Ziggy Returns

It was a surprise, albeit a happy one, when I turned the breakfast news last Tuesday morning. At first, I didn’t have the sound on but could see a montage of David Bowie on the screen. I couldn’t think of any reason that he would be appearing on the half hour bulletin so my initial reaction was somewhat apprehensive as I thought he may have died (he isn’t known for being in the greatest of health). However, the news was far more cheerful: a new single and a new album – the first for 10 years. Having listened to the single, I rather like it: his voice may be frail compared to years gone by but the emotion is still there.

This all lead to a discussion in the office about what his best records were. It also seems to split between those that like him and those that don’t – some people just don’t get him but even amongst those there was a begrudging acceptance that Life On Mars, Rebel Rebel and Space Oddity were pretty good records. For me, I tend to listen to Bowie on an album-by-album basis and there are albums whereby the individual songs may not stand out but the album as a whole works: Diamond Dogs is a good example of this. However, it is difficult to pick out a favourite when his output has varied from pop to avant-garde. If I was to pick out one album that exemplified Bowie the songwriter I would pick Hunky Dory; as a performer Ziggy Stardust; for Bowie the artist I would go for Low and for his later output I often come back to the excellent Heathen album from 2002.

So what are my favourite Bowie songs? I could quite happily listen to Life On Mars on loop for hours but there are many album tracks which I think are often overlooked. "God Knows I'm Good" from the Space Oddity album is a quirky little folk story about a shoplifter; “All the Madmen” from The Man Who Sold The World is one of several songs he wrote about his mentally ill brother; all of side 2 of Low just sweeps over me – Philip Glass produced a symphony based on this which actually sounded more pop than the original. There are other later tracks which get overlooked: I still think Loving The Alien was one of his best singles of the 80s (even if the rest of the Tonight album was largely forgettable) and he has produced several excellent songs for soundtracks – Absolute Beginners (again the highlight of an otherwise duff film); When The Wind Blows (the title track of the devastatingly miserable Raymond Briggs satire); and The Buddha of Suburbia – a seemingly forgotten BBC series from the 1990s which was, to my mind, the best thing Bowie did during that decade.

It looks like the new single has gone into the singles chart at No 6 – his first top 10 since 1992. That means that there is a whole generation of kids who will never have seen a new Bowie single in the charts: the X-Factor Generation. The Next Day album is due to be released in March: I’m looking forward to it but I can’t help feeling that this not so much a new beginning as a final goodbye.