David Bowie

⁠A Short History of Ancient Rome⁠ - the debut book from the Noiser Network is out now! Discover the epic rise and fall of Rome like never before. Pick up your copy now at your local bookstore or visit ⁠⁠noiser.com/books⁠⁠ to learn more. During a career spanning half a century, David Bowie constantly reinvented his image and sound, creating the diverse body of work that made him a titan in the history of modern music. From the androgynous alien energy of Ziggy Stardust to the suave, enigmatic Thin White Duke, Bowie’s artistic restlessness became his trademark. Few artists have shaped popular culture with such imagination and fearlessness. So how did a suburban boy transform himself into a rock superstar? What fuelled his boundless creativity? And how did he change pop music forever? This is a Short History Of David Bowie. A Noiser podcast production. Hosted by John Hopkins. With thanks to Chris O'Leary, author of two books on the songs of David Bowie, Rebel Rebel and Ashes to Ashes. Written by Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow | Produced by Kate Simants | Production Assistant: Chris McDonald | Exec produced by Katrina Hughes | Sound supervisor: Tom Pink | Sound design by Oliver Sanders | Assembly edit by Anisha Deva | Compositions by Oliver Baines, Dorry Macaulay, Tom Pink | Mix & mastering: Cody Reynolds-Shaw | Fact Check: Sean Coleman Get every episode of Short History Of… a week early with Noiser+. You’ll also get ad-free listening, bonus material and early access to shows across the Noiser podcast network. Click the subscription banner at the top of the feed to get started. Or go to ⁠noiser.com/subscriptions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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• 0:57Speaker 02

  It is the evening of the 6th of July, 1972, in the city of Bristol, southwest England. It has been a warm day, and children are still playing outside in the dwindling sunlight. But one 13-year-old boy is unable to enjoy the glorious evening. Stuck inside, he sits at the dining table with his exercise book and pencil case, listlessly doing his maths homework. Behind him, his mother bustles about in their avocado-green kitchen, humming along to something on the radio. Through the doorway into the living room, you can see his father reading the paper. When he catches his son staring,

• 1:39Speaker 02

  he gestures sharply for him to get back to the equations. Eventually, his mother takes off her apron and calls through to her son to hurry up. The program will be starting in five minutes. The boy speeds through his last few sums before slamming his textbook shut and racing eagerly into the living room. He kneels on the heavily-patterned carpet and switches on the brand-new color television, pressing the button beside the screen for the right channel.

• 2:12Speaker 02

  As deep as it is wide, the top-of-the-line black-and-silver monstrosity is his father's pride and joy. And on Thursday evenings, the family always gathers round it to watch the latest musical hits on Top of the Pops. The first few bands who play on the programme aren't really the boy's thing, and he starts to lose interest. But then, his favourite DJ, Radio 1's Tony Blackburn, appears on screen to introduce someone new: David Bowie, singing "Starman". The teenager sits transfixed, as a hand appears on screen, strumming an electric-blue guitar.

• 2:53Speaker 02

  Then the shot cuts to a face, indistinct at first, but growing clearer. The man, who must be David Bowie, smiles crookedly at the camera. He stares directly down the lens as he sings, his pale face framed by shockingly-orange hair. And his captivating eyes, accentuated by dark make-up, appear to be different colours, with one pupil much larger than the other. As the song continues, the camera moves back to reveal Bowie's multi-coloured, tight-fitting jumpsuit. The pink satin shirt worn by the drummer glimmers under the bright studio lights, and

• 3:34Speaker 02

  the guitarist's platinum-blond hair cascades down his back, his tight, gold outfit daringly unbuttoned to his sternum. It's a world away from the brown-tailored shorts and short-sleeved shirt the boy himself is wearing. And the shocks keep coming. Bowie now slings an arm around the guitarist's neck in a gesture of casual intimacy, drawing his face close as the song reaches its emotional peak. For a moment, you can almost imagine they're about to kiss. His father grunts in displeasure and fumbles for the remote, muttering about how unsuitable this is for children.

• 4:15Speaker 02

  But even after the TV is switched off, the boy sits enraptured in front of the blank screen, ignoring his parents' disapproving conversation behind him. Because, by bringing music, colour and excitement into an otherwise beige Thursday evening, David Bowie has just opened his eyes to a whole new world.

• 4:46Speaker 02

  David Bowie’s July 1972 appearance on the BBC music programme Top of the Pops was a shocking cultural moment. With his shaggy red hair, painted nails, smudged eye makeup and tight-fitting clothes, the Ziggy Stardust character he inhabited that night was avant-garde, futuristic and androgynous. And he was beamed directly into living rooms across the nation, alarming stuffy parents and energising younger viewers.

