David Bowie: Difference between revisions

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'''David Bowie''' (born 1947, died 2016), one of rock music's most influential figures, has gone by many names, [[New Sound Album|many sounds]], and many visual styles throughout his career.
 
Although his recording career begin in [[The British Invasion|1964]] -- he—he released an album and numerous singles during the middle years of [[The Sixties]] -- David—David Bowie first caught the eye and ear of the public in the autumn of 1969, when his space-age mini-melodrama "Space Oddity" reached the top five of the UK singles chart. After a three-year period of experimentation he re-emerged in 1972 during the glam rock era as the flamboyant, androgynous alter ego Ziggy Stardust, spearheaded by the hit single "Starman" and the album ''The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars''. The relatively short-lived Ziggy persona (about eighteen months) epitomised a career often marked by musical innovation, reinvention and striking visual presentation.
 
In 1975, Bowie achieved his first major American crossover success with the number-one single "Fame" and the hit album ''Young Americans'', which the singer identified as "plastic [[Soul Music|Soul]]"; it was during this period that he became one of the few white performers invited to play ''[[Soul Train]]''. The sound constituted a radical shift in style that initially alienated many of his UK devotees. After this, he had his first major film role with ''[[The Man Who Fell to Earth]]''.
 
Not entirely sure what to do next, he spent about a year continuing his funk-influenced act with his last "character", The Thin White Duke, a bizarre, thin, well-dressed European aristocrat who -- [[Creator Breakdown|much as Bowie himself did at this point]] -- survived—survived primarily on "red peppers, cocaine, and milk." He then confounded the expectations of both his record label and his American audiences by recording the minimalist album ''Low'' -- the—the first of three collaborations with [[Brian Eno]] and Tony Visconti over the next two years. Arguably his most experimental works, the so-called "Berlin Trilogy" albums (named for his place of residence during this period as he pulled himself out of addiction) all reached the UK Top Five, though their overall commercial success was uneven.
 
Bowie had UK number ones with the 1980 single "Ashes to Ashes" and its parent album, ''Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)''. He paired with [[Queen]] for the 1981 UK chart-topper "Under Pressure", but consolidated his commercial -- andcommercial—and, until then, most profitable -- soundprofitable—sound in 1983 with the album ''Let's Dance'', which yielded the hit singles "Let's Dance", "China Girl" (a cover of an [[The Stooges|Iggy Pop]] song which he co-wrote), and "Modern Love".
 
1983 was also marked by ''[[The Hunger]]'' and ''[[Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence]]'', further establishing his side career as an actor. His best-known role after ''[[The Man Who Fell to Earth]]'' would be Jareth, the Goblin King in 1986's ''[[Labyrinth]]'' (which has gotten quite the reputation for gratuitous crotch shots in the process of becoming a [[Cult Classic]]). Ranging from supporting roles to cameos, his acting work also includes ''[[Twin Peaks]]: Fire Walk With Me'', ''Absolute Beginners'', ''[[The Last Temptation of Christ]]'', ''[[Zoolander]]'', ''[[The Prestige]]'', and even a voiceover role in ''[[SpongeBob SquarePants]]''.
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In 2016, just two days after his sixty-ninth birthday and three days after the release of his last album, Bowie lost his year and a half long battle with cancer.
{{discography}}
== Studio discography: ==
* ''David Bowie'' (1967) ([[Old Shame|disowned]] [[Canon Discontinuity|by]] [[Creator Backlash|Bowie]])
* ''Space Oddity'' (1969)
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* ''Blackstar'' ([[Lucky Charms Title|★]]) (2016)
 
== Live albums: ==
* ''David Live'' (1974)
* ''Stage'' (1978)
* ''Tin Machine Live -- Oy Vey Baby!'' (1992)
 
== Live bootlegs given official releases: ==
* ''Live Santa Monica '72'' (2009)
* ''Live Nassau Coliseum '76'' (2010; included with the Special and Deluxe Editions of ''Station to Station'')
 
== Concert films/videos: ==
* ''Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars'' (1983; filmed 1973)
* ''Serious Moonlight'' (1984)
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* [[Adorkable]]: His protagonist Vic, a sweet but inept fellow who tells a [[Celebrity Lie]] about "Mr. Screamin'", in ''Jazzin' for Blue Jean''.
