// The Eras
From Brixton to the Blackstar
Six personas. Five decades. Twenty-seven albums. One man who was never the same person twice.
1947 - 1969 . The Becoming
David Robert Jones
Before Bowie was Bowie, he was a boy from Brixton with a permanently dilated pupil and an appetite for reinvention.
Born David Robert Jones in Brixton, South London. His father Haywood was a promotions officer for Barnardo's children's charity. His mother Peggy was a cinema usherette. At fifteen, a schoolyard fight with George Underwood over a girl left him with a permanently dilated left pupil, giving him the appearance of two differently colored eyes. He changed his name to David Bowie in 1965 to avoid confusion with Davy Jones of the Monkees. He cycled through bands, styles, and managers. The 1967 self-titled debut flopped. "Space Oddity" broke through in 1969, perfectly timed to the Apollo 11 moon landing.
The Punch
1962 . Bromley Technical School
George Underwood punches David Jones in the left eye during a fight over a girl named Carol Goldsmith. The blow permanently damages the sphincter muscles in his pupil. His left eye will remain permanently dilated for the rest of his life, creating his iconic heterochromatic appearance.
Space Oddity
July 11, 1969 . Five days before Apollo 11
The BBC uses "Space Oddity" during its coverage of the Apollo 11 launch. A song about an astronaut who disconnects from Earth becomes the soundtrack to humanity's greatest achievement. Bowie enters the top five for the first time. Major Tom is born.
Off Stage
Bowie's half-brother Terry Burns was diagnosed with schizophrenia and spent years in Cane Hill psychiatric hospital. Terry introduced young David to jazz, beat poetry, and Buddhism. The specter of inherited madness would haunt Bowie's art for decades and directly inspired "All the Madmen," "Aladdin Sane," and "Jump They Say."
1970 - 1974 . Glam Supernova
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust
He invented a character, became the character, then killed the character on stage while the audience wept.
In 1972, Bowie created Ziggy Stardust: an androgynous alien rock star sent to deliver a message of hope to Earth. With Mick Ronson on guitar and the Spiders from Mars behind him, Bowie released "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars" and became the biggest rock star in Britain. "Starman" on Top of the Pops changed a generation overnight. Then came "Aladdin Sane" in 1973, the covers album "Pin Ups," and the proto-punk apocalypse of "Diamond Dogs." On July 3, 1973, at the Hammersmith Odeon, he killed Ziggy on stage.
Scene 12
filmed
BBC Top of the Pops
#10 UK
"Starman" on Top of the Pops
July 6, 1972 . BBC Television Centre
Bowie drapes his arm around Mick Ronson's shoulders during the performance. In living rooms across Britain, teenagers watch an alien with orange hair touch another man on national television. Mick Jagger's swagger never did this. Marc Bolan's glitter didn't go this far. The gesture was deliberate, and it was a detonation.
Scene 16
filmed
Hammersmith Odeon
Ziggy's Last Stand
July 3, 1973 . Hammersmith Odeon, London
"Not only is this the last show of the tour, but it's the last show that we'll ever do." The audience screams. Mick Ronson cries. Nobody except Bowie knew it was coming. He killed Ziggy Stardust live on stage, and the era of glam rock died with him.
Diamond Dogs
1974 . Orwell Meets Funk
After Ziggy's death, Bowie creates Halloween Jack and a dystopian concept album inspired by George Orwell's 1984. The Orwell estate denied him the rights to a musical, so he made the album instead. The Diamond Dogs Tour features a massive set piece of a crumbling city and Bowie performing from a cherry picker.
1975 - 1977 . The Thin White Duke
Station to Station to Berlin
He moved to Los Angeles, became addicted to cocaine, and made the best music of his life while barely surviving it.
Bowie arrived in Los Angeles subsisting on peppers, cocaine, and milk. He weighed under 100 pounds. He was convinced witches were stealing his semen. He kept his urine in jars. He recorded "Young Americans" with soul musicians and scored his first US #1 with "Fame," co-written with John Lennon. Then came "Station to Station" and the Thin White Duke persona: an emotionless, aristocratic figure who delivered a proto-fascist performance style that Bowie later called "the darkest thing I've ever done." Fleeing LA's demons, he moved to Berlin with Iggy Pop and began the trilogy that would define art rock forever.
Scene 24
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Sigma Sound Studios, Philly
#1 US
"Fame" Hits #1
September 20, 1975
Co-written in a single session with John Lennon and guitarist Carlos Alomar at Electric Lady Studios. Lennon contributed the guitar riff and the repeated "fame" vocal hook. Bowie's only US #1 until "Let's Dance" eight years later. The white boy from Brixton conquered American radio with a funk song.
#1 Billboard
2 weeks at top
The Berlin Trilogy Begins
1977 . Hansa Studios, West Berlin
Bowie and Brian Eno hole up in Hansa Studios near the Berlin Wall. "Low" arrives first: side one is fractured pop, side two is ambient instrumental. RCA hates it and refuses to release it. Tony Visconti tells them they're wrong. The album becomes one of the most influential records ever made. "Heroes" follows months later.
"Heroes" at the Wall
1977 . Hansa Studios, Berlin
The song is about two lovers kissing by the Berlin Wall while guards shoot overhead. Visconti confirmed the lovers were himself and backing singer Antonia Maas. Bowie watched them from the studio window. The vocal was recorded with three microphones at increasing distances, each gated to open louder as Bowie sang harder.