• 5:14Speaker 02

  But Ziggy Stardust was one of only many personas the musician would adopt. Over a career spanning half a century, Bowie constantly reinvented his image and sound, creating the diverse body of work that made him a titan in the history of modern music.

• 5:34Speaker 02

  So how did a suburban boy transform himself into a rock superstar? What fuelled his boundless creativity? And how did he change pop music forever?

• 5:47Speaker 02

  I’m John Hopkins from the Noiser Podcast Network. This is A Short History of David Bowie.

• 6:05Speaker 02

  The boy who will one day become Ziggy Stardust is born David Robert Burns on the 8th of January 1947 in Brixton.

• 6:16Speaker 02

  South London is still rebuilding after the Blitz, and the lingering effects of the war are felt well into his childhood. There are empty gaps where buildings once stood, few streetlights, and food and electricity are still rationed.

• 6:31Speaker 02

  At the time of his birth, his parents are unmarried. His father, Haywood Stenton-Jones, works for Dr Bernardo’s Children’s Charity and met David’s mother, Peggy Burns, when she was an usherette at the Ritz Cinema. They both have children from previous relationships. They marry when David is eight months old, and his surname is changed for the first time to Jones. The family do not stay in Brixton for long.

• 7:00Speaker 02

  Chris O'Leary is author of two books on the songs of David Bowie: Rebel Rebel and Ashes to Ashes.

• 7:06Speaker 03

  He liked to, in later years, play up being a Brixton boy. But that wasn't really accurate. His family, by the time I think he was five or six, had moved to Bromley. And Bromley is basically where he grew up. He's a suburban kid, and Bromley is what really forms him.

• 7:27Speaker 02

  The young David is close to his father, but Peggy is emotionally distant. In later life, Bowie will encourage the idea that he had a dysfunctional childhood. But in reality, his formative years are fairly prosaic, spent in a neat terraced house with the luxuries of both a television and telephone.

• 7:47Speaker 02

  From 1958, David is educated at the local secondary school, Bromley Tech, where he shows an interest in only three things: art, music, and girls. The school stands on the same site as the Bromley College of Art, leading to a common misconception.

• 8:05Speaker 03

  He goes to Bromley Tech and then doesn't go any further. One of the great Bowie myths, which I think he perpetuated, was that he went to art school, and he didn't. He never went to art school.

• 8:20Speaker 02

  His interest in music is apparent from a young age, encouraged by his older half-brother Terry, who plays him jazz records.

• 8:28Speaker 02

  He sings in the church choir alongside fellow Bromley Tech pupil George Underwood, with whom he bonds over their shared love of rock and roll. After school, they spend their time listening to records in the gramophone section of the local department store.

• 8:46Speaker 02

  It is George who is responsible for one of David's most notable features: his mismatched eyes. Aged 15, the boys both have their hearts set on the same girl. George arranges a date with her, but David sabotages it. And when George discovers the betrayal, he goes in search of him to give him a black eye. But though David's sight is saved, the muscles controlling the iris of his left eye are paralyzed, leaving the pupil permanently dilated, and giving the effect that his eyes are different colors.

• 9:22Speaker 02

  The teenagers soon make up and form a band, The Conrad's.

• 9:29Speaker 02

  Perhaps surprisingly, given his latest status as frontman, David doesn't sing initially.

• 9:35Speaker 03

  He began as a saxophonist. That was his first instrument he got. He loved Little Richard. He loved the sound of Earl Bostick, who was one of his great 1950s R&B jazz, big honking saxophonists. And that was his original idea. He was going to be a sax player in kind of a R&B band.

• 9:58Speaker 02

  David's first live gig with The Conrad's takes place at his school summer fete in the summer of 1962. They play instrumental covers with David on saxophone and George on lead guitar. At the time, it seems more likely that the latter will be the musical success. He is taller, better looking, and can move like Elvis Presley. But soon, David is drawn to the spotlight.

• 10:22Speaker 03

  I think one thing that this band, The Conrad's, did was show him that what he really wanted to do was be a leader of the band. He wanted to be the singer, he wanted to be the songwriter, he wanted to be the person who controlled the look of the band, their stage presence, everything.

• 10:37Speaker 02

  By the end of 1963, Beatlemania is reaching a fever pitch. And it's in their fame and success that a teenage David sees the path he wants his life to take.

• 10:55Speaker 04

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• 12:45Speaker 02

  He leaves school in 1963 with only two qualifications, in art and woodwork.

