1962–1967: Early career to debut album Bowie formed his first band, the Konrads, in 1962 at the age of 15. Playing guitar-based
rock and roll at local youth gatherings and weddings, the Konrads had a varying line-up of between four and eight members, Underwood among them. When Bowie left the technical school the following year, he informed his parents of his intention to become a pop star. His mother arranged his employment as an electrician's mate. Frustrated by his bandmates' limited aspirations, Bowie left the Konrads and joined another band, the King Bees. He wrote to entrepreneur
John Bloom inviting him to "do for us what
Brian Epstein has done for
the Beatles—and make another million." Bloom did not respond to the offer, but his referral to
Dick James's partner Leslie Conn led to Bowie's first personal management contract. Bowie's debut single, "
Liza Jane", credited to Davie Jones with the King Bees, was not commercially successful. Dissatisfied with the King Bees and their repertoire of
Howlin' Wolf and
Willie Dixon covers, Bowie quit the band less than a month later to join the Manish Boys, another blues outfit, who incorporated folk and soul—"I used to dream of being their
Mick Jagger", he recalled. Their cover of
Bobby Bland's "
I Pity the Fool" was no more successful than "Liza Jane", and Bowie soon left to join the Lower Third, a blues trio strongly influenced by
the Who. "
You've Got a Habit of Leaving" fared no better, signalling the end of Conn's contract. Declaring that he would exit the pop music world "to study mime at
Sadler's Wells", Bowie nevertheless remained with the Lower Third. His new manager, Ralph Horton, later instrumental in his transition to solo artist, helped secure him a contract with
Pye Records. Publicist
Tony Hatch signed Bowie on the basis that he wrote his own songs. Dissatisfied with Davy (and Davie) Jones, which in the mid-1960s invited confusion with
Davy Jones of
the Monkees, he took on the stage name David Bowie after the 19th-century American pioneer
James Bowie and
the knife he had popularised. His first release under the name was the January 1966 single "
Can't Help Thinking About Me", recorded with the Lower Third. It flopped like its predecessors. Bowie departed the Lower Third after the single's release, partly due to Horton's influence, and released two more singles for Pye, "
Do Anything You Say" and "
I Dig Everything", both of which featured a new band called the Buzz, before signing with
Deram Records. Around this time Bowie also joined
the Riot Squad; their recordings, which included one of Bowie's original songs and material by
the Velvet Underground, went unreleased.
Kenneth Pitt, introduced by Horton, took over as Bowie's manager. His April 1967 solo single, "
The Laughing Gnome", on which speeded-up and high-pitched vocals were used to portray the gnome, failed to chart. Released six weeks later, his album debut,
David Bowie, an amalgam of pop,
psychedelia and
music hall, met the same fate. It was his last release for two years. In September, Bowie recorded "
Let Me Sleep Beside You" and "
Karma Man", both rejected by Deram and left unreleased until 1970. The tracks marked the beginning of Bowie's working relationship with producer
Tony Visconti which, with large gaps, lasted for the rest of Bowie's career.
1968–1971: Space Oddity to Hunky Dory Studying the dramatic arts under
Lindsay Kemp, from
avant-garde theatre and
mime to
commedia dell'arte, Bowie became immersed in the creation of personae to present to the world. Satirising life in a British prison, his composition "Over the Wall We Go" became a 1967 single for
Oscar; another Bowie song, "
Silly Boy Blue", was released by
Billy Fury the following year. Playing acoustic guitar, Hermione Farthingale formed a group with Bowie and guitarist John Hutchinson named Feathers; between September 1968 and early 1969 the trio gave a few concerts combining folk,
Merseybeat, poetry and mime. After the break-up with Farthingale, Bowie moved in with Mary Finnigan as her lodger. In February and March 1969, he undertook a short tour with
Marc Bolan's duo
Tyrannosaurus Rex, as third on the bill, performing a mime act. Continuing the divergence from rock and roll and blues begun by his work with Farthingale, Bowie joined forces with Finnigan, Christina Ostrom and Barrie Jackson to run a folk club on Sunday nights at the Three Tuns pub in
Beckenham High Street. The club was influenced by the
Arts Lab movement, developing into the
Beckenham Arts Lab and became extremely popular. The Arts Lab hosted a free festival in a local park, the subject of his song "
Memory of a Free Festival". in London marking where Bowie recorded six albums between 1969 and 1974 Pitt attempted to introduce Bowie to a larger audience with the
Love You till Tuesday film, which went unreleased until 1984. Feeling alienated over his unsuccessful career and deeply affected by his break-up, Bowie wrote "
Space Oddity", a tale about a fictional astronaut named
Major Tom. The song earned him a contract with
Mercury Records and its UK subsidiary
Philips, who issued "Space Oddity" as a single on 11 July 1969, five days ahead of the