Off Stage
Bowie later said he has almost no memory of recording "Station to Station" due to cocaine psychosis. "I know it was recorded in LA because I've read about it." He drew pentagrams on the floor. He believed Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page was putting spells on him. The move to Berlin was a deliberate attempt to survive.
1983 - 1989 . The Pop Star
Let's Dance
He became the biggest pop star on the planet. Then he spent a decade trying to figure out why it felt so wrong.
Nile Rodgers produced "Let's Dance" and everything changed. The album sold over 10 million copies. "Modern Love," "China Girl," and the title track dominated global radio. The Serious Moonlight Tour played to 2.6 million people across 96 shows. Bowie was mainstream in a way he'd never been. But "Tonight" (1984) and "Never Let Me Down" (1987) were creative low points even he acknowledged. The Glass Spider Tour was a critical disaster. The man who'd always been ahead was suddenly behind.
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Power Station, NYC
#1 Worldwide
Let's Dance
April 14, 1983
Nile Rodgers strips everything back. Stevie Ray Vaughan plays guitar. The title track is a four-on-the-floor monster that Rodgers describes as "the song that took David from a cult artist to a stadium act." It hits #1 in the UK, US, and virtually everywhere else. Bowie is now the most famous rock star alive.
Scene 39
scripted
Wembley Stadium
Live Aid
July 13, 1985 . Wembley Stadium
Bowie performs "TVC 15," "Rebel Rebel," "Modern Love," and "Heroes" to a global audience of 1.9 billion. During rehearsals, the video feed from Ethiopia plays. Bowie asks for it to be shown during his set instead of concert footage. His four-song set is remembered as one of Live Aid's defining moments.
1990 - 2004 . The Long Reinvention
Outside the Machine
He buried his greatest hits, started a drum-and-bass band, and became the first artist to sell a Bowie Bond on Wall Street.
Bowie formed Tin Machine to destroy his pop star image, then reunited with Brian Eno for the sprawling "1. Outside" (1995). "Earthling" (1997) was drum and bass. "Hours" (1999) was the first major album sold as a digital download. He launched BowieNet, one of the first artist ISPs. In 1997, he securitized his back catalog into "Bowie Bonds," raising $55 million on Wall Street. He married Somali supermodel Iman in 1992 and, by all accounts, finally found domestic peace. Then a heart attack during a concert in Germany in 2004 sent him into a decade of silence.
Bowie Bonds
February 1997 . Wall Street
Bowie securitizes the royalty income from his first 25 albums into asset-backed securities, selling $55 million in bonds to Prudential Insurance. David Pullman structures the deal. It's the first time an artist has turned their catalog into a financial instrument. Even his money is conceptual art.
The Heart Attack
June 25, 2004 . Scheessel, Germany
During the Hurricane Festival, Bowie suffers what's initially reported as a pinched nerve. It's actually an acutely blocked coronary artery requiring emergency angioplasty. He finishes the tour dates and then effectively disappears from public life for ten years. The silence is absolute.
The Wedding
April 24, 1992 . Florence, Italy
Bowie marries Iman Mohamed Abdulmajid in a private ceremony in Florence. He later says it was "the greatest thing that has ever happened to me." Their daughter Alexandria (Lexi) is born in 2000. After decades of chaos, Bowie finds the stability that his art never offered him.
Off Stage
In 1992, Bowie and Iman moved into a loft in SoHo, New York. Neighbors described a quiet man who walked his daughter to school and shopped at the local bookstore. "He was the most normal person in the building," one neighbor said. The alien who fell to Earth had found a home.
2013 - 2016 . The Final Act
Blackstar
He turned his death into his final work of art. Nobody saw it coming. That was the point.
On January 8, 2013 -- his 66th birthday -- Bowie released "Where Are We Now?" without warning. "The Next Day" followed, his first album in ten years. Then silence again. On January 8, 2016 -- his 69th birthday -- he released "Blackstar," a jazz-inflected, avant-garde masterpiece recorded with a New York jazz quintet. Two days later, on January 10, 2016, David Bowie died of liver cancer. He had been diagnosed eighteen months earlier. Almost nobody knew. The album was his farewell letter, and every lyric was about death. "Look up here, I'm in heaven." He turned his mortality into his greatest performance.
The Return
January 8, 2013
"Where Are We Now?" appears on iTunes without announcement. No press, no interview, no tour. Just a song and a video showing Bowie in a Berlin apartment, superimposed over footage of the city he fled to in 1977. The internet loses its mind. He's alive. He's back. And the album "The Next Day" is the fastest-selling record in the UK that year.
Blackstar
January 8, 2016 . Two days before his death
Released on his 69th birthday. Recorded with Donny McCaslin's jazz quartet. "Lazarus" shows a blindfolded Bowie in a hospital bed, writing frantically at a desk. "Look up here, I'm in heaven / I've got scars that can't be seen." Nobody understands the lyrics until two days later, when everything snaps into devastating focus.
The Death
January 10, 2016 . New York City
David Bowie dies of liver cancer at his Lafayette Street apartment in Manhattan. He was 69 years old. His family releases a statement. Iman posts a photo of the night sky. The world discovers that Blackstar was a parting gift, planned in detail with producer Tony Visconti and art director Jonathan Barnbrook. His death was his final reinvention.