• 12:52Speaker 02

  By this point, he is playing the guitar and piano alongside the saxophone. He knows the ordinary world of work is not for him.

• 13:00Speaker 03

  For a time, worked very briefly in advertising. He called himself a junior visualizer. I think he was the lowest person on the totem pole at whatever ad agency he was working for. And that didn't last very long. He pretty much from 1963 onward just wanted to make a life in music and did. He'd never really had a full-time job or, quote, respectable job after 17 or so.

• 13:25Speaker 02

  For a few years, he performs with a variety of bands. 1964 sees him secure his first management contract, and he releases his first single as the frontman of Davy Jones and the King Bees. But success remains elusive, with the early singles barely selling and receiving little play on the radio. Even so, in 1966, he is signed by a record label.

• 13:49Speaker 03

  He signs with Pi Records, The Kinks' label, and again has no luck. But the thing about him is that he keeps getting breaks. He keeps getting signed by different labels. He keeps getting new bands, and so, strangely enough, he gets an album contract from DECA, one of the biggest labels in UK pop at the time, even though he had absolutely no track record. He just had a good manager, and he just had the ability to convince people, I think. He was so charismatic, that, "Okay, this time is gonna be the big one. This is gonna be the hit."

• 14:25Speaker 02

  1966 is also the year that David Robert Jones becomes David Bowie. The switch is made to avoid confusion with Davy Jones from the band The Monkees, but his reasons for choosing Bowie remain unclear. He will later claim it was inspired by the hunting knife of the same name. Unfortunately, the rebrand does little for his career, at least to begin with. His self-titled first album, released in 1967, is a flop.

• 14:55Speaker 03

  He starts out doing early Rolling Stones, Yardbirds, kind of heavy R&B stylings, and then he discards that for more adventurous feedback stuff like The Who we're doing in 1965, that goes nowhere. He starts moving into this kind of very sophisticated pop sound. Again, they don't really go anywhere, and then, in the DECA period, he's doing mild psychedelia. It's not like Pink Floyd or anything, but it's more adventurous, it's stranger, it's got cartoon voices and sound effects. So all of it is of its time. It just did not measure up, for listeners at the time, to the likes of The Beatles

• 15:38Speaker 03

  and The Small Faces, or whoever he was imitating.

• 15:43Speaker 02

  But a few years later, he finally has his taste of success.

• 15:49Speaker 02

  "Space Oddity", a song that tells the tale of the fictional astronaut Major Tom, is rushed out to coincide with a 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing. And the shameless tie-in works. The BBC even use it during their coverage around the event. It ultimately reaches number five in the UK charts.

• 16:14Speaker 02

  The next year, there is excitement in Bowie's personal life too, when he marries 20-year-old model and journalist Mary Angela Barnett, known as Angie. Their son Duncan Zawie Jones is born the next year. But the relationship quickly sours.

• 16:30Speaker 03

  They have kind of a tortured relationship that goes on through most of the 70s. And the tragedy is that she had thought that the relationship was going to be a quid pro quo in which he became famous, and then he would help her become famous as an actress or a performer. And it doesn't really work out that way. And they become estranged pretty quickly.

• 16:51Speaker 02

  Before things go south, however, she will be instrumental in Bowie's breakout moment.

• 16:58Speaker 02

  After his brief success with "Space Oddity", Bowie releases "The Man Who Sold the World" and "Hunky Dory",

• 17:06Speaker 02

  but it is 1972's "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars" that finally confirms his arrival.

• 17:14Speaker 03

  Before that, he was kind of considered a one-hit wonder. He was the guy that did the song about Major Tom in 1969, and then nobody had heard from him since. As revered as "Hunky Dory" is, it was not really successful when it first came out. You would think a song like "Changes" would have been a smash, but it wasn't until after the Ziggy period. So yeah, he was considered sort of like a fluke hit that had a song about the moon landings. And suddenly now he was back, three years later, and that really establishes him finally as like, "Okay, this person has presence and is going to be here for a while."

• 17:49Speaker 02

  His success is aided by his collaboration with a guitarist Mick Ronson, who helps Bowie to crystallize his sound.

• 17:56Speaker 03

  He's able to kind of nail down, I guess what you would consider the early classic Bowie sound, which is the sound of Hunky Dory and Ziggy Stardust, which is hard rock, but also with a great pop element to it. So it's not just heavy rock, it's stuff like Life on Mars and Changes, which is much lighter, which is much more intricate.

• 18:19Speaker 02

  After his appearance on Top of the Pops in July, the album rises up the UK charts, eventually reaching number six.

