on being liberated by Hunky Dory; becoming Ziggy; years lost to drugs, and on his relationship with his fans via the internet.

File format: mp3 File size: 54.3mb; interview length: 56' 33" seconds Sound quality: ***

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David Bowie: Meeting the Bromley Boy

Interview by Nick Jones, Melody Maker, 26 February 1966

WITHOUT DOUBT David Bowie has talent. And also without doubt it will be exploited. For, Mr. Bowie, a 19-year-old Bromley boy, not only writes and ...

David Bowie: David Bowie (Deram)

Review by uncredited writer, Disc and Music Echo, 10 June 1967

Hear David Bowie — he's something new ...

David Bowie: 'Space Oddity'

Review by Penny Valentine, Disc and Music Echo, 10 July 1969

DAVID BOWIE – AMAZING SOUND! ...

David Bowie: 'Space Oddity' (Philips)

Review by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, 12 July 1969

DAVID IS A talented young man who has written many fine songs and now concentrates on mime shows. ...

Chart Control to David Bowie: The "Human Oddity" Interviewed

Report and Interview by Penny Valentine, Disc, 11 October 1969

DAVID BOWIE IS 22 years old, thin, with a halo of fair hair, a delicately soft face and two cold eyes. One is pale kitten ...

David Bowie Hopes To Take Over A Road...!

Interview by Tony Norman, Top Pops, 25 October 1969

DAVID BOWIE is a quietly spoken young man. His hair curls around his head and his eyes are warm. In his face, his smile, you ...

David Bowie Says Most Things The Long Way Round!

Interview by Penny Valentine, Disc and Music Echo, 25 October 1969

ON HEARING a new LP called David Bowie, someone remarked: 'Well it's very nice, but do you think he's a lasting talent?' ...

David Bowie

Report and Interview by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, 15 November 1969

FANS OF DAVID Bowie have for years been expecting him to make some proper impact on the music scene. If a reasonable position in the ...

Big Week For Bowie: A new star shoots upwawrds

Report and Interview by Penny Valentine, Disc and Music Echo, February 1970

DAVID BOWIE has had a good week. ...

David Bowie: Bowie, Music And Life

Interview by Penny Valentine, Sounds, 6 February 1971

DAVID BOWIE has never been a conventional anything. Certainly he is no run of the mill product of the music business, something rather that was ...

David Bowie: The Man Who Sold The World

Review by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, 18 February 1971

"Some say the view is crazy/But you may adopt another point of view. So if it's much too hazy/You can leave my friend and me ...

David Bowie: The Man Who Sold the World (Mercury)

Review by Colman Andrews, Phonograph Record, March 1971

THE MAN Who Sold the World is a vaguely-sophomoric, vaguely-mystical, thoroughly logical extension of the Music Hall tradition in British pop music. This is a ...

David Bowie: Pantomime Rock?

Report and Interview by John Mendelssohn, Rolling Stone, 1 April 1971

LOS ANGELES: In his floral-patterned velvet midi-gown and cosmetically enhanced eyes, in his fine chest-length blonde hair and mod nutty engineer’s cap that he bought ...

Why does David Bowie like dressing up in ladies' clothes?

Report and Interview by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, 17 April 1971

A straight answer to Chris Welch ...

David Bowie: The Man Who Sold the World (Mercury SR 61325)

Review by Richard Cromelin, Creem, May 1971

SOMEHOW IT seems that it is during my occasional moments of paranoid fantasy that all the strange social phenomena that the media-systems funnel into my ...

Contemporary Songwriters: David Bowie

Profile by Penny Valentine, Sounds, 1 May 1971

THE WORK of songwriters is conditioned by many things. Their environment, their childhood, their brushes with love, their hopes and dreams, their disillusionment. And they ...

Rudi will be the new Mick Jagger' said David Bowie. Rudi blushed

Interview by Lon Goddard, Record Mirror, 1 May 1971

Who will be the first male to appear on the cover of Vogue magazine? Rudi Valentino, says spaced oddity David Bowie. David has big plans ...

Profile: David Bowie

Profile and Interview by Steve Turner, Beat Instrumental, July 1971

David Bowie doesn't give interviews. 'I don't feel that anything I could say would be worth quoting,' he says by way of explanation. However, he ...

David Bowie: The Space Oddity Comes Down To Earth

Interview by James Johnson, New Musical Express, 14 August 1971

AT ONE TIME singer/songwriter David Bowie used to write songs because, "I truly believed we songwriters were going to change the face of the world." ...

David Bowie: The Darling of the Avant Garde

Profile and Interview by Richard Cromelin, Phonograph Record, January 1972

IS THIS FRAIL-LOOKING young Englishman with the delicate, birdlike features, arresting Capricorn eyes and page boy waves of sandy blonde hair indeed destined to become ...

David Bowie: Hunky Dory

Review by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, 6 January 1972

DAVID BOWIE, the swinging/mod Garbo, male femme fatale, confidante to and darling of the avant-garde on both sides of the Atlantic, and shameless outrage, is ...

Oh, You Pretty Thing: David Bowie

Profile and Interview by Michael Watts, Melody Maker, 22 January 1972

DAVID BOWIE, rock's swishiest outrage; a self-confessed lover of effeminate clothes, Bowie, who has hardly performed in public since his 'Space Oddity' hit of three ...

David Bowie: "I'm Not Ashamed Of Wearing Dresses... But Unfortunately It's Detracted From The Fact That I'm Also A Songwriter"

Interview by Danny Holloway, New Musical Express, 29 January 1972

ON THE DAY I was to meet David Bowie at his home in Beckenham, Kent, I really didn't know what to expect. I had heard ...

David Bowie: Hunky Dory (RCA Victor)

Review by Danny Holloway, New Musical Express, 29 January 1972

Bowie at his brilliant best ...

Clothes Make the Bowie

Profile by Lillian Roxon, New York Sunday News, 20 February 1972

WHEN I WAS in England recently, a lot of excitement seemed to be about David Bowie, a singer-songwriter, who, in the past, has managed to ...

David Bowie: Bent on Success

Interview by Rosalind Russell, Disc, 6 May 1972

DAVID BOWIE is at last letting the Great British Public catch up with him. With grasshopper alacrity, he has kept ahead of us for years ...

David Bowie: The Rise And Fall of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars (RCA)

Review by James Johnson, New Musical Express, 10 June 1972

Bowie at his best ...

David Bowie & the Spiders From Mars: City Hall, Sheffield

Live Review by James Johnson, New Musical Express, 17 June 1972

THE LAST time I saw David Bowie was six months ago when he was playing a purely acoustic set. And although I'd heard his new ...

David Bowie: The Elvis Of the Seventies

Comment by Lillian Roxon, New York Sunday News, 18 June 1972

IT WAS just after the Elvis concert and David Bowie and I were sitting in his suite at the Park Lane Hotel (that's where record ...

A Week In the Life Of a Critic

Report by Lillian Roxon, New York Sunday News, 25 June 1972

"DEAR LILLIAN: It sure must be nice to be a rock critic. I really envy you. Can you tell me something about your life? ...

David Bowie: The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders From Mars (RCA)

Review by Nick Kent, Oz, July 1972

DAVID BOWIE, easily the most brilliant young songwriter in this country, seems to have been going through quite a few rapid changes over the last ...

David Bowie: The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars (RCA)

Review by Jon Tiven, Phonograph Record, July 1972

DAVID BOWIE, England’s Answer-To-Alice-Cooper-But-He’s-For-Real, has finally made an album with positive commercial potential and consistent strength. Ziggy Stardust is the Aftermath of the Seventies, where ...

David Bowie: Phallus in Pigtails, or the Music of the Spheres Considered as Cosmic Boogie

Essay by Ron Ross, Words & Music, July 1972

MIGHT ONE suggest that "the longer one studies life and literature, the more strongly one feels that behind everything that is wonderful stands the individual, ...

David Bowie: Central London Polytechnic, London

Live Review by Jonh Ingham, Phonograph Record, 1 July 1972

"YES, I'M DAVID BOWIE. These are the Spiders from Mars. And we're the slickest show in town." ...

David Bowie: Starman

Profile by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 7 July 1972

Author's note, 2018. WHEN I interviewed Lou Reed in New York in June 1972  he implored me to listen to David Bowie, and especially to ...

David Bowie: The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars

Review by Richard Cromelin, Rolling Stone, 20 July 1972

UPON THE RELEASE of David Bowie's most thematically ambitious, musically coherent album to date, the record in which he unites the major strengths of his ...

David at the Dorchester: Bowie on Ziggy and other matters

Interview by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 22 July 1972

THREE CHANGES of dress and a kiss from Lou Reed. The waiters were horrified. ...

The Rise and Rise of David Bowie

Profile and Interview by Steve Turner, Beat Instrumental, August 1972

Ch-ch-ch-ch-ChangesCh-ch-ch-ch-ChangesLook out you Rock 'n Rollers.(Changes). ...

Mott The Hoople: Civic Hall, Guildford

Live Review by Ray Fox-Cumming, Disc, 19 August 1972

"WE'VE LAID a lot of new stuff on you tonight and you've been really good," an obviously delighted Ian Hunter told his audience at Guildford ...

David Bowie, Roxy Music: Rainbow Theatre, London

Live Review by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 26 August 1972

GOING TO THE Rainbow these days is definitely an outing, an excursion, something of a treat. Unfamiliarity breeds respect, and though the cheerful hippies who ...

David Bowie: Rainbow Theatre, London

Live Review by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, 26 August 1972

MUSIC FROM A Clockwork Orange heralded the spectacular performance staged by David Bowie at London's Rainbow Theatre on Sunday night. "At least it makes a ...

David Bowie: The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars (RCA)

Review by Dave Marsh, Creem, September 1972

DAVID BOWIE may become a star this year, or he may not. This may or may not make a difference in your life. But, for ...

David Bowie: The Wild Mutation As A Rock 'n' Roll Star

Profile by Nick Kent, Friends/Frendz, September 1972

SATURDAY NIGHT was star night down at the Rainbow Theatre in Finsbury Park and how! I mean, my dear, you just wouldn't believe all those ...

Albums from David Bowie, T. Rex, Rod Stewart and Roxy Music

Review by Richard Williams, The Times, 2 September 1972

Stars of rock: T. Rex: The Slider; Rod Stewart: Never A Dull Moment; David Bowie: The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars; Roxy Music: Roxy ...

Like Wow, What A Week That Was!

Report by Lillian Roxon, New York Sunday News, 24 September 1972

DIARY OF A ROCK WRITER, instalment two, or why-does-it-all-have-to-happen-in-one-week? ...

David Bowie: The Super Pop Event

Live Review by Al Aronowitz, New York Post, 29 September 1972

David Bowie: Carnegie Hall, NYC ...

David Bowie: Carnegie Hall, New York NY

Live Review by Lillian Roxon, New York Daily News, 30 September 1972

David Bowie Can Do It All ...

David Bowie: Fleeting Moments In A Glamorous Career

Report by Ron Ross, Phonograph Record, October 1972

WITH NOT SO much as the Ed Sullivan Show, Shindig or Hullabaloo, a Winky Dink screen or a fifth-Spider like Murray the K to add ...