* [[AI Is a Crapshoot]]: The plot of his song "Saviour Machine".
* [[Alas, Poor Yorick]]: Parodied in the live performances of "Cracked Actor" on his 1974 and '83 tours -- astours—as per the song's title, he was dressed as a hybrid of Hamlet and a Hollywood star and "filmed" as he sang to a prop skull. The segment climaxed with him ''French-kissing'' it in '74; in '83 he tried to do so but his stagehands stepped in to stop ''that'' nonsense.
* [[Alter Ego Acting]]: His 1970s stage personas, most famously Ziggy Stardust and The Thin White Duke, are examples of Type 3 (see [[Secret Identity Identity]] below).
* [[Ambiguously Gay|Ambiguously Bi]]: Some of his identities have been bi, but the man himself? He came out, then un-came out, so nobody really knows.
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* [[Camp]]: Ziggy Stardust is only the most famous example of this in his work.
* [[Canon Discontinuity]]: His early singles and first album, though he revisited some of those songs for the ''Toy'' project. There's also the odd case of "Too Dizzy", which was dropped from all reissues of ''Never Let Me Down''.
* [[Can't Get Away with Nuthin']]: The old woman in "God Knows I'm Good" (''Space Oddity'') decides ''just this once'' to shoplift -- andshoplift—and merely "a tin of stewing steak" at that -- figuringthat—figuring that God will overlook the crime. When she's caught and stopped before she can leave the shop, the apparent divine judgment causes her to collapse in fright.
* [[Celebrity Endorsement]]: Participated in several of the "I Want My MTV" promos; also shilled for Pepsi in 1987 (the ad teamed him up with Tina Turner) and XM Satellite Radio at the [[Turn of the Millennium]].
* [[Celebrity Is Overrated]]: The point of "Fame".
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* [[Christmas Songs]]: The "Peace on Earth"/"Little Drummer Boy" counterpoint duet he performed with Bing Crosby for the latter's 1977 [[Christmas Special]] ''still'' gets airplay today, and is loved both for itself and as kitsch.
* [[Christmas Special]]: Besides ''Bing Crosby's Merrie Olde Christmas'', he played the narrator in a new introductory sequence for ''[[The Snowman]]'' in 1983. While the VHS and DVD releases use the original [[Raymond Briggs]] intro, most American viewers probably saw the Bowie version first, as this was what HBO aired.
* [[Chronically-Killed Actor]]: He isn't hesitant to kill off his own characters in his music -- poormusic—poor Ziggy Stardust dies at the hands of his fans, and the protagonist in the "Jump They Say" video is [[Driven to Suicide]], for instance. A significant number of his film and TV characters are hustled off by [[The Grim Reaper]] as well. (In fact, ''Mr. Rice's Secret'' '''starts''' with his character dying and he's only seen in flashbacks throughout.) And if they ''live'', it probably won't be to enjoy a [[Happy Ending]]...
* [[Classical Mythology]]: The Cyclops was the inspiration for "The Supermen". See also [[A Load of Bull]] below.
* [[Concept Album]]: These make up a significant portion of his 1970-76 output. Beyond this, he invented quite a few characters/personas over the years for his work, including Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane ("Ziggy goes to America"), The Man Who Sold the World, The Thin White Duke, The Earthling, and the various characters from ''Outside'' (specifically Det. Nathan Adler). And that's not even including his various film characters, such as [[The Man Who Fell to Earth|Thomas Jerome Newton]] and [[Labyrinth|Jareth]].