Apollo 11 launch. Reaching the top five in the UK, it was his first and last hit for three years. Bowie's second album followed in November. Originally issued in the UK as
David Bowie, it caused some confusion with its predecessor of the same name, and the US release was instead titled
Man of Words/Man of Music; it was reissued internationally in 1972 by
RCA Records as
Space Oddity. Featuring philosophical post-
hippie lyrics about peace, love and morality, its acoustic folk rock occasionally fortified by harder rock, the album was not a commercial success at the time. Bowie met
Angela Barnett in April 1969. They married within a year. Her impact on him was immediate—he wrote his 1970 single "
The Prettiest Star" for her—and her involvement in his career was far-reaching, leaving Pitt with limited influence which he found frustrating. Bowie soon fired Pitt and replaced him with
Tony Defries, resulting in years of litigation that concluded with Bowie having to pay Pitt compensation. The follow-up to
David Bowie,
The Man Who Sold the World, was released in November 1970 in the US and April 1971 in the UK. The album featured Visconti on bass,
Mick Ronson on electric guitar and
Mick Woodmansey on drums. It represented a departure from the folk rock style of his second album to a more
hard rock sound, with lyrical references to schizophrenia, paranoia and delusion. Mercury financed a coast-to-coast publicity tour across the US in which Bowie, between January and February 1971, was interviewed by the media. Exploiting his
androgynous appearance, he wore a blue dress during interviews, the same one that had appeared on the cover of the then-unreleased UK version of
The Man Who Sold the World. and Bowie at ''
Andy Warhol's Pork'' at
London's Roundhouse in 1971 During the tour, Bowie's observation of two seminal American
proto-punk artists led him to develop a concept that eventually found form in the Ziggy Stardust character: a melding of the persona of his friend
Iggy Pop with the music of
Lou Reed, producing "the ultimate pop idol". Bowie later stated, "It's not who does it first, it's who does it second." A girlfriend recalled his "scrawling notes on a cocktail napkin about a crazy rock star named Iggy or Ziggy", and on his return to England he declared his intention to create a character "who looks like he's landed from Mars". The "Stardust" surname was a tribute to the "
Legendary Stardust Cowboy", whose record he was given during the tour. Bowie later covered "I Took a Trip on a Gemini Space Ship" on 2002's
Heathen.
Hunky Dory (1971) found Visconti supplanted in both roles by
Ken Scott producing and
Trevor Bolder on bass. It again featured a stylistic shift towards
art pop and melodic
pop rock, with light fare tracks such as "
Kooks", a song written for his son,
Duncan Zowie Haywood Jones, born on 30 May. Elsewhere, the album explored more serious subjects, and found Bowie paying unusually direct homage to his influences with "
Song for Bob Dylan", "
Andy Warhol" and "
Queen Bitch", the latter a Velvet Underground pastiche. His first release through RCA, it was a commercial failure, partly due lack of promotion from the label.
Peter Noone of
Herman's Hermits covered the album's track "
Oh! You Pretty Things", which reached number 12 in the UK.
1972–1974: Glam rock era , 1972 Dressed in a striking costume, his hair dyed reddish-brown, Bowie launched his Ziggy Stardust stage show with
the Spiders from Mars—Ronson, Bolder, and Woodmansey—at the Toby Jug pub in
Tolworth in
Kingston upon Thames on 10 February 1972. The show was hugely popular, catapulting him to stardom as he toured the UK over the next six months and creating, as described by David Buckley, a "cult of Bowie" that was "unique—its influence lasted longer and has been more creative than perhaps almost any other force within pop fandom."
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972), combining the hard rock elements of
The Man Who Sold the World with the lighter experimental rock and pop of
Hunky Dory, was released in June and was considered one of the defining albums of
glam rock. "
Starman", issued as an April single ahead of the album, was to cement Bowie's UK breakthrough: both single and album charted rapidly following his July
Top of the Pops performance of the song. The album, which remained in the chart for two years, was soon joined there by the six-month-old
Hunky Dory. At the same time, the non-album single "
John, I'm Only Dancing" and "
All the Young Dudes", a song he wrote and produced for
Mott the Hoople, were successful in the UK. The
Ziggy Stardust Tour continued to the United States. Bowie contributed backing vocals, keyboards and guitar to Reed's 1972 solo breakthrough
Transformer, co-producing the album with Ronson. The following year, Bowie co-produced and
mixed the Stooges' album
Raw Power alongside Iggy Pop. His own
Aladdin Sane (1973) was his first UK number-one album. Described by Bowie as "Ziggy goes to America", it contained songs he wrote while travelling to and across the US during the earlier part of the Ziggy tour, which now continued to Japan to promote the new album.