• 18:29Speaker 02

  The programme marks the television debut of his Ziggy Stardust character, an androgynous and orange-haired alien who has come to Earth to deliver a message of hope via the medium of rock music. So influential is the broadcast on future musicians, but it will come to be described as the day that invented the 80s. Musicians from Bono and Adamant to Morrissey and Boy George, they just speak about the life-changing impact of watching Bowie on that fateful night. And it announces him as a performer as much as a musician.

• 19:02Speaker 03

  The package he created of this character, the sort of backstory, the look, the band, the Spiders from Mars, it was all very, very well designed in a way that was closer to maybe a Broadway production, a western theatre production than a rock band typically had been. It was again a reaction to everybody wearing blue jeans and faded tie-dye shirts. This is no, we're going to wear feathers, we're going to wear makeup, we're going to wear dresses and platformed shoes and be a giant spectacle. And that's where Bowie really thrived.

• 19:36Speaker 02

  With the Ziggy Stardust persona that he inhabits on stage, Bowie becomes a figurehead of the glam rock movement. But his wife Angie has a huge creative influence.

• 19:47Speaker 03

  And I think she is very, very important to that Ziggy period. She is like a sounding board for ideas, like him, very publicity-minded, and knows what will capture headlines. And she's sort of a stage manager of the early Ziggy period for him and is very, very, very ambitious and is driven.

• 20:10Speaker 02

  The gender-fluid nature of Bowie's appearance in these years is often commented upon. London's first gay pride march occurs just a few days before his explosive moment on Top of the Pops on the 1st of July 1972. Sex between consenting men has only recently been partially decriminalised. In the wake of these legal changes, Bowie is at the forefront of a new pop cultural movement that is determined to transgress societal norms around sex and gender.

• 20:40Speaker 02

  His own identity is harder to ascertain. While promoting Ziggy Stardust, he gives an interview to Melody Maker where he describes himself as gay. In 1976, he clarifies that he is in fact bisexual, though this is far from the last thing he will say about his sexuality.

• 20:59Speaker 02

  Regardless of how he describes himself, his flamboyant outfits and performances have a huge impact on young people, however they identify.

• 21:08Speaker 03

  He was pretty enormous in terms of the freedom he gave teenagers or young people in England, in America. He showed there was an alternative to sort of the macho, hard rock archetype stuff, the Jimmy Page kind of thing. I just think him being there gave people the freedom to be like, you know what, I'm going out to the club tonight and I'm gonna wear eyeliner. I don't have to conform to what society tells me how I should dress, what my gender should be. There is this kind of figure out there who is offering an alternative, a different way of living than your middle-class, your working-class existence in the 70s.

• 22:21Speaker 01

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• 22:49Speaker 02

  While promoting the Ziggy Stardust album, Bowie tours America for the first time. In 1974, after gaining popularity on both sides of the Atlantic, he moves to live in LA full-time. By this point, he and Angie are living largely separate lives. America, with its rich musical traditions, inevitably has an impact on him. In the following years, he is more and more influenced by funk and soul music. And so, it is time to say goodbye to Ziggy Stardust. Within a year of the character being created, he is retired.

• 23:26Speaker 03

  I think he's very savvy in that he knows the pop world expects novelty in this period, expects turnover and change. And it helped that he had had this long streak in the 60s where nothing was working for him, so he could discard things. He realized very quickly that he could not be Ziggy Stardust that long. The character would get really tired really quickly and seem dated. And so, that is why he kind of ends the persona by the end of 1973.

• 24:00Speaker 02

  Between 1973 and 1976, Bowie releases four successful albums: Aladdin Sane, Diamond Dogs, Young Americans, and Station to Station. His relentless creativity sees him reinvent himself with each new record. His albums are now charting regularly in both the UK and the US.

• 24:22Speaker 02

  Despite his success, he fires his manager, Tony DeFries, in 1975. Among his various complaints, Bowie feels as though DeFries does not support his creative vision, wanting him to go in a poppier and more lucrative direction. It is not an amicable split. After months of litigation, DeFries is granted a percentage of all Bowie's earnings until 1982. For the next seven years, the musician will have to watch as millions of pounds are sent off in settlement, while he himself sometimes faces periods of financial difficulty.

• 24:58Speaker 02

  It is from his time in America that one of the most disturbing stories about David Bowie's life emerges.

• 25:05Speaker 02

  The 70s sees the height of groupie culture. Young women, many of them teenagers, take to hanging around after gigs and at nightclubs, hoping to meet and form relationships with the rock and pop stars of the day.