* [[Concept Video]]: A favorite trope of his from the turn of [[The Eighties]] onward -- seeonward—see "Look Back in Anger", "Ashes to Ashes", "China Girl", "Day-In Day-Out", "Jump They Say", "Thursday's Child", etc. His contributions to the medium made him one of the original recipients of the MTV Video Vanguard Award at the first Video Music Awards ceremony in 1984, and his only competitive Grammy win was in 1985 for Best Short Form Music Video (''Jazzin' for Blue Jean'').
* [[Contemptible Cover]]: The original covers for ''Diamond Dogs'' and ''Tin Machine II'' had to be censored to remove male genitalia (or, well, half-man half-dog genitalia in the former case).
* [[Continuity Nod]]
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** The ending of "The Buddha of Suburbia" revives that of "All the Madmen" (see [[Gratuitous Foreign Language]] below), and shortly before that, the guitar break from "Space Oddity" is quoted.
** The "Little Wonder" video incorporates a Ziggy Stardust lookalike into its action.
** The filmed-but-unreleased [[Concept Video]] for "The Pretty Things Are Going to Hell" -- the—the title of which combines ''Hunky Dory'''s "Oh! You Pretty Things" and Iggy and [[The Stooges]]' "Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell" -- was—was based around Bowie encountering four of his "past selves" (The Man Who Sold the World, Ziggy Stardust, The Thin White Duke, and Pierrot) as played by life-sized, mannequin-like puppets.
* [[Costume Porn]]: His [[Glam Rock]] period had a lot of this, but it turns up later too -- fromtoo—from his Pierrot outfit in the "Ashes to Ashes" video to his [[Unlimited Wardrobe]] in ''[[Labyrinth]]'' to his ''Earthling''-era, Alexander McQueen-designed frock coats. In-story, Screamin' Lord Byron's onstage look in ''Jazzin' for Blue Jean'' is all about this.
* [[The Cover Changes the Meaning]]: The title track of ''Tonight'' is a cover of an Iggy Pop number he co-wrote...minus the opening that establishes that the sweetheart the singer is addressing is dying of a drug overdose, turning it from a [[Teenage Death Songs]] into a straightforward, optimistic love song (and duet with Tina Turner).
* [[Cover Album]]: ''Pin Ups''.
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** ''Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)'' -- "Kingdom Come" (Tom Verlaine)
** ''Let's Dance'' -- "China Girl" (Iggy Pop)
** ''Tonight'' -- "Neighborhood Threat" and "Tonight" (Iggy Pop), "God Only Knows" ([[The Beach Boys]]), "I Keep Forgettin'" (Chuck Jackson) <ref> the high number of covers was the result of writer's block on Bowie's part</ref>
** ''Never Let Me Down'' -- "Bang Bang" (Iggy Pop)
** ''Tin Machine'' -- "Working Class Hero" ([[John Lennon]])
** ''Tin Machine II'' -- "If There Is Something" (Roxy Music)
** ''Black Tie White Noise'' -- "I Feel Free" (Cream), "Don't Let Me Down and Down" (Tarha), "I Know It's Gonna Happen Someday" (Morrissey) ,<ref> Bowie noticed the song's similarities with ''Ziggy Stardust'''s "Rock 'N' Roll Suicide" and decided it would be fun to perform the song as he would have back in the '70s</ref>, "Nite Flights" (Scott Walker)
** ''Heathen'' -- "Cactus" (The Pixies), "I've Been Waiting for You" (Neil Young), "I Took a Trip on a Gemini Spaceship" (The Legendary Stardust Cowboy)
** ''Reality'' -- "Pablo Picasso" (The Modern Lovers) and "Try Some, Buy Some" (George Harrison)
** He frequently covered [[The Velvet Underground]]'s "White Light/White Heat" and/or "Waiting for the Man" in concert. Jacques Brel's "My Death", a staple of Ziggy Stardust-era shows, was brought back for the Outside Summer Festivals Tour and the Earthling Tour.