Aladdin Sane spawned the UK top five singles "
The Jean Genie" and "
Drive-In Saturday". Bowie's love of acting led to his total immersion in the characters he created for his music. "Offstage I'm a robot. Onstage I achieve emotion. It's probably why I prefer dressing up as Ziggy to being David." With satisfaction came severe personal difficulties: acting the same role over an extended period, it became impossible for him to separate Ziggy Stardust—and later, the Thin White Duke—from his own character offstage. Ziggy, Bowie said, "wouldn't leave me alone for years. That was when it all started to go sour ... My whole personality was affected. It became very dangerous. I really did have doubts about my sanity." His later Ziggy shows, which included songs from both
Ziggy Stardust and
Aladdin Sane, were ultra-theatrical affairs filled with shocking stage moments, such as Bowie stripping down to a
sumo wrestling loincloth or simulating
oral sex with Ronson's guitar. Bowie toured and gave press conferences as Ziggy before a dramatic and abrupt on-stage "retirement" at London's
Hammersmith Odeon on 3 July 1973. Footage from the final show was incorporated for the film
Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, which premiered in 1979 and commercially released in 1983. After breaking up the Spiders, Bowie attempted to move on from his Ziggy persona. His back catalogue was now highly sought after:
The Man Who Sold the World had been re-released in 1972 along with
Space Oddity.
Hunky Dory "
Life on Mars?" was released in June 1973 and peaked at number three on the
UK Singles Chart. Entering the same chart in September, his 1967 novelty record "The Laughing Gnome" reached number six.
Pin Ups, a collection of covers of his 1960s favourites, followed in October, producing a UK number three hit in his version of
the McCoys's "
Sorrow" and itself peaking at number one, making Bowie the best-selling act of 1973 in the UK. It brought the total number of Bowie albums concurrently on the UK chart to six.
1974–1976: "Plastic soul" and the Thin White Duke " on
TopPop in February 1974 Bowie moved to the US in 1974, initially staying in New York City before settling in Los Angeles.
Diamond Dogs (1974), parts of which found him heading towards
soul and
funk, was the product of two distinct ideas: a musical based on a wild future in a post-
apocalyptic city, and setting
George Orwell's
Nineteen Eighty-Four to music. The album went to number one in the UK, spawning the hits "
Rebel Rebel" and "
Diamond Dogs", and number five in the US. The supporting
Diamond Dogs Tour visited cities in North America between June and December 1974. Choreographed by
Toni Basil, and lavishly produced with theatrical special effects, the high-budget stage production was filmed by
Alan Yentob. The resulting documentary,
Cracked Actor, featured a pasty and emaciated Bowie: the tour coincided with his slide from heavy
cocaine use into addiction, producing severe physical debilitation,
paranoia and emotional problems. He later commented that the accompanying live album,
David Live, ought to have been titled "David Bowie Is Alive and Well and Living Only in Theory".
David Live nevertheless solidified Bowie's status as a superstar, charting at number two in the UK and number eight in the US. It also spawned a UK number ten hit in a cover of
Eddie Floyd's "
Knock on Wood". After a break in
Philadelphia, where Bowie recorded new material, the tour resumed with a new emphasis on soul. , July 1974 The Philadelphia recording sessions produced the album
Young Americans (1975). Sandford writes, "Over the years, most British rockers had tried, one way or another, to become black-by-extension. Few had succeeded as Bowie did now." The album's sound, which Bowie identified as "
plastic soul", constituted a radical shift in style that initially alienated many of his UK devotees.
Young Americans was a commercial success in both the US and the UK and yielded Bowie's first US number one, "
Fame", a collaboration with
John Lennon. A re-issue of the 1969 single "Space Oddity" became Bowie's first number-one hit in the UK a few months after "Fame" achieved the same in the US. He mimed "Fame" and his November single "
Golden Years" on the US variety show
Soul Train, earning him the distinction of being one of the first white artists to appear on the programme. The same year, Bowie fired Defries as his manager. Michael Lippman, Bowie's lawyer during the months-long legal negotiations, became his new manager, but was fired the following year. on the variety show
Cher, 1975.
