Bowie, David

David Bowie (born David Robert Jones on January 8, 1947) is a British rock singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer, arranger, mixer, and actor. more...

Overview

Bowie is commonly known as the chameleon of pop, predicting trends and adjusting his style and persona, while holding on to his own ideas and creativity. A multi-instrumentalist, he is perhaps most famous for playing guitar, piano, keyboards and saxophones; but also plays many others, including drums, synthesizers, percussion, violin, cello, harmonica, marimba, koto and, famously, Stylophone. He first rose to prominence with the heady, 1969 folk rock single "Space Oddity" but is perhaps best known for the single "Fame" from Young Americans (1975), and the flamboyant, androgynous glam rock of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972), and Aladdin Sane (1973).

Subsequent albums have explored blue-eyed soul, electronica and new wave, often predating these genres' popularity or even the point at which they were defined as genres. The so-called "Berlin Trilogy", though it had a mixed reception at the time, is today widely considered to be groundbreaking and influential. After slumping sales in the late-1970s, Bowie again gained commercial success in the early 1980s with his hit single "Ashes to Ashes" and its parent album, Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) (1980). He reached his commercial peak with his singles "Modern Love," "China Girl" and "Let's Dance", the latter the title track of his very successful 1983 album.

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