* [[Crapsack World]]: "Hunger City", the setting for the ''Diamond Dogs'' album, was this -- notthis—not surprising as much of the material on it was originally intended for a musical version of ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four|1984]]''. If one sticks to a Bowie-verse, this setting may or may not be as a result of the catastrophe predicted in ''Ziggy Stardust'''s "Five Years".
** Other Crapsack Worlds appear in the songs "Scream Like a Baby," "Bombers," "Oh! You Pretty Things," "Sons of the Silent Age" (the lyrics that aren't a [[Silly Love Songs]]) and the album ''1. Outside'', and possibly "All The Madmen," though that one's subject to [[Ambiguous Situation]] (is the [[Unreliable Narrator|narrator]] mad or the outside world?)
* [[Creator Breakdown]]: ''Low'' was written and recorded while Bowie was starting to wean himself off cocaine, and while his marriage to Angela was showing fissures that would soon lead to divorce. That set the tone for both the album and its title.
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* [[Creator Thumbprint]]: Apocalypses, dystopias, cocaine, mental instability, celestial imagery, and science fiction imagery/subject matter turn up again and again. ''[[The Onion]]'''s article "[http://www.theonion.com/articles/nasa-launches-david-bowie-concept-mission%2C2907/ NASA Launches David Bowie Concept Mission]" is built around references to his "spacier" work, and mentions other common subjects of his when it notes that "the mission will primarily study paranoia, decadence, and the fluidity of sexual identity in a zero-gravity environment". There is also a reflective, often melancholy bent to his last three studio albums.
* [[The Criterion Collection]]: Appears in three films that have made it into this august series: ''[[The Man Who Fell to Earth]]'' (also participated in the audio commentary for it), ''[[Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence]]'', and ''[[The Last Temptation of Christ]]''. He also figures into the special features on the ''[[La Jetée|La Jetee]]'' disc via a French TV excerpt that looks at how the "Jump They Say" video directly homages that [[Short Film]], and another Criterion title, ''[[The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou]]'', has a soundtrack featuring [[Translated Cover Version|translated cover versions]] of his songs.
* [[Darker and Edgier]] / [[Lighter and Softer]]: His albums alternate between these a lot. ''Space Oddity'' -> ''[[Darker and Edgier|The Man Who Sold The World]]'' -> ''[[Lighter and Softer|Hunky Dory]]'' is one example -- thoughexample—though ''Hunky Dory'' only counts as lighter musically, as lyrically it's incredibly dark.
** ''The Buddha of Suburbia'' -> ''[[Darker and Edgier|Outside]]'' -> ''[[Lighter and Softer|Earthling]]'' would be another example.
** With regards to his stage personas in [[The Seventies]], the flamboyant, messianic Ziggy Stardust was followed by the variants of Aladdin Sane and Halloween Jack (''Diamond Dogs'')...and then came the depths of darkness with The Thin White Duke.
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** "Look Back in Anger" is a variant on ''[[The Picture of Dorian Gray]]''.
** "China Girl" ends with a steamier take on the lovers-in-the-surf scene from ''[[From Here to Eternity]]''.
** The framing device for the film clips in "Absolute Beginners" comes from a vintage British cigarette commercial. The brand and its slogan -- "You're never alone with a Strand" -- are—are quoted by Bowie's character in the film.
** The experiments conducted on his character in "Jump They Say" are visually the same as those conducted on the protagonist of the French [[Science Fiction]] [[Short Film]] ''La Jetee''. ([[The Criterion Collection]]'s DVD of the short includes an excerpt from a French TV program about this video and its homage.)
* [[Impractically Fancy Outfit]]: His glam rock period, in particular, featured a lot of these.
* [[Intergenerational Friendship]]: The plot of the early song "Little Bombardier": a lonely old veteran strikes up a friendship with some little kids, but his intentions are taken the wrong way by the local authorities.