David Bowie: Carnegie Hall, New York NY

Live Review by Roy Hollingworth, Melody Maker, 7 October 1972

Can Bowie save New York from boredom? ...

David Bowie & the Spiders From Mars: Carnegie Hall, New York NY

Live Review by Lillian Roxon, New York Sunday News, 8 October 1972

A Rock Happening: David's Debut ...

Bowie Neat-O At Carnegie Debut

Live Review by Ron Ross, Record World, 14 October 1972

David Bowie: Carnegie Hall, NYC, 28 September 1972 ...

David Bowie: Carnegie Hall, New York NY

Live Review by Mike Jahn, Baltimore Sun, 15 October 1972

One more freak show ...

David Bowie & the Spiders from Mars, Phlorescent Leech and Eddie, Sylvester: Winterland, San Francisco CA

Live Review by Philip Elwood, The San Francisco Examiner, 28 October 1972

Bowie Band Fails To Arouse Crowd ...

David Bowie: Freak Out In A Moonage Daydream

Report and Interview by Lenny Kaye, Cavalier, January 1973

AYLESBURY, ENGLAND. He is, as he had planned, magnificent. The stage appears impeccably struck, lights arranged to catch the finer angles of his face, making ...

David Bowie & The Spiders from Mars: Rainbow Theatre, London

Live Review by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 6 January 1973

ZIGGY PULLS THE SQUEALERS ...

Goodbye Ziggy And a big hello to Aladdin Sane

Review and Interview by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 27 January 1973

Two days in the life of David Bowie - A rare interview and a preview of his new album... ...

Lookin' Back, David Bowie: Sinister Odyssey Through a Treacherous Landscape

Overview by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 17 February 1973

RIGHT NOW David Bowie's albums are the subject of more close and obsessive study than anybody else's since the days when hippies all over the ...

David Bowie & the Spiders from Mars: Radio City Music Hall, New York NY

Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 22 February 1973

THE BEST that New York had to offer came out in the rain to witness David Bowie's triumphant return last Wednesday. No less a personage ...

David Bowie: Gay Guerillas & Private Movies

Interview by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 24 February 1973

ALRIGHT, SO you're a rock singer out of Beckenham, Kent called David Bowie and you're hotter than a stolen atom bomb packed with pictures of ...

David Bowie: Stranger in a Strange Land

Report and Interview by Michael Watts, Melody Maker, 24 February 1973

Aladdin Sane is the punning title of David Bowie's next album. It's more remote, more spacey, than anything he's done before says MICHAEL WATTS, who ...

Lookin' Back Part 2, in which Murray looks at Hunky Dory and Ziggy Stardust

Overview by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 24 February 1973

AFTER MAN Who Sold The World came Hunky Dory (RCASF 8244), with its Garbo cover-pose and its extraordinary range of mood and sound. The hard ...

David Bowie: The Revolution Is Here

Essay by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 17 March 1973

IN THE NINE months since he broke through to mass recognition, David Bowie has had more written about him than most rock artists will in ...

David Bowie: Aladdin Sane

Review by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 14 April 1973

Bye-bye, Ziggy. It was nice seeing you, and I hope you'll keep in touch. Hello, Aladdin Sane, make yourself at home. David Bowie's new album ...

Cherry Vanilla: Cherry Sauce

Interview by Andrew Tyler, Disc, 21 April 1973

...Or hot gossip from a former skin-flick queen who's been hired to handle David Bowie's publicity machine. ...

David Bowie in the USA

Report by Nick Kent, New Musical Express, 21 April 1973

THE MAN from the customs – a surly-looking Negro – eyed me suspiciously for a full ten minutes, and checked and rechecked my baggage and ...

David Bowie: Aladdin Seine

Report by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 12 May 1973

ANGIE BOWIE is a gas. She really is. She's sitting between Cherry Vanilla and an ice-bucket at a table in the colossally elegant main dining ...

David Bowie: Cha...Cha...Cha...Changes — A Journey with Aladdin

Report and Interview by Roy Hollingworth, Melody Maker, 12 May 1973

CHARING CROSS STATION, London, 9.10 pm: And when he arrived they screamed and they cried, and they rushed, and gushed forth and beat their feverish ...

David Bowie: Aladdin Distress

Live Review by Nick Kent, New Musical Express, 19 May 1973

"AND WHEN he arrived they screamed and they cried, and they rushed, and gushed forth and beat their feverish feminine fists into..." FORGET IT! This ...

David Bowie: Images 1966-1967

Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 26 May 1973

"I'M AGELESS," said David Bowie in a recent interview – and these 21 tracks from the very earliest days of his career point up the ...

David Bowie: Music Hall, Aberdeen

Live Review by Ray Fox-Cumming, Disc, 26 May 1973

OUTSIDE ABERDEEN Music Hall last Wednesday a whole crowd of dour little Scottish guys stood touting programmes and posters, looking acutely self-conscious with Aladdin Sane ...

David Bowie: Total Sensory Overload

Report by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 26 May 1973

Following the controversial London Earls Court gig, Charles Shaar Murray and photographer Joe Stevens check out Bowie on tour – and find a riot goin' ...

Bowie Zowie

Comment by Dave Laing, Let It Rock, June 1973

WHAT YOU THINK of Bowie depends on your idea of rock-and-roll. It's no good criticising him for falling short in what he's trying to do, ...

David Bowie: Aladdin Sane

Review by Ron Ross, Phonograph Record, June 1973

FRESH FROM HIS second campaign in the American rock wars, our once and future pop boy fave David Bowie delivers Aladdin Sane as Phase III ...

David Bowie: Aladdin Sane (RCA)

Review by Kim Fowley, Phonograph Record, June 1973

DAVID BOWIE is not a gay act. David Bowie can't dance. David Bowie has no sense of humor. David Bowie cannot write constantly familiar songs. ...

David Bowie: Zowie Bowie

Essay by Simon Frith, Let It Rock, June 1973

ARGUING ABOUT pop stars is mostly a loony thing to do. So many of the judgements involved are subjective that the inarticulacy of a Juke ...

David Bowie: Aladdin Scotland (part 2)

Interview by Ray Fox-Cumming, Disc, 2 June 1973

Part two of Ray Fox-Cumining's report on David Bowie in the North ...

The Bowie Experiment

Interview by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 9 June 1973

THIS IS ONE OF those restaurants where quiet good taste just screams its presence. You just know that they have pheasant under glass, and that ...

David Bowie: Gaumont State Theatre, Kilburn, London

Live Review by Ray Fox-Cumming, Disc, 23 June 1973

Bowie — the case for the defence ...

The Bouncers

Report by Andrew Tyler, Disc, 30 June 1973

ANDREW TYLER Investigates the growing thuggery in concert halls the world over. And gets points of view from the stars, bouncers and the companies who ...

T. Rex/David Bowie/Roxy Music Albums

Review by Simon Frith, Let It Rock, July 1973

T. Rex: TanxDavid Bowie: Aladdin SaneRoxy Music: For Your Pleasure ...

David Bowie: Hammersmith Odeon, London

Live Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 14 July 1973

THERE ARE crowds of kids outside the hall, waiting for Stardust to limousine into view. And for them this is all three times as real, ...

The Case For and Against Bowie: Shrewd Publicity Stunt Or Necessity?

Interview by Roy Carr, Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 14 July 1973

AFTER CALLING Jeff Beck on stage to climax last week s final night of his British tour, David Bowie reappeared alone before the curtain to ...

David Bowie: Best Dressed Mainman at The Twilight Zone Ball

Comment by Nick Kent, Creem, August 1973

SOME SAY THAT the only reason Mick Rock got that job as Mainman's official photographer/sometime designer was because Angie Bowie fancied his wife. That's a ...

David Bowie: Bowie-ing Out at The Chateau

Report by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 4 August 1973

CHARLES SHAAR MURRAY WITH THE MAIN MAN IN FRANCE. WORK ON NEW PROJECTS, REPORTS MURRAY, IS GOING AHEAD DELICIOUSLY IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT ...

David Bowie: Tight Rope Walker At The Circus

Interview by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 11 August 1973

THE CHATEAU D'HEROUVILLE is probably the only recording studio in the world boasting a resident chef who does Charlie Chaplin impressions at suppertime. Trouble is, ...

David Bowie: Pin-Ups

Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 20 October 1973

THE GOLDEN AGE Of Rock is almost universally assumed to have been in full swing between about 1954 and 1959, following which, according to every ...

Bowie's Free For All

Live Review by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, 27 October 1973

Chris Welch describes the weird and wonderful scenes when Ziggy returned to London's Marquee Club ...

David Bowie: Zigs and Troggs and Backless Nuns

Report by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 27 October 1973

IT DOESN'T MATTER who's playing. The Marquee's always a drag on Saturday nights. It's hot, crowded, uncomfortable, and noisy, and it poses a severe visibility ...

The Rise and Fall of David Bowie: All That Glitters is Not Gold

Comment by Jon Tiven, Good Times, 7 November 1973

"No matter how good David Bowie may really be, the stuff he's doing now is a lot of shit." – Chris Chesnutt, editor of the ...

Bowie Salutes the Sixties' Stars

Report and Interview by Stephen Demorest, Circus, December 1973

Aiming for his first musical, he abandoned the rock emporiums as quickly as he had arrived. But first, with a fine sense of etiquette, the ...

David Bowie: Pinups

Review by Greg Shaw, Rolling Stone, 20 December 1973

WITH EVERYONE from the Band to Don McLean doing oldies albums, the Who revisiting the Mod era, and David Bowie's guitarist Mick Ronson's obvious brilliance ...

David Bowie: How to Become a Cult Figure in Only Two Years

Profile by Steve Turner, Unpublished piece for Nova, 1974

Mickie Bloomfield is a 16-year-old shipping clerk who lives in a tower block off the Old Kent Road and who in order to ‘be great ...

The Rock Lovers

Report and Interview by Stephen Demorest, Circus, February 1974

Being a rock star has its advantages, but the spotlight is usually only big enough for one person. Circus took a behind stage look at ...

Awards? Bowie puffed nervously on his Gitanes, smiled, said...'I use most of them as paperweights'

Interview by Ray Fox-Cumming, Disc, 16 February 1974

TELLING BOWIE he'd won five Disc Music Poll Awards didn't seem much of a big deal. In the past few months he must have collected ...

Farewell Androgyny n. hermaphroditism (Gr. Gyne, woman)

Overview by Nick Kent, New Musical Express, 16 March 1974

Is it time to shut the closet door? OUR HERO SEES THROUGH THE SEE-THROUGHS AND COMES TO THE CONCLUSION THAT ELEGANCE IS MORE THAN A LIMP ...

The TV Monsters: The Bowie Special

Report by Marty Cerf, Phonograph Record, April 1974

AS THE first network music special produced by the featured rock star, the David Bowie Midnight Special bears closer examination. ...

The Scruffy Little Failure who became David Bowie

Profile and Interview by Steve Turner, New Musical Express, 18 April 1974

Ken Pitt, Bowie's former manager and the only man In the world who's lived with both Bowie and James Dean, reflects on the days before ...

