DAVID BOWIE.

David Bowie did not become famous by finding one perfect identity. He became famous by letting go of every identity. From Major Tom and Ziggy Stardust to the Thin White Duke, the Berlin experimenter and the superstar of Let’s Dance: every time the audience thought they understood him, he shifted the boundary again. Listen further on LP to The Shel Talmy Recordings and Peter & the Wolf.

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THE BOY WHO CHANGED HIS NAME

He was born in 1947 in Brixton as David Robert Jones. As a teenager, he became fascinated by jazz, art, mime and theatre. He played the saxophone, joined several bands and searched for years for a form in which all those interests could come together.

Even his name became part of that search. To avoid confusion with Davy Jones of The Monkees, he chose David Bowie. It was his first public transformation — long before anyone had heard of Ziggy Stardust.

The breakthrough came in 1969 with Space Oddity. While the world watched the moon landing, Bowie's Major Tom was floating away from Earth. The song made him famous, but Bowie did not want to remain the same astronaut his whole life.

ZIGGY LANDS

After the songwriting album Hunky Dory, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars was released in 1972. Bowie became Ziggy: red hair, futuristic clothing and a persona that was simultaneously rock star, actor and alien.

With his performance of Starman on Top of the Pops, that character entered millions of British living rooms. It was not just music. Bowie showed that an album could also be a complete world — with its own appearance, story and attitude.

At the height of his fame, he did something almost no one understood: he ended Ziggy. During the final concert of the tour, Bowie announced that it would be the last show. Even his band members were surprised. Where other artists protect a successful formula, Bowie broke it open.

CHANGES, AGAIN

The years that followed moved at lightning speed. On Young Americans, Bowie embraced soul and funk. Station to Station introduced the aloof Thin White Duke. Every new phase seemed to be a reaction to the previous one — as if comfort meant the same thing to him as standing still.

In the mid-seventies, he moved to Europe. In West Berlin, he found distance from fame and space for experimentation. With Tony Visconti and Brian Eno, Low, “Heroes” and Lodger were born. Electronics, ambient, rock and fragmentary songs ran together. The records were not immediately understood by everyone, but their influence would later emerge everywhere: in post-punk, new wave, electronic music and alternative rock.

THE OUTSIDER BECOMES A POP STAR

In 1983, Bowie changed scale again. With producer Nile Rodgers and guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan, he made Let’s Dance: tight, rhythmic and accessible. The title track, Modern Love and China Girl turned the former outsider into a worldwide stadium star.

But even that success did not become a final destination. Bowie formed the band Tin Machine, worked with Brian Eno again, took drum-and-bass and industrial into himself and continued to involve film, fashion, the internet and visual art in his music. Not every turn was received with equal enthusiasm. Precisely because of that, his career remained alive: he preferred an interesting failure over a neat repetition.

THE ART OF DISAPPEARING

After Reality in 2003 and health problems during the tour, Bowie largely withdrew from public life. For almost ten years, there was silence. Then, on his birthday in 2013, Where Are We Now? suddenly appeared, followed by The Next Day. No interviews, no long campaign — only new music.

His final surprise was even greater. Blackstar was released on January 8, 2016, Bowie's 69th birthday. The album sounded dark, restless and adventurous, fuelled by a New York jazz band. Two days later, he passed away.

Because of this, Blackstar suddenly felt like a farewell, but not as a look back. Even at the end, Bowie chose something he had not done before. He disappeared just as he had lived: without telling the audience exactly what the next image meant.

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