* [[Isn't It Ironic?]]: Dating back to the BBC using "Space Oddity" (which has a [[Downer Ending]]) as part of its moon landing coverage in 1969, several of his songs have been subject to this trope over the years. "Fame" may be the most frequent victim of this, often being used to celebrate glamour and the celebrity life when it's actually about the hollowness of those things. And Iggy Pop's "Lust for Life", which Bowie wrote the music for, is not the most appropriate choice for advertising Royal Caribbean Cruise Line...
* [[Japandering]]: Twice -- inTwice—in Japan for Jun Rock sake in 1980 (with an instrumental that became an A-side there and a B-side in the U.K.), and in Italy for Vittel bottled water in 2003. The latter, a cheeky spot in which Bowie shares a house with most of his 1970-80 personas, was re-edited with a different song and turned into the U.S. ad for ''Reality''.
* [[Jukebox Musical]]: ''Lazarus'', one of the last works by Bowie before his death, is a 2015 musical featuring songs from his back catalogue to tell a story inspired by ''[[The Man Who Fell to Earth]]''.
* [[Large Ham]]: Yes, he's capable of subtlety and delicacy as both a singer and an actor, but he has rarely (if ever) passed up an opportunity to be hammy if that's what's called for. Two of his videos from ''Lodger'' are [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgPUxjQOk-w&ob=av2el good] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMhFyWEMlD4&NR=1 examples], as is the original soundtrack version of "Cat People (Putting Out Fire)" (which is -- moreis—more or less -- theless—the lament of a lovelorn [[Reluctant Monster]]).
* [[Last-Note Nightmare]]: "Space Oddity" has a particularly nasty one.
* [[Lean and Mean]]: The Thin White Duke.
* [[Leave the Camera Running]] / [[Throw It In]]: The closing track of ''Diamond Dogs'' ("Chant of the Ever-Circling Skeletal Family") ends with a tape loop, the result of a blunder in the studio that [http://www.teenagewildlife.com/Albums/DD/COTECSF.html Bowie and company decided to keep in].
* [[Limey Goes to Hollywood]]: Bowie moved to the U.S., ultimately settling down in [[Los Angeles]], after the release of ''Diamond Dogs'' to work on courting American audiences (the Ziggy Stardust period was merely a cult success there); the Diamond Dogs Tour solely toured North America. During this period he recorded ''Young Americans'' and ''Station to Station'' and filmed ''[[The Man Who Fell to Earth]]'' (a British production shot in the U.S.)...the downside was his [[Creator Breakdown]] unfolding during all this; he didn't think well of L.A. for a long time afterward.
* [[Limited Special Collectors' Ultimate Edition]]: Several of his albums have received this treatment, but none more so than ''Station to Station'' in 2010 -- the2010—the Special Edition included an additional two discs containing his much-bootlegged Nassau Coliseum concert from '76. The ''Deluxe'' Edition...[http://www.amazon.com/Station-Deluxe-5CD-DVD-3LP/dp/B003UTUQ3O/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1292665767&sr=1-1 oh my]...all for an album that has a less-than-40-minute runtime and six songs.
* [[Limited Wardrobe]]: It was rare to see The Thin White Duke in anything besides a suit consisting of black trousers, a white shirt, and a black vest with a pack of Gitanes cigarettes in the front pocket.
* [[Loads and Loads of Roles]]: On ''1. Outside'', he gives voice to a 52-year-old detective, a 14-year-old ''female'' murder victim, [[Mad Artist|mad artists]] of both genders, a 78-year-old shopkeeper, etc. (There are pictures of most of them in the booklet, via the magic of makeup, costume, and image manipulation.)
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* [[Mood Whiplash]]
** "Rebel Rebel" is ''much'' more upbeat than most of the rest of the songs on ''Diamond Dogs''.
** "Boys Keep Swinging" is a joyfully [[Camp]] tune; on ''Lodger'' it comes between "Look Back in Anger" and "Repetition" -- which—which are about [[The Grim Reaper]] and [[Domestic Abuse]], respectively.