David Bowie: Diamond Dogs

Review by Chris Charlesworth, Melody Maker, 11 May 1974

A NEW album release by David Bowie is today looked on with as much awe as a release by the Beatles in the sixties. Later ...

Tony DeFries: Bowie's MainMan

Profile by Michael Watts, Melody Maker, 18 May 1974

Tony DeFries is Mr Big of today's rock —the 70s' Col. Parker. He deals in STARS, the most glittering of whom is David Bowie. He ...

David Bowie: Birth Of The New Rock Theatre

Live Review by Chris Charlesworth, Melody Maker, 22 June 1974

A FEW THOUSAND lucky Canadians witnessed a completely new concept in rock theatre last weekend when David Bowie opened his North American tour in Montreal ...

David Bowie: O'Keefe Auditorium, Toronto

Live Review by Lenny Kaye, Disc, 29 June 1974

THE POWER of the image took precedence as David Bowie opened the first leg of his North American tour with a string of Canadian dates. ...

David Bowie: Diamond Dogs

Review by Ron Ross, Phonograph Record, July 1974

RUFF-RUFF-BOW-BOW: Bowie's bewitched, bothered, bewildered and back to play – 25 eastern cities in an intense five week tour concluding mid-July with his single biggest ...

David Bowie's Diamond Dogs — Is His Bite As Good As His Bark?

Special Feature by Michael Gross, Circus, July 1974

Bowie was unbeatable, unstoppable, and untopable — until he released two dismal albums that proved all that glitters is not necessarily gold. ...

David Bowie: Madison Square Garden, New York NY

Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 25 July 1974

Dancing at disaster's edge ...

Lindsay Kemp: The Man Who Taught Bowie His Moves

Interview by Mick Brown, Crawdaddy!, September 1974

LONDON — Lindsey Kemp doesn’t converse. He orates. Words spill out, like wine from a jug, in a long, liquid flow; pictures spring to life, ...

Tony Visconti: Behind Bolan And Bowie

Interview by Ray Fox-Cumming, Disc, 28 September 1974

THIS IS a story of Marc Bolan and David Bowie – compared and contrasted. Bolan, the complete professional, who lost out through believing himself above ...

David Bowie: Time For Another Ch-ch-change

Report and Interview by Richard Cromelin, Rolling Stone, 10 October 1974

LOS ANGELES – David Bowie hadn't slept for 36 hours. He'd just gone through his rigorous show at the Universal Amphitheater for the fourth night ...

David Bowie: David Live

Review by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 26 October 1974

IS THERE life on Uranus? Dunno. Things were pretty quiet last time I looked. On the other hand, Tony Defries' little redhead has a new ...

David Bowie: Radio City Music Hall, New York NY

Live Review by Dave Marsh, Newsday, 31 October 1974

Bowie's soul doesn't glitter ...

Glitter Rock's Lingering Shadow

Report by Dave Marsh, Newsday, 3 November 1974

I like sex, because sex is not dangerous. Violence is dangerous, that's why I leave my violence on stage. But we've never been into glitter. ...

David Bowie: Mr. Bowie Has Left The Theatre

Report by Mick Farren, New Musical Express, 16 November 1974

NEW YORK'S Radio City Music Hall, with its elaborate art deco Thirties interior, must be the ideal place to present a David Bowie show. Unfortunately ...

David Bowie: Radio City Music Hall, New York NY

Live Review by Lenny Kaye, Disc, 23 November 1974

THE DAVID Bowie Minstrel Show shuffled into Radio City Music Hall last week for a stay of five days, in what had to be the ...

Bowie Throws A Bone To His 'Dog' Fans

Report and Interview by Ron Ross, Circus, December 1974

WHILE HARSHER CRITICS said his music was being lost behind his many theatrical masks, Bowie was planning the live album that would reveal him as ...

David Bowie: David Live (RCA)

Review by Robot A. Hull, Creem, January 1975

ERIK IMPORTS proudly presents David Blow-Up onstage doing the martian hop in Philadelphia, dazzling in ghostly radiance in his new blue suit and shedding his ...

David Bowie: Who Will I Be Now?

Report by Ron Ross, Circus Raves, February 1975

TWO YOUNG black men with Afros and Yes T-shirts gazed at the art-deco murals and shrugged their shoulders. As they awaited the debut of David ...

David Bowie: Cracked Actor (BBC 1)

Film/DVD/TV Review by Michael Watts, Melody Maker, 1 February 1975

I WOULDN'T care to examine the merits and de-merits of David Bowie on the strength of last Sunday's Omnibus programme on him. Titled Cracked Actor ...

Singles from Elton John, David Bowie et al

Review by Colin Irwin, Melody Maker, 1 March 1975

Elton gets lost ...

David Bowie: Young Americans

Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 15 March 1975

WHERE have all poppa's heroes gone? Living in New York, every one. A hard city by reputation, but presumably it has its compensations for someone ...

David Bowie: Young Americans (RCA RS 1006)

Review by Ray Fox-Cumming, Record Mirror, 15 March 1975

IT CONTAINS eight tracks and 40 minutes 6 seconds of music, which is all that should be said until you've given it a lot of ...

David Bowie: Young Americans (RCA)

Review by John Mendelsohn, Phonograph Record, April 1975

IN VIEW OF the fact that, in his first major American interview, Bowie assured us, "If I'm mediocre I'll get out of the business: there's ...

Mick Ronson: "It's Strange Being On Your Own"

Interview by Ron Ross, Circus, April 1975

WHEN MICK RONSON set down his guitar and stepped out of the London studio where he was serving as "musical director" for lan Hunter's first ...

David Bowie: Young Americans (RCA APL 1-0998)

Review by Michael Gross, Crawdaddy!, June 1975

FROM ITS Hunky Dory-esque cover picture to the blue-eyed Philly soul music it contains, David Bowie's Young Americans LP is the strongest set of studio ...

David Bowie: "Rock and Roll is Dead"

Interview by Anthony O'Grady, RAM, 26 July 1975

"WELL," SAYS David Bowie. "Rock and roll is just a toothless old woman. It really is." ...

David Bowie: Watch Out Mate! Hitler’s On His Way Back

Interview by Anthony O'Grady, New Musical Express, August 1975

"WE THINK WE'VE got an audience," says the spokesperson in the Bowie suite. "We're pretty sure the operator will be listening in." ...

David Bowie: Did We Use Him? Did We Abuse Him?

Essay by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 2 August 1975

Well, he's acting like we did, so maybe there's something in it. Two recent and much-maligned Bowie albums are herein re-evaluated for your reading pleasure... ...

Lindsay Kemp: Camp? No — Kemp

Interview by Mick Brown, Sounds, 20 September 1975

Lindsay Kemp says it with Flowers. He also aided and abetted the transformation of David Bowie into Ziggy Stardust. Mick Brown reports. ...

Gus Dudgeon

Interview by Jon Tiven, International Musician & Recording World, October 1975

Jon Tiven talks to Gus Dudgeon about Elton, Bowie and recording in general. ...

Marvel-ous Angie, David's Black Widow

Report and Interview by Susan Whitall, Creem, November 1975

NEW YORK, N.Y. — While hubby David was slinking around Albuquerque filming The Man Who Fell To Earth Angela Bowie hasn't exactly been lollygagging around ...

David Bowie: Back With 'Oddity'

Report by Ed Jones, Melody Maker, 8 November 1975

BASICALLY A high-class novelty record, 'Space Oddity', now topping the chart, was first released on 11 July 1969. At the time, the Main Man himself ...

David Bowie: The Return of the Thin Man

Report by David Hancock, Record Mirror, 6 December 1975

If you live in London, you probably saw it. If you don't you probably heard about it. But if you haven't done either here's the ...

David Bowie: Station to Station – A Report

Report by Ben Edmonds, Phonograph Record, January 1976

A YEAR AGO, David Bowie's public face was a mess. The Diamond Dogs tour he'd recently completed had certainly been successful enough, but it was ...

David Bowie: Station To Station

Review by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 10 January 1976

"A sixty thousand word novel is one image corrected fifty-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine times"– Samuel R. Delaney ...

David Bowie: Station to Station (RCA)

Review by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, 24 January 1976

IN MY PHYSICS textbook at school was an amazing photo of two galaxies colliding. Just imagine being on a planet in a system in either ...

David Bowie: Station To Station (RCA ALP1-1327)

Review by Ian MacDonald, Street Life, 7 February 1976

Bowie's Station: The Playback Of The Western World ...

Spiders from Mars

Interview by Chris Salewicz, New Musical Express, 28 February 1976

"We've still got the Bowie costumes. We can wear those.""Yeah, Dave was really into duffle coats for a hour and a half in them days." ...

David Bowie: Station to Station

Review and Interview by Richard Cromelin, Circus, March 1976

DAVID BOWIE, never one to maintain continuity in his work or in his life, has become more elusive than ever in the past year. ...

David Bowie: Ol' Orange Hair Is Back

Live Review by Ben Edmonds, RAM, March 1976

MR. DAVID BOWIE could hardly have selected a more suitable jumping off point for his 1976 world tour than Vancouver, British Columbia, (somewhere in) Canada. ...

David Bowie: Ringing The Changes

Interview by Chris Charlesworth, Melody Maker, 13 March 1976

"I'M JUST DOING this tour for the money. I never earned any money before, but this time I'm going to make some. I think I ...

David Bowie: Nassau Coliseum, Uniondale NY

Live Review by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 24 March 1976

Reincarnation ...

Bowie Meets The Press: Plastic Man or Godhead of the Seventies?

Interview by Ben Edmonds, Circus, 27 April 1976

AFTER THE BRILLIANT plumage of every previous David Bowie incarnation, the stark black and white figure on the Station to Station stage might have come ...

David Bowie: Heil and Farewell

Report by Tony Stewart, New Musical Express, 8 May 1976

THE PERSON now arriving on Platform 8 is David Bowie. ...

David Bowie: Soul Train Comes To Wembley

Live Review by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 15 May 1976

David Bowie: Wembley, London ...

David Bowie: The Man Who Fell Into Sinatra's Suit

Live Review by Max Bell, New Musical Express, 15 May 1976

IT'S HALF PAST five on Sunday afternoon and I still don't know how to start this thing. Only David Bowie could return like the Prodigal, ...

David Bowie: Changesonebowie

Review by Mick Farren, New Musical Express, 5 June 1976

I GUESS that one of the main functions of any greatest hits album is to explain to anyone who isn't a hard core fan exactly ...

David Bowie in The Man Who Fell To Earth

Film/DVD/TV Review by Lita Eliscu, Phonograph Record, August 1976

THIS FILM stars David Bowie — a logical choice — as a space visitor who comes to Earth in an attempt to find a way ...

Eno: "Zing!" Go the Strings of My Art...

Interview by Miles, New Musical Express, 27 November 1976

...as Thin and Serious People gather to make music. The luscious but committed BRIAN ENO has been in recording with the skinny and deranged ...