Station to Station (1976), produced by Bowie and
Harry Maslin, introduced a new Bowie persona,
the Thin White Duke of its
title track. Visually, the character was an extension of Thomas Jerome Newton, the extraterrestrial being he portrayed in the film
The Man Who Fell to Earth the same year. Developing the funk and soul of
Young Americans,
Station to Stations synthesiser-heavy arrangements were influenced by
electronic and German
krautrock. Bowie's cocaine addiction during this period was at its peak; he often did not sleep for three to four days at a time during
Station to Station recording sessions and later said he remembered "only flashes" of its making. His sanity—by his own later admission—had become twisted from cocaine, which was referenced directly in the album's ten-minute
title track. The album's release was followed by a -month-long concert tour, the
Isolar Tour, of Europe and North America. The core band that coalesced to record the album and tour—rhythm guitarist
Carlos Alomar, bassist
George Murray and drummer
Dennis Davis—continued as a stable unit for the remainder of the 1970s. Bowie performed on stage as the Thin White Duke. at
Maple Leaf Gardens, Toronto, 1976 The tour was highly successful but mired in political controversy. Bowie was quoted as saying that "Britain could benefit from a fascist leader", and was detained by customs on the Russian—Polish border for possessing
Nazi paraphernalia. Matters came to a head in London in May in what became known as the "
Victoria Station incident". Arriving in an open-top
Mercedes convertible, Bowie waved to the crowd in a gesture that some alleged was a
Nazi salute, which was captured on camera and published in
NME. Bowie said the photographer caught him in mid-wave. He later blamed his pro-fascism comments and his behaviour during the period on his cocaine addiction, the character of the Thin White Duke and his life in Los Angeles, a city he later said "should be wiped off the face of the Earth". He later apologised for these statements, and throughout the 1980s and 1990s criticised racism in European politics and the American music industry. Nevertheless, his comments on fascism, as well as
Eric Clapton's alcohol-fuelled denunciations of Pakistani immigrants in 1976, led to the establishment of
Rock Against Racism.
1976–1979: Berlin era , Berlin, where Bowie lived from 1976 to 1978 In August 1976, Bowie and Iggy Pop moved to
West Berlin to rid themselves of their drug addictions and escape the spotlight. Bowie's interest in German
krautrock and the
ambient works of multi-instrumentalist
Brian Eno culminated in the first of three albums, co-produced with Visconti, that became known as the
Berlin Trilogy. The album,
Low (1977), was recorded in France and took influence from krautrock and
experimental music and featured both short song-fragments and ambient instrumentals. Before its recording, Bowie produced Iggy Pop's debut solo album
The Idiot, described by Pegg as "a stepping stone between
Station to Station and
Low".
Low was completed in November, but left unreleased for three months. RCA did not see the album as commercially viable and was expecting another success following
Young Americans and
Station to Station. Bowie's former manager Tony Defries, who maintained a significant financial interest in Bowie's affairs, had tried to prevent the album from being released. Upon its release in January 1977,
Low yielded the UK number three single "
Sound and Vision", and its own performance surpassed that of
Station to Station in the UK chart, where it reached number two. Bowie himself did not promote it, instead touring with Pop as his keyboardist throughout March and April before recording Pop's follow-up,
Lust for Life. Echoing
Lows minimalist, instrumental approach, the second of the trilogy,
"Heroes" (1977), incorporated pop and rock to a greater extent, seeing Bowie joined by guitarist
Robert Fripp. It was the only album of the trilogy recorded entirely in Berlin. Incorporating ambient sounds from a variety of sources including white noise generators, synthesisers and
koto, the album was another hit, reaching number three in the UK. Its
title track was released in both German and French and, though only reaching number 24 in the UK singles chart, later became one of his best-known tracks. In contrast to
Low, Bowie promoted
"Heroes" extensively, performing the title track on Marc Bolan's television show
Marc, and again two days later for
Bing Crosby's final
CBS television Christmas special, when he joined Crosby in "
Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy", a version of "
The Little Drummer Boy" with a new,
contrapuntal verse. RCA belatedly released the recording as a single five years later in 1982, charting in the UK at number three. After completing
Low and
"Heroes", Bowie spent much of 1978 on the
Isolar II world tour, bringing the music of the first two Berlin Trilogy albums to almost a million people during 70 concerts in 12 countries. By now he had broken his drug addiction; Buckley writes that Isolar II was "Bowie's first tour for five years in which he had probably not anaesthetised himself with copious quantities of cocaine before taking the stage. ... Without the oblivion that drugs had brought, he was now in a healthy enough mental condition to want to make friends." Recordings from the tour made up the live album
Stage, released the same year. Bowie also recorded narration for an adaptation of
Sergei Prokofiev's classical composition
Peter and the Wolf, which was released as an
album in May 1978. The final piece in what Bowie called his "
triptych",
Lodger (1979), eschewed the minimalist, ambient nature of its two predecessors, making a partial return to the drum- and guitar-based rock and pop of his pre-Berlin era. The result was a complex mixture of
new wave and
world music, in places incorporating
Hijaz non-Western scales. The album was recorded in Switzerland and New York City.
Lodger reached number four in the UK and number 20 in the US, and yielded the UK hit singles "
Boys Keep Swinging" and "
D.J." Towards the end of the year, Bowie and Angie initiated divorce proceedings, and after months of court battles, the marriage was ended in early 1980. The three albums were later adapted into classical music symphonies by American composer
Philip Glass for his
first,
fourth and
twelfth symphonies in 1992, 1997 and 2019, respectively. Glass praised Bowie's gift for creating "fairly complex pieces of music, masquerading as simple pieces".