• 25:19Speaker 02

  It's a scene that Bowie takes an enthusiastic part in. And much later, in 2015, a former groupie alleges a sexual encounter with Bowie in the early 70s, when he was 26 and she was just 14.

• 25:32Speaker 02

  While Bowie himself never responds to the allegations, her account has since been disputed by other groupies, and the truth of the matter remains unclear.

• 25:44Speaker 02

  But it's also when he's in America that Bowie takes the lead in his first major film. The Man Who Fell to Earth is a sci-fi drama about an alien who crashed lands on Earth. The musician, of course, plays the extraterrestrial.

• 26:01Speaker 02

  Though Bowie's years in the States are creatively vibrant, they coincide with a period of heavy drug use. When he takes his friend and fellow musician Iggy Pop with him on tour in 1976, they're both arrested in New York for possession of marijuana. The charges are later dropped, but according to some, Bowie is by this point subsisting on a diet of milk, cigarettes, and cocaine.

• 26:26Speaker 02

  As with a lot of the stories about him, it's hard to know what to believe.

• 26:30Speaker 03

  I mean, with him, there's always an element of self-mythology. I think he was, I don't know if you would say flat out he was a cocaine addict in the mid 70s. He definitely liked using cocaine, from all evidence. And so I think it probably was a very isolated and difficult period for him, but I think he also did play up that, "Oh, I can't remember anything from that era."

• 26:57Speaker 02

  On the 1976 station-to-station tour, at the height of his apparent addiction, Bowie starts to appear onstage in character as the thin, white duke. His hair is shorter and blonde, slicked sharply back. He wears a white shirt, tailored black trousers, and a waistcoat, a million miles from the glitz and glam of Ziggy Stardust. When asked to describe the persona, Bowie calls him "a very Aryan fascist type." And over the course of the European tour, it becomes unclear exactly where the fascist, thin, white duke ends, and Bowie himself begins.

• 27:40Speaker 02

  It's late April 1976. A train clatters into Brest Railway Station, on the border between Poland and Russia, and grinds to a halt.

• 27:54Speaker 02

  A young man named Andrew Kent blinks slowly awake from a nap, his cheek pressed against the window of the train carriage. He and his friends drank too much last night, and his head is still throbbing. He stretches his arms above his head, shoulder joints popping uncomfortably, then suddenly jumps up, realizing they need to get off. The conductor had explained to them that they would have to change to a different train if they were traveling all the way to Moscow, something about the difference between European and Russian railway tracks.

• 28:28Speaker 02

  As his companions rush to leave, Andrew grabs his bag and follows them off the train, checking the camera slung around his neck. He is a photographer, following David Bowie and Iggy Pop as they travel across Europe on David's latest tour.

• 28:44Speaker 02

  On the platform he gets a few snaps of the musicians enjoying a smoke as they wait for the next train, their jeans and shiny bomber jackets marking them out as western tourists. But despite the glamour of being on tour, both musicians look worse for wear. Bowie, in particular, is gaunt-faced, with large, dark circles under his bewitching eyes.

• 29:10Speaker 02

  As he is focusing his next shot, Andrew notices a man in a dark-blue uniform approaching their small group. He claps Bowie on the shoulder and insists, in broken English, that everyone must come with him. Now. His tone does not invite disagreement.

• 29:30Speaker 02

  The men follow him through the station building until they reach a huge, bare room. There are no windows, just a single lightbulb dangling from the ceiling.

• 29:40Speaker 02

  After ushering them inside, the official leaves, closing the door firmly behind him.

• 29:47Speaker 02

  They wait for several tense minutes. At last the door swings open, admitting another man in the same blue uniform. He explains that he is with the KGB, the Soviet Union Security Agency. In a bone-chilling voice, he tells Bowie that the intelligence service hadn't been expecting him. Andrew tries not to panic, but this is bad. They had hoped to pass unnoticed behind the Iron Curtain by pretending to be ordinary tourists. It seems someone has tipped them off.

• 30:25Speaker 02

  The intelligence officer asks for their papers, and spends an interminable amount of time scrutinizing them.

• 30:32Speaker 02

  Unable to find anything amiss, he next orders them to open their suitcases. Andrews is the first to be inspected. He blushes when the officer pulls out the latest issue of Playboy magazine, and proceeds to flip through its pages, pausing at some of the racier photographs. "This," he declares, "will have to be confiscated."

• 30:56Speaker 02

  He then proceeds to rifle through the other men's luggage, finally coming to David's.

• 31:03Speaker 02

  Most of his suitcase is given over to books, and the officer reads every title intently, his frown deepening.

