David Bowie, originally known as David Robert Jones, was born on January 8th, 1947 in England. He is a singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer, arranger and mixer who has been in the industry for over forty years. Bowie was first noticed when he came up with his first album called ‘Space Oddity’. It reached the top five in the UK Singles chart. Three years after Space Oddity, in 1972, Bowie came out with ‘The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars’ which had one of his first super hit single; ‘Starman’. David Bowie first achieved crossover success with the single ‘Fame’ from the album ‘Young Americans’ in 1975. ‘The Berlin Trilogy’ is considered as Bowie’s most experimental work to date. In 1977, Bowie released the single ‘Heroes’ which is still hailed as a milestone in rock and pop genres.
In the late 1970s, Bowie had an uneven commercial success even though the critics praised his creativity. In 1980, he changed his fortune by releasing the UK number one single ‘Ashes to Ashes’. In 1981, Bowie with his single ‘Under Pressure’ and rock gods Queen shared the top spot on the UK Singles chart. The album that made Bowie famous with the masses was ‘Lets Dance’ which had the hit singles like ‘China Girl’, ‘Modern Love’ and most famously, ‘Lets Dance’.
Even though he has not released a huge quantity of work in public, the significance and influential power of his work is undeniable and undiminished. In BBC’s 2002 poll of 100 Greatest Britons, Bowie ranked 29. According to MTV, he has sold more than 135 million albums till date and ranks among the top ten pop acts in the UK. He has also acted in movies and TV shows like Arthur and Minimoys, The Prestige, Mr. Rice’s Secret and many more. |