Innovation to Innovation — David Bowie: Low (RCA Records RS 1108) *****

Review by Tim Lott, Sounds, 15 January 1977

Tim Lott plots the high contrast in the Thin One's new Low record. ...

David Bowie: Low

Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 22 January 1977

YOU'RE JUST a little girl with grey eyes and you never leave your room. ...

David Bowie: Low

Review by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 22 January 1977

AND YOU'RE profile to profile with The Man Who Fell To Bits. Against an incandescent orange background, the cover of David Bowie's new album reprises ...

David Bowie: Low (RCA PL K12030)

Review by David Hancock, National RockStar, 22 January 1977

WELL IF IT'S the right speed maybe it's the wrong artist. Nope. This is David Bowie. And it's different. And it's excellent. ...

David Bowie: King Queen or Joker?

Overview by David Hancock, National RockStar, 22 January 1977

David Bowie is the Black Paper Between the Mirror. ...

David Bowie: Low

Review by Kris Needs, ZigZag, February 1977

WELL, THIS IS probably the strangest thing Bowie has ever recorded. First listen was a real shock...and I've come to expect surprises from this bloke. ...

David Bowie: Low

Review by Bud Scoppa, Phonograph Record, February 1977

THE NEW BOWIE album doesn't make much sense. While practically everybody else in rock is striving for cleaner and more accurately recorded sound, Bowie's Low ...

Bowie Now: New Songs for Day and Night

Report and Interview by Wesley Strick, Circus, 28 February 1977

THESE ARE the facts:David Bowie's latest album, Low, is two-sided. Side One contains seven crypto-disco tracks, no track shorter than 1:42 or longer than 3:26. ...

Iggy Pop: A new career in a new town

Report and Interview by Michael Watts, Melody Maker, 5 March 1977

Iggy Pop, touring Britain this week, speaks to MICHAEL WATTS from Berlin. David Bowie's saying nothing... ...

Bowie and Bolan Get It On

Report by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, September 1977

"OH THAT'S REALLY Polaroid! You've gotta keep the ending!" David Bowie rocked with laughter and Marc Bolan wiped away the tears that had threatened to ...

David Bowie: 'Heroes' (RCA); The Stranglers: 'No More Heroes' (United Artists UP 36300)

Review by Tim Lott, Rosalind Russell, Record Mirror, 17 September 1977

He says there are... ...

David Bowie: Punk, Politics, Religion And War... By A Superstar

Report and Interview by David Hancock, Evening News, London, 20 September 1977

Britain is ready for a new Hitler, says Bowie ...

The Thin White Duke Has Gone. Here's The New David Bowie

Report and Interview by Tim Lott, Record Mirror, 24 September 1977

THE TONE is final. This negative is as impenetrable as it is predictable. "No." ...

David Bowie: Heroes

Review by Kris Needs, ZigZag, October 1977

BOWIE RECKONS he's discarded the last of his image facades/personality disguises, but as his appearance gets straighter the music gets weirder. ...

David Bowie: 'Heroes' (RCA PL 12622)

Review by Tim Lott, Record Mirror, 8 October 1977

Bowie and blind faith ...

David Bowie: Who Was That (Un)masked Man?

Interview by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 12 November 1977

CHRIST, HOW LONG has it been? Four years, man, and I set up the tape machine – Bowie attempting to balance the microphone on top ...

Bowie locks away an old life-style

Interview by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 27 November 1977

FIVE YEARS ago, David Bowie created "Ziggy Stardust." Ziggy was the prototypical glitter rock star: Rich, beautiful, stylishly pansexual. The 1972 album The Rise and ...

Eno Part 2: Another False World — How to Make A Modern Record

Interview by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 3 December 1977

Thinking about music with BRIAN ENO. Some more monologues recorded and compiled by IAN MacDONALD. ...

New Musick: Disco

Essay by Davitt Sigerson, Sounds, 3 December 1977

A CLUB; members are photographed, beam-screened at the door, automatically invoiced. Large, low-ceiling, air-conditioned. Bland diffused light. Gunmetal grey walls, carpets, couches. Easily-read digital clocks, ...

David Bowie: Heroes (RCA)

Review by Ira Robbins, Crawdaddy!, January 1978

SMARTS AND KRAFTWERK ...

Secret Secret Never Seen: An Interview with David Bowie

Interview by John Tobler, ZigZag, January 1978

THE LAST couple of albums, which is really what you're here to talk about, have been, to some people, somewhat inaccessible. I think you said ...

Anthropomorphosis Was Never Like This!

Report and Interview by Robert Duncan, Creem, February 1978

OR Is David Bowie Really Billy Carter? ...

David Bowie: From Brixton To Berlin

Report and Interview by Michael Watts, Melody Maker, February 1978

Michael Watts reports from the German film set where David Bowie is making Just A Gigolo ...

The Producers: Gus Dudgeon

Interview by Fred Dellar, Sound International, May 1978

The producer's job is possibly one of the least-understood and most under-rated in the entire recording business. One usually thinks of a producer as providing ...

David Bowie: Boston Garden, Boston

Live Review by Deborah Frost, The Boston Phoenix, 16 May 1978

DAVID BOWIE borrows identities and musical ideas the way teenage girls borrow their best friends' clothes. But no matter whose duds Bowie puts on, with ...

David Bowie: Madison Square Garden, NYC

Live Review by Paul Rambali, New Musical Express, 20 May 1978

IT WOULD make a great parlour game were some enterprising company to formalize rules. A game this writer has been known to play over the ...

David Bowie: Peter And The Wolf

Review by Jon Savage, Sounds, 27 May 1978

THE RELEVANCE of this classical record to the 'rock marketplace' is quite frankly marginal but evidently heavily counted upon by RCA in their wisdom. ...

David Bowie: City Hall, Newcastle

Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 24 June 1978

EVERYBODY I spoke to was complaining. A front row of seats had been sold then removed to fit the stage extension in. The roadies thought ...

David Bowie: Earls Court, London

Live Review by David Hancock, Evening News, London, 30 June 1978

Boxing Bowie's the champion of rock ...

David Bowie: Earl's Court, London

Live Review by Nick Kent, New Musical Express, 8 July 1978

BRILLIANT BOWIE... WITH ONE RESERVATION ...

David Bowie: Stage

Review by Jon Savage, Sounds, 30 September 1978

SO: THE next stage. The ending of one, the beginning of another? But of course, all the world's a stage. Aaaaaaah... ...

Oblique Strategies

Essay by Cynthia Rose, Harpers & Queen, 1979

Cynthia Rose looks at artist/musicians David Bowie, Brian Eno and Iggy Pop (touring Britain this month) and the risks they are taking with electronics, Expressionism ...

David Bowie: Stage (RCA)

Review by Jeffrey Morgan, Creem, January 1979

"Uh, I’d been listening to a Neil Young album and, uh, they phoned through and said that my wife had had a baby on Sunday ...

David Bowie: Lodger (RCA)

Review by Tim Lott, Record Mirror, 5 May 1979

THE ARTFUL LODGER: TIM LOTT exclusively reviews the new David Bowie album, Lodger ...

David Bowie: Lodger (RCA)

Review by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, 26 May 1979

ANOTHER THESIS would be the straw that broke the camel's back. Now there's a line that could easily have been snipped from one of David ...

David Bowie: From Low to Lodger

Retrospective by Paul Yamada, New York Rocker, July 1979

THE LAST TWO studio LPs by David Bowie seem to make up some sort of unit. The release of a third album in collaboration with ...

The Concise NME Guide To Electronic Music & Synthesised Sound

Guide by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 5 January 1980

"Progress in the physical and mechanical sciences determines a progress in art." — Carlos Chavez, 1957 ...

David Bowie: Scary Monsters (RCA)

Review by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 20 September 1980

LEARNING to live with somebody's depression: the man in the clown suit stops running, finds self in back-against-wall situation, attempts to deal with same. Scary ...

David Bowie: The Gender Bender

Comment by Jon Savage, The Face, November 1980

"WHAT DO YOU want to be when you grow up, David?" ...

Bowie For Breakfast: Angie Bowie’s Free Spirit

Review by Cynthia Rose, New Musical Express, 4 July 1981

David’s golden years get shredded as Angie spills half baked beans. ...

Tony Visconti Talks

Book Excerpt by Stuart Grundy, John Tobler, 'The Record Producers' (BBC Books), 1982

IN MUCH THE same way that George Martin is known for his work with the Beatles, anyone who has ever inspected the small print on ...

David Bowie: Brechtfast In Bed

Report by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 6 March 1982

IN BAAL, DAVID Bowie finally shed his skin and played the part of someone else. ...

Ziggy Stardust: From Bowie To Bauhaus… The Key To Decades Conceits

Essay by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 23 October 1982

So you've seen Bauhaus performing 'Ziggy Stardust' on TV and you still don't believe in reincarnation? Ziggy, who entered the material world via David Bowie, ...

Luther Vandross, Into the Limelight

Profile and Interview by Richard Harrington, The Washington Post, 21 November 1982

  LUTHER VANDROSS is singin' on top of the world nowadays, master of a string of professions: singer, songwriter, arranger, producer. ...

David Bowie: Rare

Review by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 18 January 1983

NEITHER RARE nor particularly well done, the latest Bowie collection of alternative cuts, outtakes, live run throughs, flipsides and flops is hardly likely to endear ...

David Bowie: Let's Dance

Review by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 16 April 1983

"Put on your red shoes and dance the blues to the song they're playing on the radio..." ...

Merry Christmas Mr Bowie

Interview by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 16 April 1983

I: The Missing YearsDavid Bowie's new film, The Hunger, opens not with the focus fixed firmly on the star but with a cameo sequence of ...

Live Bowie!

Live Review by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 23 May 1983

David Bowie: Brussels Voorst National, Belgium ...

David Bowie

Report and Interview by Cynthia Rose, City Limits, 3 June 1983

IN THE DAYS of Beau Brummell or even Baudelaire, to be a dandy was to be a true social outlaw – one whose fixed individuality ...

David Bowie Let's Dance (EMI/America)

Review by Carol Cooper, Record, July 1983

A CONSUMMATE BLEND of everything Chic and David Bowie (in his Negro period) represent, 'Let's Dance' – the title song of the latter's new album ...

David Bowie: Milton Keynes Bowl, Buckinghamshire

Live Review by Mary Harron, The Guardian, 4 July 1983

THE BRITISH phase of the Serious Moonlight tour ended in a grassy amphitheatre where a crowd of 50,000 strained to see a little white figure ...

David Bowie: Milton Keynes Bowl

Live Review by Paul Morley, New Musical Express, 9 July 1983

WHO'S PUSHING back there, someone shouts, as another poor girl falls to her knees, tangled up inside blue breathless bodies. Probably Bowie — today's turn, ...

Carlos Alomar: Hard Driving Anchor Man For The David Bowie Show

Profile and Interview by Gene Santoro, Guitar World, January 1984

IMAGINE THE fairy-tale scene this way, since this is how it actually happened: It is 1973, the setting is RCA's recording studios in New York ...

Nile Rodgers: "Alright!"