* [[Monster Clown]]: The mysterious Pierrot of the ''Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)'' artwork and the "Ashes to Ashes" [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMThz7eQ6K0 video], played by Bowie himself.
* [[Music Is Politics]]: Faced this issue more than once with managerial and money problems in the mid-1970s and record labels wanting an old sound rather than a new one in the '70s (RCA wanted him to do more blue-eyed soul as opposed to ''Low'') and the turn of [[The Nineties]] (he left EMI over their reservations about a second Tin Machine album).
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** [[Kraut Rock]] and post-punk with ''Low''
** Mainstream [[New Wave]] with ''Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)''
*** Side project -- Cabaretproject—Cabaret (specifically [[Bertolt Brecht]]) with ''Baal'' (a tie-in EP to a BBC production of the play that he toplined)
** [[Pop]] rock with ''Let's Dance''
** [[Hard Rock]] with Tin Machine
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* [[On a Soundstage All Along]]: ''Jazzin' for Blue Jean'' ends this way, albeit on a city street rather than a soundstage.
* [[One-Scene Wonder]]: To [[Memetic Mutation]]. (Just look at the page.)
* [[One Word Title]]: Besides ''Tonight'', he has had two stretches of using one word titles for his albums -- firstalbums—first with the Berlin Trilogy and ''Stage'', then with all his studio albums from ''Earthling'' onward.
* [[Opening Narration]]: "Future Legend", the lead-off track on ''Diamond Dogs'', is this; "Glass Spider" is a song that opens with spoken-word narration.
* [[Orphaned Series]]: ''1. Outside'' was supposed to have two follow-ups.
* [[Other Common Music Video Concepts]]
** Backwards Action: "Let's Dance" and "China Girl" both have brief segments involving this.
** Band from Mundania: Both ''hours...'' videos put Bowie in domestic settings and then ease in fantasy elements. In "Thursday's Child", he and his current lover are getting ready for bed when in the bathroom mirror he sees a reflection of his younger self and an old lover. In "Survive", he broods alone in a cluttered kitchen over a romantic breakup -- andbreakup—and then gravity goes askew.
** Dance Hall Daze: "Never Let Me Down" is set at a dance marathon.
** Dancing In the Streets: Though "Dancing in the Street" would better qualify as this if there were more than just him and Mick Jagger gadding about.
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** Movie Tie-In Music Video: "Underground" and "As the World Falls Down". Impressively, given the [[Labyrinth|source film]], only the latter incorporates film clips.
* [[Performance Video]]: All his promo clips up through 1977's ""Heroes""; after this, the bulk of them are either [[Surreal Music Video]] or concept-based. "Modern Love", which was shot on the Serious Moonlight Tour, is the best-known of his post-'77 solo performance vids. The Tin Machine videos are all performance-based.
* [[PietaPietà Plagiarism]]: An interesting variation on the album cover for [http://www.spikemagazine.com/bowie/hours.jpg 'hours...'] wherein an older long-haired Bowie cradles a younger short-haired version of himself.
* [[Pop Star Composer]]: ''Labyrinth'', ''The Buddha of Suburbia'', and ''Omikron: The Nomad Soul''.
* [[Pun-Based Title]]: ''Aladdin Sane''.
* [[Radio Friendliness]]: Suffered in the U.S. thanks to this trope -- oncetrope—once he abandoned his ''Let's Dance''-era sound, that was pretty much the end of radio support for his work there. Before that, ''Low'' and ''"Heroes"'' were radio-unfriendly everywhere, only yielding three singles between them.
* [[Rearrange the Song]]: Often. Aside from many concert rearrangements, examples include:
** "John, I'm Only Dancing" (1972) was given a funky revamp and some new lyrics as "John, I'm Only Dancing (Again)" in 1975.
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** "Fame '90" was this for "Fame" (1975).