• 31:12Speaker 02

  Glancing at the covers, Andrew can see that a surprising number seemed to be about Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich.

• 31:20Speaker 02

  Eventually, the officer straightens up. "The men can repack their things and continue on their journey," he tells them. "But David's fascist books will have to stay."

• 31:31Speaker 02

  They hurried to comply, flinging their belongings back in their cases and cramming the lids shut.

• 31:38Speaker 02

  Soon, they are back on the platform, laughing at their lucky escape, and wondering what awaits them when they step off the train in Moscow.

• 31:50Speaker 02

  In the end, Bowie's journey through Russia passes without incident. But his confiscated books, and, according to some reports, Nazi memorabilia, evidences his recent and unhealthy obsession with far-right politics.

• 32:06Speaker 02

  Just a few days later, he provokes further controversy during a press conference in Stockholm when he proclaims that Britain would benefit from a fascist leader, and declares that Hitler was the first rock star.

• 32:19Speaker 02

  Worse still, a photo taken when he arrives back in London appears to show him throwing a Nazi salute.

• 32:27Speaker 02

  Bowie quickly disavows the comments in an interview with the Daily Express given a couple of days later. In the coming months, he repeatedly claims to be upset that anyone might consider him a racist, and he rarely makes a political statement from that day on.

• 32:46Speaker 02

  Though several biographers believe that his remarks were designed as a publicity stunt, or were the result of his drug-taking, his words have a lasting impact.

• 32:56Speaker 02

  Later, in 1976, the campaign group Rock Against Racism is formed, in response to both Bowie's comments and a racist onstage rant by Eric Clapton.

• 33:09Speaker 02

  After the Station to Station tour finishes, Bowie decides to leave L.A. and the drugs behind. And so he moves to Berlin with Iggy Pop and without his wife.

• 33:21Speaker 03

  I think he was in a bad situation in Los Angeles when he was doing the Station to Station album. I think he was using a lot of drugs, but also I think he was really cut off from everything. And he came to believe that Europe could be a way out for him. I also think that it's hard to visualize now, 50 years later, but you really could go off the grid pretty easily, even if you were famous like him. If you go to West Berlin in 1976, you're not going to have photographers following you around. You can really live as a civilian if you wanted to, which he did.

• 33:57Speaker 02

  His time in Berlin allows him to get clean, away from the harsh glare of the limelight, and also offers an opportunity to recharge creatively. He now takes a step in another new direction with his music, releasing the Berlin trilogy of albums "Low," "Heroes," and "Lodger" in the late '70s.

• 34:17Speaker 02

  He's also collaborating with Iggy Pop on his records "The Idiot" and "Lust for Life."

• 34:23Speaker 03

  The sound is influenced, obviously, by German bands like Kraftwerk, like Noy, but there's also still Bowie's fractured take on American funk, because he still has his band from the L.A. period. So it's experimental, but again, it's not absolutely wild avant-garde music. It's still a lot of song structures, it's still poppy, it still has singles like "Sound and Vision," which was a pretty big hit in the U.K., and obviously "Heroes" would, down the road, become one of his most famous songs, one of his most loved songs.

• 34:58Speaker 02

  The albums do not sell as well as his previous work, but they're critically acclaimed. Sadly, the reinvigoration of his musical output occurs against the complete disintegration of his marriage to Angie.

• 35:12Speaker 02

  Although they have been growing apart for years, in 1976, she had bought a property in Switzerland that she hoped might become a family home. But her husband's move to Berlin confirms he doesn't share her hopes of rekindling the relationship. And by 1978, she's giving interviews claiming their marriage is over.

• 35:31Speaker 02

  A year later, the couple initiate divorce proceedings. It is an acrimonious split. Angie receives half a million pounds, but has to agree to a ten-year gagging order preventing her from talking publicly about Bowie or their marriage. She loses custody of their son, and soon Duncan is completely estranged from his mother.

• 35:56Speaker 02

  When Angie can eventually talk about their marriage, she releases a biography discussing their bisexual and allegedly drug-fueled and promiscuous lifestyle. She also claims that listening to Bowie's music always made her feel sick.

• 36:11Speaker 02

  Newly single, Bowie undergoes yet another creative transformation.

• 36:19Speaker 02

  1983's "Let's Dance" is a pop masterpiece and his most commercially successful album to date. It is EMI Records' fastest-selling album since The Beatles released Sgt. Pepper's "Lonely Hearts Club Band" sixteen years earlier. And the opening single quickly tops charts in both Britain and America.