1980–1988: New Romantic and pop era Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) (1980) produced the number one single "
Ashes to Ashes", featuring the textural guitar-synthesiser work of
Chuck Hammer and revisiting the character of Major Tom from "Space Oddity". The song gave international exposure to the underground
New Romantic movement when Bowie visited the London club "Blitz"—the main New Romantic hangout—to recruit several of the regulars (including
Steve Strange of the band
Visage) to act in the accompanying video, renowned as one of the most innovative of all time. While
Scary Monsters used principles established by the Berlin albums, it was considered by critics to be far more direct musically and lyrically. The album's hard rock edge included conspicuous guitar contributions from Fripp and
Pete Townshend. Topping the UK Albums Chart for the first time since
Diamond Dogs, Buckley writes that with
Scary Monsters, Bowie achieved "the perfect balance" of creativity and mainstream success. Bowie paired with
Queen in 1981 for a one-off single release, "
Under Pressure". The duet was a hit, becoming Bowie's third UK number-one single. Bowie was given the lead role in the
BBC's 1982 televised adaptation of
Bertolt Brecht's play
Baal. Coinciding with its transmission, a five-track
EP of songs from the play was released as
Baal. In March 1982, Bowie's
title song for
Paul Schrader's film
Cat People was released as a single. A collaboration with
Giorgio Moroder, it became a minor US hit and charted in the UK top 30. The same year, he departed RCA, having grown increasingly dissatisfied with them, and signed a new contract with
EMI America Records for a reported $17 million. His 1975 severance settlement with Defries also ended in September. , 1983 Bowie reached his peak of popularity and commercial success in 1983 with ''
Let's Dance''. Co-produced by
Chic's
Nile Rodgers, the album went platinum in both the UK and the US. Its three singles became top 20 hits in both countries, where its
title track reached number one. "
Modern Love" and "
China Girl" each made number two in the UK, accompanied by a pair of "absorbing" music videos that Buckley said activated key archetypes in the pop world ... 'Let's Dance', with its little narrative surrounding the young
Aboriginal couple, targeted 'youth', and 'China Girl', with its bare-bummed (and later partially censored) beach lovemaking scene ... was sufficiently sexually provocative to guarantee heavy rotation on MTV. Then-unknown Texas blues guitarist
Stevie Ray Vaughan guested on the album, featuring prominently on the title track. ''Let's Dance'' was followed by the six-month
Serious Moonlight Tour, which was extremely successful. At the
1984 MTV Video Music Awards, Bowie received two awards including the inaugural
Video Vanguard Award.
Tonight (1984), another dance-oriented album, found Bowie collaborating with Pop and
Tina Turner. Co-produced by
Hugh Padgham, it included a number of cover songs, including three Pop covers and the 1966
Beach Boys hit "
God Only Knows". The album bore the transatlantic top 10 hit "
Blue Jean", itself the inspiration for the
Julien Temple-directed short film ''
Jazzin' for Blue Jean'', in which Bowie played the dual roles of romantic protagonist Vic and arrogant rock star Screaming Lord Byron. The short won Bowie his only non-posthumous
Grammy Award for
Best Short Form Music Video. In early 1985, Bowie's collaboration with the
Pat Metheny Group, "
This Is Not America", for the soundtrack of
The Falcon and the Snowman, was released as a single and became a top 40 hit in the UK and US. In July, Bowie performed at
Wembley Stadium for
Live Aid, a multi-venue benefit concert for Ethiopian famine relief. Bowie and Mick Jagger duetted on a cover of
Martha and the Vandellas' "
Dancing in the Street" as a fundraising single, which went to number one in the UK and number seven in the US; its video premiered during Live Aid. , 1987 Bowie took an acting role in the 1986 film
Absolute Beginners, and his
title song rose to number two in the UK charts. He also worked with composer
Trevor Jones and wrote five original songs for the 1986 film
Labyrinth, which he starred in. His final solo album of the decade was 1987's
Never Let Me Down, where he ditched the light sound of his previous two albums, instead combining pop rock with a harder rock sound. Peaking at number six in the UK, the album yielded the hits "
Day-In Day-Out", "
Time Will Crawl" and "
Never Let Me Down". Bowie later described it as his "nadir", calling it "an awful album". He supported the album on the 86-concert
Glass Spider Tour. The backing band included Peter Frampton on lead guitar. Contemporary critics maligned the tour as overproduced, saying it pandered to the current
stadium rock trends in its special effects and dancing, although in later years critics acknowledged the tour's strengths and influence on concert tours by other artists, such as
Prince,
Madonna and
U2.