** The never-formally released ''Toy'' (it was leaked online in 2011) featured new takes on his mid-1960s work.
* [[Reclusive Artist]]: Became this in the late '00s -- he00s—he only occasionally surfaces in public (usually attending the odd charity fundraiser) and hasn't performed live, recorded, or granted an interview in years. In 2011 biographer Paul Trynka effectively confirmed that Bowie has indeed quietly retired, unlikely to make another record unless it's "seismic".
* [[Record Producer]]: In [[The Seventies]], he gave a helping hand to some of his influences when he produced ''Transformer'' for Lou Reed, ''Raw Power'' for [[The Stooges]], and ''The Idiot'' for Iggy Pop.
* [[Red Eyes, Take Warning]]: In "Cat People (Putting Out Fire)", the singer's eyes start as green as he warns his inamorata of his dangerous need for her...in verse two, they turn red, and he mentions that "Those who feel me near/Pull the blinds and change their minds".
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** Bowie Pack 02: "Ziggy Stardust", "Young Americans", "Fame", "Modern Love", "Blue Jean"
* [[Rock Opera]]: ''1. Outside'', which is much more specific about its storyline and characters than his concept albums.
* [[The Rock Star]]: A '''perfect''' [[Real Life]] example -- hisexample—his exploration of the trope, particularly with the Ziggy Stardust persona, helped pave the path to him living it as completely as anyone ever has. A critic interviewed for the ''Biography'' episode on Bowie actually argues (though not in [[All the Tropes Will Ruin Your Vocabulary|tropes]]) that he is the [[Trope Codifier]].
* [[Rockstar Song]]: "Star" and "Ziggy Stardust".
* [[Rule of Sean Connery]]: Whether you use him a little or a lot, your project ''will'' be cooler for his presence.
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* [[Signature Song]]: As his first hit, "Space Oddity" is usually regarded as this, since the range of his career and resultant arguments over his best era make it hard to settle the question otherwise. However, "Life on Mars?" and ""Heroes"" have become competitors for the title in recent years. While relatively early in his canon, "Changes" kinda pokes fun at this, and (ironically) became another one of his signature tunes.
* [[Something Blues]]: "Running Gun Blues".
* [[Something Completely Different]]: His one [[Heavy Metal]] album with the Spiders, ''The Man Who Sold the World'' -- his—his next album was the start of his glam phase, but still closer to his first two albums than this one.
* [[Spiritual Successor]]: ''Aladdin Sane'' to ''Ziggy Stardust''.
* [[Spooky Painting]]: In the "Look Back in Anger" video, one magically disfigures the face of the artist who painted it.
* [[Spoken Word in Music]]: The countdown in "Space Oddity" and the recitation in "All the Madmen".
* [[Stage Name]]/[[One Steve Limit]]: His real name is [[The Monkees (band)|David Jones]].
* [[Stalker with a Crush]]: The singer in the early song "Love You Till Tuesday" -- and—and on top of that, it's going to be a fleeting crush since he fell for the lady in question on a Sunday!
* [[Stepford Smiler]]: "D.J." is about/sung by a radio deejay who is a male version of Type B ("I am what I play"); the video especially suggests he's turning into a Type C.
* [[Storyboard]]: Bowie drew these up for the videos he did with director David Mallet at the turn of [[The Eighties]].
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* [[Suspiciously Similar Substitute]]: A variant of this was done with "Fashion". It reworked the melody of "Golden Years", only [[Loudness War|louder]], [[Darker and Edgier]].
* [[Studio Chatter]]: The ringing phone that's answered at the end of "Life on Mars?"
* [[Ten-Minute Retirement]]: For his bigger hit songs, rather than himself, during the Tin Machine period. The solo Sound+Vision Tour in 1990 was hyped as the final tour in which he'd perform [[wikipedia:Sound%2BVision+Vision Tour#The Songs|them]] in concert, as he wanted to move on from them. This stuck until 1996's Outside Summer Festivals Tour reintroduced ""Heroes"" to his set lists, and most of the "big" songs have since returned to the stage.