Interview by Davitt Sigerson, High Fidelity, February 1984

What do Southside Johnny, David Bowie, and Diana Ross have in common? ...

Who The Hell Is Carlos Alomar?

Interview by J.D. Considine, Musician, March 1984

The Guitar Power Behind Bowie's Thin White Throne ...

David Bowie: Tonight

Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 29 September 1984

IT MIGHT be foolish to conjecture on which are David Bowie's public and which are his private records. ...

David Bowie: Sermon From The Savoy

Interview by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 29 September 1984

When David Bowie recently visited Britain he agreed to do one ‘official’ interview — with NME’s Charles Shaar Murray. In this exclusive story he gives ...

David Bowie: The Byronic Man

Report and Interview by Charles Shaar Murray, The Face, October 1984

"WHAT WE'RE DOING here is bringing back the talkies," David Bowie announces self-mockingly. His livid mask recalls the white-faced clowns and demons of the Commedia ...

Julien Temple: The Inner Temple

Interview by Adam Sweeting, Melody Maker, 1 December 1984

Wordsmith and sedentary snapper Adam Sweeting interrogates filmmaker and promo video master JULIEN TEMPLE... ...

Eleganza: David Bowie & Dee Snider: The Bizarre Passions They Can't Control!

Column by John Mendelsohn, Creem, March 1985

A LOT OF you younger readers who think that Boy George didn't invent rock 'n' roll androgyny believe that Prince did, or Michael Jackson, or ...

The Producers: Ken Scott

Interview by Chas de Whalley, International Musician & Recording World, January 1986

Ken Scott muses on his journey from Bowie to Kajagoogoo. Chas de Whalley listens attentively ...

Absolute Beginners

Special Feature by Brian Case, Adam Sweeting, Melody Maker, 22 March 1986

AT LONG last, it's almost here. Poor old JULIEN TEMPLE has been working on his movie of Colin MacInnes' novel Absolute Beginners apparently since the ...

David Bowie: Labyrinth

Review by David Quantick, New Musical Express, 28 June 1986

MOST OF us are familiar with David Bowie from his role as Vendice Partners in the sparkling musical comedy Absolute Beginners, but how many I ...

Nile Rodgers: Man of the Moment

Interview by Adam Sweeting, Melody Maker, 4 October 1986

Buddies with Bowie, big pals with Duran, mate of Al Jarreau, is there no-one NILE RODGERS doesn't know? Adam Sweeting charts the changing life and ...

Adrian Belew: Twang Bar King

Interview by Gene Santoro, Downbeat, December 1986

IN THE decade since he first burst into the big-time music world, guitarist Adrian Belew has persistently challenged and reshaped the boundaries of his instrument. ...

David Bowie, Nona Hendryx: Feyenoord Stadium, Rotterdam, Holland

Live Review by Lucy O'Brien, New Musical Express, 6 June 1987

CACKY ACTOR ...

Serious twilight — David Bowie: Wembley Stadium, London

Live Review by Adam Sweeting, The Guardian, 22 June 1987

Adam Sweeting finds David Bowie losing his way at Wembley ...

David Bowie: Never Let Me Down

Review by Roy Trakin, Creem, August 1987

THE PICTURE OF Dorian Bowie, in which the master remains young but his music begins to limp. Or the boy who cried wolf, so that ...

Carlos Alomar

Interview by Gene Santoro, Downbeat, November 1987

WE'RE SITTING in Bogie's, a neighborhood bar in Chelsea not far from Carlos Alomar's loft. The bartender is putting together a Long Island iced tea ...

David Bowie, Squeeze: Giants Stadium, E. Rutherford, NJ

Live Review by Iman Lababedi, Creem, December 1987

"I DON'T LIKE SPIDERS & SNAKES..." ...

David Bowie, The Woodentops, The Kronos Quartet, Microdisney: ICA Benefit, Dominion Theatre, London

Live Review by Barbara Ellen, New Musical Express, 9 July 1988

FRIDAY NIGHT. Time to take in a show. Support the arts and all that, old bean. Arriving early at the Dominion Theatre the singer from ...

Lets Dance!: David Bowie With La La La Human Steps: Dominion Theatre, London

Live Review by Chris Roberts, Melody Maker, 9 July 1988

BEAUTY will be compulsive or not at all. ...

David Bowie: Boys Keep Swinging

Interview by Adrian Deevoy, Q, June 1989

Six years since his last convincing album, and with the overblown Glass Spider tour still fresh in the memory, David Bowie has rapidly returned to ...

David Bowie: Sound + Vision

Review by Tim Riley, The Boston Phoenix, 20 October 1989

Boxing Bowie: Sound + Vision puts it together ...

David Bowie: Sound + Vision

Review by Deborah Frost, Newsday, 1 November 1989

Golden Years ...

David Bowie: NEC, Birmingham

Live Review by Chris Roberts, Melody Maker, 31 March 1990

"I thought I'd play a couple of numbers from the Tin Machine album... wait, wait, where are you going...come back!" ...

David Bowie: ChangesBowie

Review by Mat Snow, Q, April 1990

BY ONE OF those neat symmetries, David Bowie introduced his prime persona at the very end of the '60s with Space Oddity, and laid it ...

David Bowie: The Great Escape of the Thin White Duke

Essay by Steve Turner, The Independent, 4 May 1991

When the pressure of fame became too much to handle, David Bowie retreated to Berlin to renew his ceative energies. Steve Turner followed in his ...

Tin Machine: Versus

Interview by Charles Shaar Murray, Q, October 1991

PICTURE THIS: you are in a sex shop in Sydney (for whatever twisted reasons people have for patronising such institutions), and this scholarly-looking gent with ...

Various Artists: The Freddie Mercury Tribute, Concert For Aids Awareness, Wembley Stadium, London

Live Review by Paul Mathur, Melody Maker, 2 May 1992

IT'S, UH, KINDA TRAGIC ...

Angie Bowie cuts into the spotlight

Retrospective and Interview by Jim Sullivan, The Boston Globe, 20 January 1993

WE WERE AT Turner Fisheries – Angela Bowie, David Bowie's famous ex, and I. I nursed two drinks. She ate half a seafood dinner, sent ...

Bowie Knifed: Backstage Passes: Life On The Wild Side With David Bowie by Angela Bowie with Patrick Carr

Book Review by Andy Gill, Q, April 1993

The ex-wife speaks: David Bowie was an alien, had nothing to do with his own success and was no Cherry Vanilla. ...

David Bowie: Black Tie White Noise

Review by David Sinclair, Q, May 1993

THE 1980S WAS not a happy decade for David Bowie. ...

David Bowie: Black Tie, White Noise

Review by Dave Thompson, The Rocket, May 1993

IN THE DECADE since his last truly successful album, Let's Dance, David Bowie has undergone any number of changes, each of them as dramatic as ...

Pete Rock and CL Smooth

Interview by Frank Broughton, Mixmag, May 1993

MANAGER ADOFO Muhammad is talking up his brother and CL Smooth's success. "The unique sound is all incorporated in Pete Rock's flow — his art. ...

London: Ditty Old Town

Overview by Stephen Dalton, New Musical Express, 22 May 1993

From The Kinks to Carter, Bowie to Blur, the Small Faces to Suede, British pop groups have eulogised, mythologised, criticised, glamorised, immortalised, romanticised and agonised ...

David Bowie: Station to Station

Interview by David Sinclair, Rolling Stone, 10 June 1993

ON A PERSONAL TOUR OF ZIGGY'S LONDON, DAVID BOWIE LOOKS BACK HIS AT DAYS AS THE GLAM KING OF ENGLAND ...

Mick Ronson: Ziggy's Axeman

Obituary by David Sinclair, Rolling Stone, 24 June 1993

Mick Ronson was a sideman extraordinaire ...

Are We Making Art Yet? Music in the age of interactive entertainment

Report by Alan di Perna, Musician, June 1994

MUSIC, OF course, has always been interactive. People dance to it, make love to it, sing along with the lyrics and figure out the chord ...

David Bowie

Interview by Mat Snow, MOJO, October 1994

"ONE THING I'VE NOTICED driving around in this part of Switzerland is that there are no flowers. It's relentlessly green in Geneva – they must ...

David Bowie on the Outside

Report and Interview by Paul Gorman, Music Week, 1995

THE CRITICAL AND commercial disappointment which has greeted David Bowie's output since the crossover success of 1983's Let's Dance would have forced a less adventurous ...

David Bowie/Morrissey: London, Wembley Arena

Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, 1995

THE THIRD OF four nights of two thinnish white pop Dukes with great barbers and a well-honed sense of alienation. Seventies icon Bowie and 80s ...

David Bowie: Outside (Virgin)

Review by Ira Robbins, Addicted To Noise, 1995

Had it not been for the stiff on line in front of me at the microphone in Avery Fisher Hall at September's CMJ convention in ...

David Bowie: Man Of A Thousand Phases

Interview by Steven P. Wheeler, Music Connection, September 1995

IF EVER there was a rock star who epitomized the life of a musical chameleon, it would be David Bowie – not only in his ...

David Bowie: Outside

Review by Charles Shaar Murray, MOJO, October 1995

"Fuck art, let's concept," suggests former Dame to his chrome-domed chum. "Umpteenth comeback is a corker!" cries a passing Charles Shaar Murray ...

David Bowie: Outside (RCA)

Review by Tom Doyle, Q, October 1995

David Bowie's gone and done a concept album. Gulp. ...

David Bowie: Action Painting

Interview by Chris Roberts, Ikon, October 1995

David Bowie is enjoying another renaissance – hyperactive, philosophical, and buoyant. The century may be expiring, he figures, but his cup runneth over. Chris Roberts ...

Inside The Outsider: The Postmodern Panorama of David Bowie

Interview by Gerrie Lim, BigO, October 1995

HE'S BEEN a lot of things to a lot of people, sometimes even too many things to too many people, and the only certainty has ...

David Bowie (1995) [transcript]

Audio transcript of interview by Simon Witter, Rock's Backpages transcripts, 4 October 1995

This is a transcript of Simon's audio interview with David. Listen to the audio of this interview. ...

David Bowie & Brian Eno: The Outside Story

Interview by Mac Randall, Mark Rowland, Musician, November 1995

DAVID BOWIE AND BRIAN ENO EXPLAIN IT ALL FOR YOU — by Mark Rowland ...

David Bowie and Nine Inch Nails: Great Woods Amphitheater, Mansfield, MA

Live Review by Eric Weisbard, Spin, December 1995

THE MOMENT to remember was the two headliners playing together, the end of the Nine Inch Nails set fusing without pause into the beginning of ...

David Bowie/ Nine Inch Nails: Meadowlands Arena, New Jersey

Live Review by Cliff Jones, MOJO, December 1995

SOMEWHERE, ROUGHLY TWO THIRDS OF THE WAY through the non-linear-Gothic-drama-hyper-cycle-murder-mystery known as David Bowie's Outside, the seasoned pro lost his audience. What began with the ...

David Bowie, Smashing Pumpkins, The Cardigans: The White Room

Report and Interview by Lucy O'Brien, Q, March 1996

"THE BEST THING was when we had Tora Tora, or The Artist Formerly Known As Prince," says Chris Cowey, the noticeably effusive producer of The ...