• 36:40Speaker 03

  "Let's Dance," it's, in a way, a great act of revenge by Bowie. Revenge on two things. Revenge on his manager, his ex-manager, who he had a very bitter falling out with and a very brutal settlement in which the manager, I think, was receiving 20% or so of everything he recorded until 1982, even though he had stopped representing Bowie. And Bowie's label of the 70s, RCA, who he... grew to hate and who he believed had not promoted those Berlin records well. So in 1982, the agreement with the manager is over and he is no longer with RCA. And the first thing he does is he signs with a new label and he makes a huge pop record

• 37:23Speaker 03

  that sells more than any of his other albums. Almost as if, "F you, here's my pop record and you're not going to get a dime of it, neither of you."

• 37:37Speaker 02

  The album is produced with the legendary American musician and guitarist Nile Rodgers.

• 37:43Speaker 02

  It is the first of Bowie's albums where he sings but plays no instruments. And it is undeniably his most mainstream pop album. Critical responses mixed and in later years Bowie himself will say he was playing it safe when he made it.

• 37:58Speaker 02

  Yet it is undoubtedly with "Let's Dance" and the accompanying "Sirius Moonlight Tour" that Bowie's global fame is solidified. At last, a decade after Ziggy Stardust, he is a stratospherically successful pop star.

• 38:14Speaker 02

  In the following years, he veers between leaning into a celebrity and rejecting it.

• 38:20Speaker 03

  So he has enormous success with "Let's Dance" and almost immediately, kind of wonderfully in a Bowie way, kind of says, "My God, what have I done? Now people who like Phil Collins like me."

• 38:30Speaker 02

  In his more genial moments, he performs at the Live Aid Charity Concert in July 1985 and records a cover of "Dancing in the Street" with Mick Jagger. He also begins to disown some of his previous comments on his sexuality.

• 38:45Speaker 03

  The period where he kind of renounces it all is unfortunately the peak of a homophobic period in the early 80s, particularly in the US, coinciding with the AIDS crisis. And it was just really, to put it mildly, bad timing. And it really just angered people that he did that, understandably.

• 39:06Speaker 02

  Over the next couple of decades, he will refer to himself in various interviews as "a closet heterosexual", and say that he was never really gay or bisexual. He will even claim that coming out was the biggest mistake he ever made.

• 39:21Speaker 02

  After the release of Let's Dance, Bowie also dips his toe back into the world of acting. He has retained an interest in cinema throughout his life, but it is his starring role in Labyrinth, a fantasy film released in 1986, that wins him a whole new generation of fans.

• 39:47Speaker 02

  It is the middle of June 1985.

• 39:51Speaker 02

  Inside Elstree Studios, on the outskirts of London, a runner is attempting to escape from the Goblin Kingdom.

• 40:02Speaker 02

  Skirting around the edges of the epic fantasy set that has been built, the young man dodges the director and choreographer as they talk through the scene about to be shot. A circular throne dominates one end of the room under a thickly glazed round window.

• 40:18Speaker 02

  The walls are to be carved from stone, and various goblin-like puppets are perched on rocky ledges around the perimeter, ready to be brought to life by a team of talented handlers. Amidst the faux-medieval scenery, the modern lighting rigs and cameras being set up look incongruous.

• 40:39Speaker 02

  Finally, outside the studios, the runner crosses a car park and taps on the door of the hair and makeup trailer.

• 40:47Speaker 02

  He is here to collect the star of Labyrinth, David Bowie, playing the part of Jareth the Goblin King, whose throne room forms the set for today's scenes.

• 40:58Speaker 02

  Made up and ready to go, Bowie springs down the trailer steps, already dressed in tight grey trousers and tall black boots, a flounced white shirt and black waistcoat. The ensemble is topped with an elaborate, long blonde wig, his compelling eyes highlighted with lashings of dark eyeliner. Today, they are filming a musical scene, where Gareth dances with a horde of goblins, as well as the young baby that he has kidnapped. During filming, Bowie will have to act alongside dozens of puppets, as well as a real-life screaming baby. But the star seems unfazed, chatting casually to the runner as they make their way inside.

• 41:43Speaker 02

  Back on set, Bowie is greeted by the choreographer, and the runner sinks back into the shadows, where the puppeteers prepare their creations.

• 41:53Speaker 02

  After rehearsals are over, the runner is sent to fetch Bowie a glass of water. He returns to find the musician, sitting on a row of chairs, chatting and laughing with a mother and her young baby, his co-star in this scene.