** Bowie himself had one after the last Ziggy Stardust concert when he announced, "Not only is it the last show of the tour, it's the last show we'll ever do." He meant it was his last show as the ''character'' Ziggy Stardust, but the audience didn't know that at the time.
* [[Three Chords and the Truth]]: Perhaps not ''just'' three chords, but many of his songs are built around fairly simple chord progressions. Since this highlights his sophisticated vocal technique, it arguably qualifies as [[Awesome Yet Practical]].
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* [[Trope Overdosed]]: There are more than ''350'' references to him on TV Tropes. Might be due to his constant ch-ch-ch-ch-changes?
* [[Twenty Minutes Into the Future]]: 1995's ''1. Outside'' as the main action starts on December 31, 1999.
* [[Typecasting]]: Most of his roles, be they goodies or baddies, human or inhuman, are linked by a cool, mysterious aura -- theaura—the trailer for the movie ''[[The Hunger]]'' referred to this as "cruel elegance".
* [[Ubermensch]]: A recurring theme in several early songs, including "The Supermen," "Quicksand," and "Oh! You Pretty Things."
* [[Uncanny Valley Makeup]]: A lot in his younger days, and the illustrations of the ''1. Outside'' booklet. Arguably, Bowie is somewhat in the [[Uncanny Valley]] even ''without'' a specific makeup...
* [[Unusual Eyebrows]]: Bowie shaved off his eyebrows one grumpy, drunken night in 1972, and liked the resultant look enough that he kept them shaved off until ''Young Americans''.
* [[Video Full of Film Clips]]: Several -- "This Is Not America" (''The Falcon and the Snowman''), "Absolute Beginners", "As the World Falls Down" (''Labyrinth''; crosses over with Movie Tie-In Music Video), "[[When the Wind Blows]]", "Real [[Cool World]]", and "The Buddha of Suburbia". He doesn't appear onscreen in any way, shape, or form in the first and fifth examples.
* [[Video Inside, Film Outside]]: The video for "D.J." uses this with the side effect of furthering the song and clip's premise: In the filmed city streets he's cheery and confident and surrounded by fans, but in the videotaped studio -- wherestudio—where he's presumably alone -- healone—he's coming unhinged.
* [[Villainous Cheekbones]]: His angular cheeks served him well as The Thin White Duke (which came at a time when he was downright bony) and such film villains as Jareth.
* [[Villain Love Song]]: "As the World Falls Down" (''Labyrinth'').
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* [[Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?]]: Or in this case, "Zowie". Thankfully, Bowie saw fit to give his son the full name "Duncan Zowie Hayward Jones" on his birth certificate, in case young Zowie Bowie ended up hating his name and wanted to change to something more normal. He did, and is now famous in his own right as [[Moon|director]] Duncan Jones.
* [[Who Wants to Live Forever?]]: The plight of the title beings in "The Supermen".
* [[Word Salad Lyrics]] and [[Word Salad Title]]: Bowie utilizes the "cut-up" technique often, resulting in some strange lyrical products. ''1. Outside'' not only has examples of cut-up lyrics, but the technique is actually used ''in-story'' -- in—in the liner notes' "The Diary of Nathan Adler", Adler takes computer database information on people who knew the victim of the art-murder and feeds it into a randomizer "that re-strings real life facts as improbable virtual-fact" with the hopes of finding "a lead or two".
* [[Writing by the Seat of Your Pants]]: On many albums, Bowie went into the studio with a few chord changes and wrote the songs on the hoof (""Heroes"" was being written as it was recorded). Averted, however, on ''Hunky Dory'' on which Bowie carefully crafted the songs on the piano before entering the studio.
* [[You Are Not Alone]]: The point of "Rock 'N' Roll Suicide", the closing song on ''Ziggy Stardust''.
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