Contract Breakers

Essay by Mark Sinker, The Wire, June 1996

2005 note: Savage Pencil did a nice illustration for this: John and Yoko hilariously naked, among other excellent things. It also elicited an angry postcard ...

David Bowie: The Chameleon

Overview by Ian Penman, The Guardian, 27 November 1996

David Jones... Major Tom... Ziggy... will the real David Bowie ever stand up? And can the quick-change act disguise the fact that it's been 20 ...

David Bowie: "I have done just about everything that it's possible to do"

Interview by Mick Brown, Daily Telegraph, 14 December 1996

THROUGHOUT THE '70s, David Bowie did not have fans. He had acolytes, disciples, obsessives; teens and twentysomethings who would buy every record, watch every move, ...

Happy Birthday, David Bowie!

Report and Interview by Paul Gorman, Music Week, January 1997

THERE'S NOTHING the media loves more than an anniversary and David Bowie's 50th birthday on January 8 offered ample opportunity for career retrospectives and dissections ...

Bowie's Birthday Blastoff: Madison Square Garden, NYC

Live Review by Jim Sullivan, The Boston Globe, 11 January 1997

NEW YORK – "It's not much of a tribute, in a way," said David Bowie before the 50th-birthday celebratory show he and a bunch of ...

Time to Bowie out

Comment by Caitlin Moran, The Times, 17 January 1997

Cool in the Seventies, tiresome by the Nineties: Caitlin Moran debunks a famous 50-year-old ...

David Bowie: Earthling (RCA 7432144944 2)

Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 21 January 1997

What comes through most strongly is the way Bowie retains an obsessional interest in the sheer variety and extremity of sound ...

David Bowie: Drum 'N' Bass Oddity

Interview by Stephen Dalton, New Musical Express, 1 February 1997

Forget the '80s. Forget Let's Dance and Tin Machine. Forget the mullets. 'Cos DAVID BOWIE'S discovered jungle and he's back with a vengeance. STEPHEN DALTON ...

Sound + Fisson: David Bowie: Earthling (RCA Records) ***½

Review by Mark Kemp, Rolling Stone, 20 February 1997

David Bowie breaks it down on his new album, Earthling ...

David Bowie: Earthling

Review and Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, March 1997

Is jungle exploration the right career move for a 50-year-old pop star who plans to float himself on the Stock Market this year? ...

David Bowie: All the Young Dudes

Report and Interview by Mark Kemp, Rolling Stone, 6 March 1997

A cast of modern rockers helps DAVID BOWIE celebrate his 50th ...

David Bowie: Hanover Grand, London

Live Review by Caroline Sullivan, The Guardian, 4 June 1997

Bowie wants to meet his public so he plays a small London club – heaven or what? Some fans paid 100 pounds for a ticket. ...

David Bowie: Shepherd's Bush Empire, London

Live Review by Chris Roberts, Uncut, August 1997

HE LOOKS spectacular; anyone who's told you different is jealous, insecure, myopic. Yet he wants us to love his new music, and it's hard to ...

10 Great Glam Rock Albums

Guide by Barney Hoskyns, Harpers & Queen, 1998

TEN GREAT GLAM ROCK ALBUMS you cannot afford to live without... ...

The Androgynous Mirror

Book Excerpt by Jim Farber, 'Rolling Stone: The Seventies' (Little, Brown), 1998

ON A SWAMPY July night in 1974, I left my suburban home bound for David Bowie's Diamond Dogs concert, dressed in midnight-blue eyeliner, hepatitis-yellow platforms ...

Access all areas: The Rock Muse

Report and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Harper's Bazaar, April 1998

Scratch an epic rock god and you'll usually find a cool, inspiring woman who supplied him with lyrics, contacts and style. Now that girl power ...

David Bowie: Reissues

Review by Chris Roberts, Uncut, April 1998

Bowie: the good, the bad and the ugly ...

Dancing in the Street

Film/DVD/TV Review by Terry Staunton, Uncut, June 1998

THE ROCK'N'ROLL documentary is in fine shape in the Nineties, thanks mainly to the BBC. Second series of both Rock Family Trees and Classic Albums ...

Ziggy Stardust: The Album That Killed The Sixties

Retrospective by Mark Paytress, Record Collector, June 1998

Bowie's Ziggy Stardust redefined the meaning of rock artistry. ...

David Bowie: Best Of 1974/1979 (EMI)

Review by Ian Fortnam, Vox, June 1998

Where the first instalment of this condensed collection of Bowie's "best" work covered the formative innocence of the man's glam rock period, 1974/1979 finds the ...

A Rock 'n' Roll Suicide: A live art event by Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard: ICA London

Report by Nick Coleman, The Independent, July 1998

"OF ALL THE SHOWS on this tour, this particular show will remain with us the longest. Not only is it the last show of the ...

Glad to be Glam!

Retrospective and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, The Independent, 12 September 1998

What do the original devotees think of Ziggy, Bolan, platform boots and glitter 25 years on? Will the latest revival of '70s androgyny take off? ...

David Bowie: White Lines, Black Magic

Essay by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, October 1998

'I ran across a monster who was sleeping by a tree. And I looked and frowned and the monster was me'(David Bowie, 'The Width Of ...

Divine Decadence: Memories Of Glam

Retrospective by Jon Savage, Gadfly, October 1998

GLAM — or as it was originally called in the UK, Glitter Rock — flourished from early summer 1972 to summer 1974: shorter than Hippie, ...

Glam Revival

Comment by David Stubbs, Uncut, November 1998

Why the frightening prospect of a full-scale Glam revival fills David Stubbs with dread… ...

Glam Rock: Scary Monsters, Super Freaks #2

Special Feature by Chris Roberts, Uncut, November 1998

TWENTIETH CENTURY BOY ...

Rock 100: David Bowie

Book Excerpt by Lenny Kaye, David Dalton, Cooper Square Books (reissue), 1999

HE IS, AS HE HAD PLANNED, MAGNIFICENT. The stage appears impeccably struck, lights arranged to catch the finer angles of his face, making him seem ...

David Buckley: Strange Fascination – The Definitive David Bowie Story

Book Review by Keith Cameron, The Guardian, 23 September 1999

WHILE MOST BOWIE biographies (notably Alias David Bowie, Peter & Leni Gillman's 1986 exposé of family mental illness and the Bowie "myth") are as welcome ...

David Bowie: "Now Where Did I Put Those Tunes?"

Interview by David Quantick, Q, October 1999

He took Sly Stone's drugs. He thought Bing looked like a little orange on a stool. He named his son Duncan and is madly in ...

Portrait of the Artist: David Bowie

Interview by Steffan Chirazi, SOMA, October 1999

He makes music. He acts. He paints. He makes sculptures. David Bowie sits and talks for 'hours...' with Stefan Chirazi about how it all comes ...

Having The Time Of His Life: David Bowie: 'hours…' (Virgin)

Review by Mark Paytress, MOJO, November 1999

His new album coincides with the umpteenth reissue of 17 studio albums from Space Oddity to Tin Machine, this time without extra tracks. (And no ...

I Was A Pop Star's Arse-wiper!

Report by Martin Aston, Q, January 2000

For as long as there have been rock stars, there have been rock star "support systems", from the Memphis Mafia to "Spanish" Tony Sanchez to ...

Major Tom.com

Profile by Sean O'Hagan, The Observer, 16 January 2000

From drifting astronaut to Ziggy Stardust to Thin White Duke and actor...the Brixton boy worth £500 million and with his own Internet bank is bringing ...

David Bowie: The Astoria, London

Live Review by Chris Roberts, Uncut, February 2000

The live shows you really shouldn't have missed ...

David Bowie: Bowie At The Beeb

Review by Chris Roberts, Uncut, November 2000

TRIPLE-CD gathers The Dame's sessions for 'Auntie', both contemporary and historical. ...

The Best of 2000

Guide by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 18 December 2000

FOR A MUSIC whore like myself, even a good album can be a little like a one-night stand. There's that lovely moment of courting, checking ...

The Making of The Man Who Fell To Earth

Retrospective and Interview by Johnny Black, Q, November 2001

CANDY CLARK (actress): I agreed to do the movie some time before Bowie became involved. I had known the director, Nic Roeg, quite well for ...

David Bowie: The Dame's New Clothes

Essay by Nicky Parade, Rock's Backpages, May 2002

How David Bowie became Mr. Respectable ...

How I alienated David Bowie!

Comment by John Mendelsohn, Rock's Backpages, May 2002

IN THE AUTUMN of 2000, I had gone from being a very well paid Web designer to being an out-of-work former Web designer. ...

Mr Universe: David Bowie: Heathen (ISO/Columbia) ****

Review by David Quantick, Q, June 2002

Rock's original spaceboy flexes his muscles. ...

David Bowie: Star Man

Profile and Interview by Tim Cooper, The Observer, 9 June 2002

After 35 years in the business and endless ch-ch-ch-changes, David Bowie, rock'n'roll's archetypal chameleon, has finally found equilibrium as a clean-living family man. Tim Cooper ...

Ziggy Played Guitar (But Never Took His Eyes Off The Business)

Profile by Charles Shaar Murray, The Independent, 9 June 2002

"TIME," AS DAVID BOWIE once sang. "is waiting in the wings." As far as Bowie himself, who turned 55 last January, is concerned, time seems ...

David Bowie: Ziggy Stardust, now a man of wealth and taste

Essay by Barney Hoskyns, The Independent, 15 June 2002

IT IS NO COINCIDENCE that June 2002 is turning out to be David Bowie month. This time 30 years ago, trading under the plastic-fantastic moniker ...

David Bowie: Heathen (Columbia)

Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, July 2002

HIGH INFIDELITY ...

David Bowie: The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust And the Spiders From Mars: 30th Anniversary Edition

Review and Interview by Daryl Easlea, Record Collector, July 2002

"I'm really just a Photostat machine. I pour out what has already been fed in. I merely reflect what is going on around me" – ...

David Bowie: Royal Festival Hall, London, 29th June

Live Review by William Higham, Rock's Backpages, July 2002

IT SEEMS LIKE some of the old guard are rediscovering their form over the last eighteen months: Brian Wilson, Bryan Ferry, Roger Waters and now ...

David Bowie: Move Festival, Old Trafford, Manchester

Live Review by Chris Roberts, Uncut, September 2002

WE'RE ALL primed for the set of Low and Heathen (in full) which he'd played in London the previous week. That'd do, of course: no ...

Suicide: Trash, London/David Bowie: Hammersmith Apollo, London

Live Review by Simon Price, Independent on Sunday, October 2002

ALAN VEGA WEARS a beret, like Saddam Hussein, Frank Spencer, and the French. He wears sunglasses on a rope, like Dame Edna. He wears leather ...

Great Albums That Have Fallen Off The Critical Radar: David Bowie's Lodger

Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, January 2003

IN THE SO-CALLED "Berlin trilogy", Lodger is always thought of as an anticlimax after Low and "Heroes". Eno, who collaborated with Bowie on the album ...