1989–1991: Tin Machine Wanting to completely rejuvenate himself following the critical failures of
Tonight and
Never Let Me Down, Bowie placed his solo career on hold after meeting guitarist
Reeves Gabrels and formed the hard rock quartet
Tin Machine. The line-up was completed by bassist and drummer
Tony and
Hunt Sales, who had played with Bowie on Iggy Pop's
Lust for Life in 1977. Although he intended Tin Machine to operate as a democracy, Bowie dominated, both in songwriting and in decision-making. The band's 1989
self-titled debut album received mixed reviews and, according to author
Paul Trynka, was quickly dismissed as "pompous, dogmatic and dull". EMI complained of "lyrics that preach" as well as "repetitive tunes" and "minimalist or no production". It reached number three in the UK and was supported by a twelve-date
tour. The tour was a commercial success, but there was growing reluctance—among fans and critics alike—to accept Bowie's presentation as merely a band member. A series of Tin Machine singles failed to chart, and Bowie, after a disagreement with EMI, left the label. Like his audience and his critics, Bowie himself became increasingly disaffected with his role as just one member of a band. Tin Machine began work on a second album, but recording halted while Bowie conducted the seven-month
Sound+Vision Tour, which brought him commercial success and acclaim. during the
Sound+Vision Tour, 1990 In October 1990, Bowie and supermodel
Iman were introduced by a mutual friend. He recalled, "I was naming the children the night we met ... it was absolutely immediate." They married in 1992. Tin Machine resumed work the same month, but their audience and critics, ultimately left disappointed by the first album, showed little interest in a second.
Tin Machine II (1991) was Bowie's first album to miss the UK top 20 in nearly twenty years, and was controversial for its cover art. Depicting four ancient nude
Kouroi statues, the new record label,
Victory, deemed the cover "a show of wrong, obscene images" and airbrushed the statues' genitalia for the American release. Tin Machine toured again, but after the live album
Tin Machine Live: Oy Vey, Baby (1992) failed commercially, Bowie dissolved the band and resumed his solo career. He continued to collaborate with Gabrels for the rest of the 1990s.
1992–1998: Electronic period On 20 April 1992, Bowie appeared at
The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert, following the Queen singer's death the previous year. As well as performing "Heroes" and "All the Young Dudes", he was joined on "Under Pressure" by
Annie Lennox, who took Mercury's vocal part; during his appearance, Bowie knelt and recited the
Lord's Prayer at Wembley Stadium. Four days later, Bowie and Iman married in Switzerland. Intending to move to Los Angeles, they flew in to search for a suitable property, but found themselves confined to their hotel: the
1992 Los Angeles riots began the day they arrived. They settled in New York instead. In 1993, Bowie released his first solo offering since his Tin Machine departure, the soul, jazz and
hip-hop influenced
Black Tie White Noise. Making prominent use of electronic instruments, the album, which reunited Bowie with ''Let's Dance'' producer Nile Rodgers, confirmed Bowie's return to popularity, topping the UK chart and spawning three top 40 hits, including the top 10 single "
Jump They Say". Bowie explored new directions on
The Buddha of Suburbia (1993), which began as a soundtrack album for the BBC television adaptation of
Hanif Kureishi's novel
The Buddha of Suburbia before turning into a full album; only the title track "
The Buddha of Suburbia" was used in the programme. Referencing his 1970s works with pop, jazz, ambient and experimental material, it received a low-key release, had almost no promotion and flopped commercially, reaching number 87 in the UK. Nevertheless, it later received critical praise as Bowie's "lost great album". , Finland, 1997 Reuniting Bowie with Eno, the quasi-industrial
Outside (1995) was originally conceived as the first volume in a non-linear narrative of art and murder. Featuring characters from a short story written by Bowie, the album achieved UK and US chart success and yielded three top 40 UK singles. In a move that provoked mixed reactions from both fans and critics, Bowie chose
Nine Inch Nails as his tour partner for the
Outside Tour. Visiting cities in Europe and North America between September 1995 and February 1996, the tour saw the return of Gabrels as Bowie's guitarist. On 7 January 1997, Bowie celebrated his half century with a 50th
birthday concert at
Madison Square Garden at which he was joined in playing his songs and those of his guests, Lou Reed,
Dave Grohl and the
Foo Fighters,
Robert Smith of
the Cure,
Billy Corgan of
the Smashing Pumpkins,
Black Francis of the
Pixies, and
Sonic Youth. Incorporating experiments in
jungle and
drum 'n' bass,
Earthling (1997) was a critical and commercial success in the UK and the US, and two singles from the album—"
Little Wonder" and "
Dead Man Walking"—became UK top 40 hits. The song "
I'm Afraid of Americans" from the
Paul Verhoeven film
Showgirls was re-recorded for the album, and remixed by
Trent Reznor for a single release. The heavy rotation of the accompanying video, also featuring Reznor, contributed to the song's 16-week stay in the US
Billboard Hot 100. Bowie received a star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame on 12 February 1997. The
Earthling Tour took place in Europe and North America between June and November. In November, Bowie performed on the BBC's
Children in Need charity single "
Perfect Day", which reached number one in the UK. Bowie reunited with Visconti in 1998 to record "(Safe in This) Sky Life" for
The Rugrats Movie. Although the track was edited out of the final cut, it was later re-recorded and released as "Safe" on the B-side of Bowie's 2002 single "
Everyone Says 'Hi'. The reunion led to other collaborations with his old producer, including a limited-edition single release version of
Placebo's track "
Without You I'm Nothing" with Bowie's harmonised vocal added to the original recording.