David Bowie: Life On Earth

Interview by Ken Scrudato, SOMA, July 2003

"You know how I know it's the end of the world, Lenny? Because everything's been done. Every kinda music, every government, every hairstyle. How we ...

David Bowie: Conversation Piece

Interview by Pat Pierson, Yeah Yeah Yeah, 23 July 2003

I WILL TRY not to bother with self-indulgences, but please allow some room for the usual blah blah blah; that or just skip the intro. ...

David Bowie: The star looks very different today

Report by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 31 August 2003

David Bowie, widely considered the most influential pop icon ever, was once written off by his record label, reveals Robert Sandall. ...

The Sound and Vision of David Bowie

Interview by Bill DeMain, Performing Songwriter, September 2003

PLANET EARTH is blue and David Bowie's beige. Dressed down in khakis, a light tan T-shirt and a matching ball cap, he looks more like ...

David Bowie: Reality (ISO/Columbia)

Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 12 September 2003

LIKE BOB DYLAN, David Bowie seems to have been re-invigorated by a lengthy period with a stable band: Reality appears with almost indecent haste a ...

David Bowie: Reality

Review by Caroline Sullivan, The Guardian, 12 September 2003

LIKE ALL PROPER Dave albums, Bowie's 26th has at its core a concept, around which 11 songs uneasily cluster to articulate the master's daft vision. ...

David Bowie: Reality

Review by Chris Roberts, Uncut, October 2003

BOWIE REMAINS the greatest living rock artist, even if what he does isn't rock so much as swing, think a bit, then swing again. ...

David Bowie: All The Old Dude Had, He's Still Got

Live Review by David Sinclair, The Times, 18 November 2003

David Bowie: MEN Arena, Manchester ...

David Bowie: MEN Arena, Manchester

Live Review by Gavin Martin, Daily Mirror, 19 November 2003

DAVID BOWIE is the most celebrated chameleon in Britrock history, but what was so dramatic about his homecoming gig was the absence of theatrical trappings. ...

David Bowie: MEN Arena, Manchester

Live Review by Nick Hasted, The Independent, 19 November 2003

DAVID BOWIE spent much of the '90s in a state of shivering insecurity. The creative brinkmanship that let him shed identities and styles with matchless ...

David Bowie: "I've beaten vices thanks to my daughter"

Interview by Tim Cooper, The Evening Standard, 20 November 2003

He is free from fags, booze and drugs. But clean-living David Bowie admits that staying that way will still be hard work in 30 years' ...

David Bowie: Wembley Arena, London

Live Review by Julian Marszalek, loudersound.com, 2 December 2003

TYPICAL, EH? You wait years for a decent Bowie album and two arrive in quick succession. Any thoughts that Heathen should be wrung for every ...

No More Heroes

Comment by Nick Kent, The Guardian, 19 December 2003

THE BEST THING you can say about 2003 is that it's almost over. ...

David Bowie and the Media

Retrospective by Chris Charlesworth, Rock's Backpages, 2004

A WHIFF OF hedonism lingered amid the dense fog of cigarette smoke inside the top floor suite of Detroit's luxurious Ponchartrain hotel. David Bowie sighed, ...

David Bowie: The Ken Pitt Interview

Interview by Chris Welch, unpublished, 2004

ONE AFTERNOON in 1967 I was interviewing The Nice at a flat in Earls Court when their guitarist David O'List produced a new album he ...

David Bowie: Sound + Vision

Review by Ian Fortnam, Classic Rock, January 2004

The Diamond Dog's bollocks, or satin 'n' tat from the cutting room floor? The imported rarities box set that has long been the Bowie fan's ...

David Bowie: The Story of 'Young Americans'

Retrospective by Johnny Black, Blender, January 2004

"'YOUNG AMERICANS' wouldn't have happened without Bowie's cocaine addiction," asserted Duran Duran's John Taylor in a recent interview. ...

Ever-changing Bowie

Report and Interview by Joel Selvin, San Francisco Chronicle, 25 January 2004

AFTER YEARS of hiding behind characters he created, David Bowie, 57, knows who he is. Although he is no longer making records on the leading ...

David Bowie: HP Pavilion, San Jose

Live Review by Joel Selvin, San Francisco Chronicle, 29 January 2004

HE ASKED IF the audience was having a good time. He grinned incessantly, made snappy patter between songs, showed off his remarkable wardrobe and hair. ...

Changing Man: David Bowie: MEN Arena, Manchester

Live Review by Rob Hughes, Uncut, February 2004

So much to answer for… the Bard Of Bromley's back in fine forward-looking fettle with a scintillating combination of the old and the new ...

The Greatest Songs Ever! 'All The Young Dudes'

Retrospective and Interview by Johnny Black, Blender, October 2004

David Bowie saved Mott the Hoople from extinction with this glam-rock anthem. ...

Talkin 'Bout My Generations: The defining artists of pop's five decades

Comment by Gavin Martin, Daily Mirror, 12 November 2004

As voting closes on the UK Music Hall of Fame, Gavin Martin chooses his top artists from each of the past five decades. ...

Tony Visconti: Bolan, Bowie, Morrissey And Me

Interview by Mick Brown, Daily Telegraph, 23 March 2006

"WHAT A LOT of people don't realise about Morrissey," says the producer of his new album, Tony Visconti, "is that he has a sense of ...

Bowie In America 1972/73

Retrospective by Ian Gittins, MOJO, January 2007

MORE THAN 30 years after the event, Ziggy Stardust remains one of the most inventive and flamboyant productions in rock history. Yet when Bowie took ...

Bowie in Berlin

Retrospective by Ian Gittins, MOJO, January 2007

BY THE END of recording Station To Station in Los Angeles in 1975, David Bowie was in meltdown. Strung-out, paranoid and at war with his ...

David Bowie: Blue-and-green-eyed soul

Essay by Daryl Easlea, Record Collector, January 2007

Young Americans is David Bowie's most underrated album, but its bold cross-cultural concept deserves reappraisal, says Daryl Easlea  ...

David Bowie: Loving the Alien

Interview by Steve Pafford, Record Collector, January 2007

As David Bowie turns 60 on 8 January, Neil Tennant from Pet Shop Boys talks about his lifelong obsession with the man who fell to ...

Tony Visconti: Bowie, Bolan and the Brooklyn Boy — The Autobiography (Harper Collins)

Book Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 18 February 2007

IT CAN'T have been easy choosing the alliterative lineup for the sub-title of this rock'n'roll memoir. After Phil Spector, Tony Visconti is probably the most ...

Child of the Revolution: Tony Visconti: The Autobiography: Bowie, Bolan And The Brooklyn Boy (Harper Collins) ****

Book Review by Mark Paytress, MOJO, April 2007

A life in music, rich in chemical romances, bickering stars and some wonderful work, is recounted with great dignity, says Mark Paytress ...

David Bowie: Lodger

Review by Chris Roberts, Uncut, January 2008

The Dame's sonic sketchpad — restless, inventive and thrillingly experimental. ...

Thomas Jerome Seabrook: Bowie in Berlin – A New Career in a New Town (Jawbone)

Book Review by Nick Coleman, Independent on Sunday, 2 March 2008

ONE OF THE great privileges of being an adolescent rock fan in the '70s was the travelling you got to do. ...

Virgin/EMI To Issue David Bowie: Live Santa Monica '72 On July 8th

Report by Harvey Kubernik, Rock's Backpages, July 2008

VIRGIN/EMI Records on July 8th will release David Bowie: Live Santa Monica '72 in limited edition CD and numbered 180-gram double vinyl LP packages culled ...

Guy Peellaert, 1934-2008

Obituary by Ken Hunt, The Guardian, 29 January 2009

Belgian artist most famous for his rock dreamscapes ...

David Bowie: The making of 'Starman'

Retrospective and Interview by Rob Hughes, Uncut, June 2009

In 1972 this space-age hit — and an onstage "electric blow job" — turned Ziggy and his Spiders From Mars into megastars. "But the outfits... ...

Stardust Memories: Bowie reconsidered

Comment by Mark Dery, Las Vegas Weekly, 16 December 2009

WHEN DID I stop wanting to be Bowie? Too recently for a Man of a Certain Age is the short but sufficiently mortifying answer. ...

David Bowie: A Reality Tour

Review by Mike Diver, bbc.co.uk, January 2010

"DAVID BOWIE'S greatest hits live!" reads the sticker on the attractive packaging of this newly released (but recorded back in 2003) two-CD set. ...

David Bowie: A Reality Tour

Review by Jeff Slate, Examiner.com, 26 January 2010

WHERE'S DAVID BOWIE when you need him?  For over thirty years you could count on the quirky chameleon for an album or tour or movie ...

David Bowie: David Bowie

Review by Rob Young, Uncut, February 2010

The Dame's debut: an enduringly curious dispatch from "Gnome-man's land", expanded and remastered. ...

Nick Kent: Once Upon a Life

Memoir by Nick Kent, The Observer, 14 March 2010

In 1972 he was sorting mail in a Sussex post office. Twelve months later he was partying with Led Zeppelin. Here, the hugely influential music ...

God's DJ: John Peel

Memoir by David Buckley, MOJO, 1 September 2010

God's DJ would have been 71 on Monday. David Buckley recalls a birthday encounter for MOJO online... ...

Station to Station: The importance of David Bowie

Essay by Paul Morley, Financial Times, 3 September 2010

HOW MUCH DO you like David Bowie? You will have to like him a lot to want to spend more than £80 on a deluxe ...

Kate Simon: An Interview

Interview by Paul Gorman, Paul Gorman Is, 18 February 2011

THERE IS A portrait of David Bowie taken by Kate Simon at Olympic recording studios in Barnes, west London, on January 14, 1974. The photograph ...

Turn and Face The Strange: David Bowie and the Making Of Hunky Dory

Retrospective by Bill DeMain, Uncut, April 2011

JANUARY, 1971. There was trouble in outer space. Major Tom's signal was growing fainter by the day. And Ziggy Stardust was still an undefined blip ...

Taxi zum Klo's Berlin is a sexual playground

Retrospective by Jon Savage, The Guardian, 21 April 2011

Bowie, Christiane F and Taxi zum Klo: these are the things that made Berlin so alluring to the British pop culture of the late '70s ...

Keeping Up With The Jones: The Man Who Sold The World: David Bowie and the 1970s by Peter Doggett (Bodley Head)

Book Review by Dorian Lynskey, The Word, November 2011

For ten solid, supercharged years Bowie was always one step ahead. Peter Doggett considers a decade of "magical thinking" ...

Peter Frampton: Fables Of The Resurrection

Interview by David Quantick, The Word, January 2012

He had the biggest-selling album of all time and then "completely tanked" for 28 years. Peter Frampton, this is your rebooted life! ...

Bowie at Live Aid

Retrospective by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, January 2013

EVERYBODY REMEMBERS that Queen stole the show at Live Aid, but it's only insiders like "event co-ordinator" Pete Smith who know how David Bowie saved ...