1999–2012: Neoclassicist era during the
Heathen Tour, 2002 Bowie, with Gabrels, created the soundtrack for
Omikron: The Nomad Soul, a 1999 computer game in which he and Iman also voiced characters based on their likenesses. Released the same year and containing re-recorded tracks from
Omikron, his album
Hours featured a song with lyrics by the winner of his "Cyber Song Contest" Internet competition, Alex Grant. Making extensive use of live instruments, the album was Bowie's exit from heavy electronica.
Hours and a performance on
VH1 Storytellers in mid-1999 represented the end of Gabrels' association with Bowie as a performer and songwriter. Sessions for
Toy, a planned collection of remakes of tracks from Bowie's 1960s period, commenced in 2000, but was shelved due to EMI/
Virgin's lack of faith in its commercial appeal. Bowie and Visconti continued their collaboration, producing a new album of completely original songs instead: the result was the 2002 album
Heathen. On 25 June 2000, Bowie made his second appearance at the
Glastonbury Festival in England, playing almost 30 years after his first. The performance was released as a
live album in November 2018. On 27 June, he performed a concert at the
BBC Radio Theatre in London, which was released on the compilation album
Bowie at the Beeb; this also featured BBC recording sessions from 1968 to 1972. His interest in Buddhism led him to support the
Tibetan cause by performing at the February 2001 and February 2003 concerts to support
Tibet House US at
Carnegie Hall in New York. —his final concert tour In October 2001, Bowie opened
the Concert for New York City, a charity event to benefit the victims of the
September 11 attacks, with a minimalist performance of
Simon & Garfunkel's "
America", followed by a full band performance of "Heroes". 2002 saw the release of
Heathen, and, during the second half of the year, the
Heathen Tour. Taking place in Europe and North America, the tour opened at London's annual
Meltdown festival, for which Bowie was that year appointed artistic director. Among the acts he selected for the festival were Philip Glass,
Television and
the Dandy Warhols. As well as songs from the new album, the tour featured material from Bowie's
Low era.
Reality (2003) followed, and its accompanying world tour, the
A Reality Tour, with an estimated attendance of 722,000, grossed more than any other in 2004. On 13 June, Bowie headlined the last night of the
Isle of Wight Festival 2004. On 25 June, he experienced chest pain while performing at the
Hurricane Festival in
Scheeßel, Germany. Originally thought to be a pinched nerve in his shoulder, the pain was later diagnosed as an acutely blocked
coronary artery, requiring an emergency
angioplasty in Hamburg. The remaining fourteen dates of the tour were cancelled. In the years following his recuperation from the heart attack, Bowie reduced his musical output, making only one-off appearances on stage and in the studio. He sang in a duet of his 1971 song "
Changes" with
Butterfly Boucher for the 2004 animated film
Shrek 2. During a relatively quiet 2005, he recorded the vocals for the song "(She Can) Do That", co-written with
Brian Transeau, for the film
Stealth. He returned to the stage on 8 September 2005, appearing with
Arcade Fire for the US nationally televised event Fashion Rocks, and performed with the Canadian band for the second time a week later during the
CMJ Music Marathon. He contributed backing vocals on
TV on the Radio's song "Province" for their album
Return to Cookie Mountain, and joined with
Lou Reed on Danish alt-rockers
Kashmir's 2005 album
No Balance Palace. at the premiere of Jones's directorial debut
Moon, 2009 Bowie was awarded the
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award on 8 February 2006. In April, he announced, "I'm taking a year off—no touring, no albums." He made a surprise guest appearance at
David Gilmour's 29 May concert at the
Royal Albert Hall in London. The event was recorded, and a selection of songs on which he had contributed joint vocals were subsequently released. He performed again in November, alongside
Alicia Keys, at the Black Ball, a benefit event for
Keep a Child Alive at the
Hammerstein Ballroom in New York. The performance marked the last time Bowie performed his music on stage. Bowie was chosen to curate the 2007 High Line Festival. The musicians and artists he selected for the
Manhattan event included electronic pop duo
AIR, surrealist photographer
Claude Cahun and English comedian
Ricky Gervais. Bowie performed on
Scarlett Johansson's 2008 album of
Tom Waits covers,
Anywhere I Lay My Head. In June 2008, a
live album was released of a Ziggy Stardust-era concert from 1972. On the 40th anniversary of the
July 1969 Moon landing—and Bowie's accompanying commercial breakthrough with "Space Oddity"—EMI released the individual tracks from the original eight-track studio recording of the song, in a 2009 contest inviting members of the public to create a remix. A
live album from the A Reality Tour was released in January 2010. In late March 2011,
Toy, Bowie's previously unreleased album from 2001, was leaked onto the internet, containing material used for
Heathen and most of its single B-sides, as well as unheard new versions of his early back catalogue.