Who is David Bowie? A Guide to the V&A retrospective

Report by Sean O'Hagan, The Observer, 16 February 2013

As a blockbuster exhibition, David Bowie is, gets under way at the V&A, Sean O'Hagan dissects the pop icon's influences – and reveals the ideas ...

David Bowie: The Next Day

Review by Chris Roberts, The Quietus, 26 February 2013

Chris Roberts is inspired out of his clothes and on to the dancefloor by David Bowie's glorious return. ...

David Bowie: The Next Day

Review by Kieron Tyler, The Arts Desk, 27 February 2013

The return of the Thin White Duke after a ten year silence does not disappoint ...

David Bowie: The Singer Who Fell to Earth

Retrospective and Interview by Simon Reynolds, The New York Times, 6 March 2013

ON 'THE STARS (ARE OUT TONIGHT)', the new single from David Bowie's comeback album, The Next Day, one line jumps out: "We will never be ...

When Bowie met Burroughs

Retrospective by Jon Savage, The Guardian, 9 March 2013

ON 28 FEBRUARY 1974, Rolling Stone magazine published a remarkable encounter between David Bowie and William Burroughs. Entitled "Beat Godfather Meets Glitter Mainman", the event had been hosted ...

Highlights of David Bowie Is: V&A, London

Review by Kate Allen, Rock's Backpages, 25 March 2013

I'VE NEVER been a Bowie-phile, but after visiting the David Bowie is exhibition at the V&A last week, it's difficult not to feel as though such ...

David Bowie: The Next Day

Review by Mark Paytress, MOJO, April 2013

Here he is, not quite dying. The new Bowie is alive and well and mildly exasperated, says Mark Paytress. ...

The Dame and The Runt: A Tale of Two Chameleons

Comment by Rob Steen, Rock's Backpages, 24 April 2013

A COUPLE OF pensioners have been popping in for sleepovers lately, fitter than fiddles and bouncing with frankly disgraceful enthusiasm. Judging by their latest recorded ...

Various Artists: Oh Yes We Can Love – A History Of Glam Rock

Sleeve notes by Barney Hoskyns, Universal Records, August 2013

GLAMOUR HAS always been pivotal to pop music. Elvis Presley was Glam, and so were Little Richard ('Ooh My Soul') and Billy Fury ('Jealousy'). The ...

David Bowie Lands In The Jungle

Interview by Jim Sullivan, JimSullivanInk.com, November 2013

N.B. This interview is taken from a story originally printed in the Boston Globe on 9 February 1997 ...

David Bowie is: V&A, London

Review by Nicky Charlish, Culture Wars, 9 November 2013

Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, the Thin White Duke, The Man Who Fell to Earth, the man of seemingly endless identity changes. David Bowie has been ...

Mr. Bowie Changes Trains: Station to Station

Retrospective by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, December 2013

NOTE: This essay on one of Bowie's greatest records was written for the artist Doug Aitken's (partially-Bowie-inspired) Station to Station exhibition, which travelled by train ...

Me and David: An Interview with Photographer Mick Rock

Book Excerpt by Barney Hoskyns, 'The Rise of David Bowie' (Taschen), February 2014

YOU COULDN'T make the name up: as the man himself says in the interview that follows, "Mick Rock" sounds like a cartoon character, a distillation ...

Let's Not Pretend: David Bowie's Brit Award was for being alive

Comment by James Medd, New Statesman, 20 February 2014

Musicians and pundits need to get over their obsessive, nostalgic hero-worship. In 2014, David Bowie is irrelevant. ...

"Bowie Was Like Orson Welles": Diamond Dogs at 40

Interview by David Buckley, MOJO, 24 April 2014

On the 40th anniversary of its release, engineer Andy Morris delivers the inside skinny on Bowie's wildest album. ...

Dylan Howe: Subterranean – New Designs on Bowie's Berlin

Review by Chris Charlesworth, Just Backdated, November 2014

IT IS NOT DIFFICULT to imagine the look of dismay on the faces of executives at RCA Records when David Bowie delivered the tapes for ...

Mike Vernon: Beyond the Blue Horizon

Retrospective and Interview by Alan Clayson, unpublished, 2015

If known chiefly as a blues paladin, Mike Vernon plunged headfirst into many other – often unexpected – musical waters. Alan Clayson investigates. ...

David Bowie's DNA: Spaceboy Keeps Swinging

Essay by Steve Pafford, DNA, June 2015

David Bowie was the bisexual alien rock star who sold genderfuck to the world. He's also claimed to be the first pop star to declare ...

New Horizons: Mike Vernon (Part One)

Retrospective and Interview by Rob Hughes, Classic Rock, December 2015

WITHOUT PRODUCER and label boss Mike Vernon, the history of British blues would look very different. In the first part of a feature charting his ...

Why those who were teenagers in the '70s will feel the loss of David Bowie the most 

Comment by Kathryn Flett, Daily Telegraph, 11 January 2016

I AM MAKING toast for my 13-year-old when the 7.30am news comes on the radio. Oh! Oh no. David Bowie is dead. I hear the ...

David Bowie and the 7 stages of grief

Comment by Everett True, Music That I Like, 12 January 2016

THIS IS HOW it unfolded for me. ...

Bowie's Week-Long N.Y. Wake Gets Holy Holy

Live Review by Larry Jaffee, Huffington Post, 18 January 2016

A WEEK REMOVED from the shocking news that David Bowie had died, Holy Holy's performance on 17 January in Huntington, Long Island, surely wasn't the ...

David Bowie, 1947-2016

Book Excerpt by Chris Charlesworth, 'The Little Black Songbook' (Wise Publications), February 2016

"I pour out what has already been fed in. I merely reflect what is going on around me." (David Bowie, July 1973) ...

David Bowie Biographer David Buckley Reflects On A Life Immersed In His Colourful World

Essay by David Buckley, New Musical Express, 11 February 2016

Author David Buckley has spent years chronicling the life and work of David Bowie, in academia and in books such as Strange Fascination: David Bowie, ...

Lady Gaga's David Bowie tribute didn't do either artist justice

Comment by Maura Johnston, The Guardian, 16 February 2016

Gaga has Bowie's shapeshifting abilities and a strong voice, but the late star's legacy was ill-served by the hectic megamix she performed. ...

The Gender Politics of David Bowie

Essay by Larry Jaffee, Women Across Frontiers, 29 February 2016

DAVID BOWIE embodied the fictional character of Ziggy Stardust for only about 18 months circa 1972-1973. Yet it's usually an image of that garishly made ...

David Bowie: Bowie at the Beeb

Review by Jamie Atkins, Record Collector, March 2016

THIS ISN'T the review I expected to write, obviously. It wasn't supposed to be difficult listening, a beautifully packaged four-disc vinyl reissue of Bowie's early ...

The David Bowie tribute concerts

Review by Caryn Rose, Live Nation TV, 5 April 2016

LAST JANUARY, when promoter Michael Dorf announced that he'd finally received permission from David Bowie to be the subject of his annual tribute benefit concert, ...

For Rock's Fallen Superstars, A Promise of Life After Death

Comment by Roy Trakin, Cuepoint, 12 July 2016

As fans of Prince, Bowie, Lemmy (and many more) confront music mortality, industry innovators revitalize the legacies of deceased artists. ...

Paul Morley: The Age of Bowie – How David Bowie Made a World of Difference

Book Review by Barney Hoskyns, The Observer, 17 July 2016

"EVERYONE HAS THEIR own Bowie," Paul Morley writes in this discursive, free-associating ride across the life and work of the Starman Who Changed the World. ...

Bowie and the missing soundtrack: The amazing story behind The Man Who Fell to Earth

Retrospective and Interview by Chris Campion, The Guardian, 8 September 2016

David Bowie is rumoured to have written a score to the sci-fi classic that's locked up in some vault. But the truth is much stranger ...

The new cool: how Kamasi, Kendrick and co gave jazz a new groove

Essay by John Lewis, The Guardian, 6 October 2016

A generation of jazz musicians has grown up with hip-hop in its blood. The result is the thrilling reinvention of a genre that has been ...

Killer Riffs: A Guide to Parody in Popular Music

Essay by Simon Reynolds, Pitchfork, 19 October 2016

From the Residents' freakish Beatles sendups, to Spinal Tap's meta-metal escapades, to the gastronomic goofs of "Weird Al", a chronicle of those who have turned ...

Simon Reynolds: Shock & Awe – Glam Rock And Its Legacy (Faber)

Book Review by Jamie Atkins, Record Collector, November 2016

AFTER DEFINING studies of post-punk (Rip It Up & Start Again) and nostalgia (Retromania), Simon Reynolds turns his gaze to glam in all its glory. ...

Growing Up Gay to a Glam Rock soundtrack

Memoir by Jim Farber, The New York Times, 3 November 2016

Freddie Mercury, David Bowie and Alice Cooper send signals to a semi-closeted gay teen in the '70s. ...

Paul Morley: The Age of Bowie/Rob Sheffield: On Bowie/Simon Critchley: On Bowie/Simon Reynolds: Shock and Awe

Book Review by Ian Penman, London Review of Books, 5 January 2017

IN 1975, DAVID BOWIE was in Los Angeles pretending to star in a film that wasn't being made, adapted from a memoir he would never ...

White Noise/White Sands: The Bowie Who Fell to Earth

Book Excerpt by Susan Compo, 'Earthbound' (Jawbone), October 2017

"AFTER SEEING THE extraordinary landscape of the White Sands," Nic Roeg noted, "it prompted me to think of this: strangers always see something that is ...

Meet Chas, he's been mad about Bowie since he was a lad

Report by Tim Cooper, The Evening Standard, 1 December 2017

From diehard to recent fans, Tim Cooper spends the night immersed in Bowie fanatics. ...

On Reflection: David Bowie

Retrospective by Paul Gorman, Vice, 13 March 2018

AFTER FIVE YEARS touring the world, David Bowie Is, the juggernaut retrospective organized by the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, is now in its largest ...

Velvet Goldmine: 20 years on, has the time come for Cool Britannia's Citizen Kane?

Retrospective by Stephen Dalton, BFI, 22 May 2018

In the Britpop era, few films came more wildly ambitious than Todd Haynes' kaleidoscopic glam-rock epic. Now Bowie is dead and Britain has turned a ...

Through the (Stained) Looking Glass: David Bowie & the Berlin Trilogy

Retrospective by Robert Dean Lurie, Blurt, 11 July 2018

One year ago, David Bowie passed away, much to the surprise and sorrow of the music world. To mark the anniversary of his death, we ...

David Bowie's DNA: Spaceboy Keeps Swinging

Retrospective by Steve Pafford, DNA, 3 November 2018

David Bowie was the bisexual alien rock star who sold genderfuck to the world. He's also claimed to be the first pop star to declare ...

Peter Stanfield: Pin-Ups 1972 (Reaktion)

Book Review by Barney Hoskyns, The Critic, August 2022

ROCK'N'ROLL years are all the rage these days. Ever since Jon Savage published his monumental 1966 (in 2015), the anni – particularly the 1970s – ...

see also Mick Ronson

see also Earl Slick

see also Tin Machine

see also Reeves Gabrels

see also Donny McCaslin

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