2013–2016: Final years On 8 January 2013, his 66th birthday, his website announced a new studio album—his first in a decade—to be titled
The Next Day and scheduled for release in March; the announcement was accompanied by the immediate release of the single "
Where Are We Now?". A music video for the single was released onto
Vimeo the same day, directed by New York artist
Tony Oursler. and debuted in the UK Singles Chart at number six, his first single to enter the Top 10 for two decades (since "Jump They Say" in 1993). A second single and video, "The Stars (Are Out Tonight)", were released at the end of February, starring Bowie and
Tilda Swinton as a married couple. Recorded in secret between 2011 and 2012, 29 songs were recorded during the album's sessions, of which 22 saw official release in 2013, including 14 on the standard album. Three bonus tracks were later packaged with seven outtakes and remixes on
The Next Day Extra, released in November. Debuting at number one in the UK,
The Next Day was his first album to top the chart since
Black Tie White Noise, and was the fastest-selling album of 2013 at the time. The music video for the song "
The Next Day" created some controversy due to its Christian themes and messages. Bowie ruled out ever giving an interview again. Later in 2013, he was featured in a cameo vocal in the Arcade Fire song "
Reflektor". The success of
The Next Day saw Bowie become the oldest ever recipient of a
Brit Award when he won the award for
British Male Solo Artist at the
2014 Brit Awards, which was collected on his behalf by
Kate Moss. In mid-2014, Bowie was diagnosed with liver cancer, which he kept private. A new compilation album,
Nothing Has Changed, was released in November. The album featured rare tracks and old material from his catalogue in addition to a new song, "
Sue (Or in a Season of Crime)". Bowie continued working throughout 2015, secretly recording his final album
Blackstar in New York between January and May. In August, it was announced that he was writing songs for a
Broadway musical based on the
SpongeBob SquarePants cartoon series; the final production included a retooled version of "No Control" from
Outside. September saw the release of the box set
Five Years (1969–1973), the first in a series of retrospective releases compiling his albums from 1969 to 1973. He also wrote and recorded the opening title song to the television series
The Last Panthers, which aired in November. The theme that was used for
The Last Panthers was also the
title track for
Blackstar. On 7 December, Bowie's musical
Lazarus debuted in New York; he made his final public appearance at its opening night.
Blackstar was released on 8 January 2016, Bowie's 69th birthday, and was met with critical acclaim.
He died two days later, after which Visconti called the album a "parting gift" for his fans before his death. Several reporters and critics subsequently noted that most of the lyrics on the album seem to revolve around his impending death, with
CNN noting that the album "reveals a man who appears to be grappling with his own mortality". Visconti also said that he had been planning a follow-up album, and had written and recorded demos of five songs in his final weeks, suggesting he believed he had a few months left. The day following his death, online viewing of Bowie's music skyrocketed, breaking the record for
Vevo's
most viewed artist in a single day.
Blackstar debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart; nineteen of his albums were in the UK Top 100 Albums Chart, and thirteen singles were in the UK Top 100 Singles Chart.
Blackstar also debuted at number one on album charts around the world, including Australia, France, Germany, Italy, New Zealand and the US.
Posthumous releases After his death,
Newsweek reported that Bowie had left "a long list of unscheduled musical releases planned", divided into eras. Following
Five Years (1969–1973), the second of these releases was
Who Can I Be Now? (1974–1976) (2016), which was followed by
A New Career in a New Town (1977–1982) in 2017,
Loving the Alien (1983–1988) in 2018,
Brilliant Adventure (1992–2001) in 2021, which saw the official release of the shelved album
Toy, and ''
I Can't Give Everything Away (2002–2016)'' in 2025. In 2017, Bowie's estate released the
No Plan EP, which included "Lazarus" and three
Blackstar outtakes, and a series of posthumous live albums: ''
Cracked Actor (Live Los Angeles '74), Live Nassau Coliseum '76 and Welcome to the Blackout (Live London '78)''. In 2020, a previously unreleased version of "The Man Who Sold the World" was released, followed by a streaming-only EP,
Is It Any Wonder?, and
ChangesNowBowie, an exclusive release for
Record Store Day. Various live shows spanning his tours from 1995 to 1999 were released in late 2020 and early 2021 as part of the box set
Brilliant Live Adventures. In September 2021, Bowie's estate signed a distribution deal with
Warner Music Group, beginning in 2023, covering Bowie's recordings from 2000 through 2016. On 3 January 2022,
Variety reported that Bowie's estate had sold his publishing catalogue to
Warner Chappell Music, "for a price upwards of $250 million". ==Acting career==