• 42:08Speaker 02

  The child is dressed in a red-and-white striped baby grow. After days of filming with David, he has finally got used to him, and no longer screams whenever he appears in costume. Once final sound and lighting checks are complete, it's time for the actors to get into position. David walks over and sits down on the throne. He flings one leg over the arm and leans back nonchalantly. The puppeteers take up their stations, ready to animate the goblins. Finally, the mother David had been chatting to walks over and places her baby in the middle of the room, stranding him amidst the fearsome-looking puppets.

• 42:49Speaker 02

  He immediately starts bawling at the top of his lungs.

• 42:54Speaker 02

  The runner suppresses a grin. At least the baby is supposed to be crying in this scene.

• 43:01Speaker 02

  Someone calls for quiet. An expectant hush falls. Apart from the wailing infant.

• 43:08Speaker 02

  The director calls action, and Jarrett slowly uncoils from his throne, stalking towards the distraught child on the floor of his throne room. The runner stands enraptured as film history is made.

• 43:35Speaker 00

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• 44:02Speaker 01

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• 44:19Speaker 01

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• 44:31Speaker 02

  Bowie spends much of 1985 filming and recording songs for the "Labyrinth" soundtrack. The film tells the story of a teenage girl, Sarah, whose baby brother is stolen away by Jarrett the Goblin King, and he must travel through the Goblin City to win him back. Though not necessarily well-received amongst critics, it quickly achieves cult-like status.

• 44:55Speaker 03

  He stars in "Labyrinth", you know, the Jim Henson puppet movie, which is actually very important for him because that is how a new generation knows him. He's very clever in that there's going to be people who are teenagers in the 90s who are going to know me first as Jarrett the Goblin King from this cool movie they loved when they were 11.

• 45:14Speaker 02

  After shooting wraps on "Labyrinth", Bowie returns to music. But for the first time since he broke onto the scene in 1972, he struggles. 1987's "Never Let Me Down" is not a hit. His music seems somewhat passe as the 90s dawn.

• 45:35Speaker 02

  He is more fortunate in his personal life. In 1992, he marries Somali-American model Iman. His son Duncan, now 20, is his best man.

• 45:47Speaker 03

  The second marriage by all appearances seems to have been a very happy union for him and a one that really grounded him. He seems, after that marriage, to be a much more calm and relaxed and centered person at least, from the persona that he gave to the press.

• 46:05Speaker 02

  The couple insists that their wedding be sanctified in a church in Florence, Italy. In interviews, Bowie talks about how important it was to have their union recognized in the eyes of God. Like his politics, his religious beliefs are eclectic, but he is nonetheless deeply spiritual, influenced by both the Christianity of his childhood and the Buddhist teachings to which he was introduced in the late 60s.

• 46:29Speaker 03

  It's very hard to nail down what exactly he thought. It seemed to be a combination of Tibetan Buddhism. And then he has a Christian side to him, which I think is informed by Gnosticism, the Christian Gnostic heresy, which is kind of the idea of the creator of this world is sort of a false god, there is another god beyond, and what we perceive as reality is not quite reality. And if you know what to look for, maybe you will find greater revelations out there.

• 47:01Speaker 02

  After their wedding, they settle in New York and have a daughter, Lexi, born in 2000, when Bowie is well into his 50s. But amidst the joy, years of drugs, cigarettes, and overwork begin to take their toll on the musician's body. His health starts to deteriorate.

• 47:20Speaker 03

  It's never been confirmed, but he appeared to have something happen to him onstage in 2004. It might have been a heart attack, it might have been some other thing. But that kind of throws him for a loop, and he basically is done with touring after that. And then, a year or two after he stops touring, he stops recording for almost eight years, seven years. He kind of vanishes. He becomes almost as if he's already gone.

• 47:49Speaker 02

  Stepping back from touring allows him to have something approaching a normal life in New York with his wife and daughter. The break helps his reputation, too.

• 47:58Speaker 03

  It kind of allowed him to sidestep the trap of being a rock artist in his 50s and 60s, grinding out albums that people were like, "Oh, that's pretty good. There's a good song on it." You know, kind of like the Rolling Stones, or Paul McCartney, or what have you. By being absent for so long, when he comes back, it's more of an event.

• 48:17Speaker 02

  The next day is Bowie's 25th studio album, and it proves the longevity of his star power. It immediately tops charts worldwide, his first number-one UK album in two decades, and receives rave reviews. But Bowie has one more musical surprise in store for his fans. Sometime in 2014 or 2015, David Bowie is diagnosed with liver cancer. He spends his final months recording one final album. "Black Star" is released on his 69th birthday, the 8th of January 2016.

• 48:56Speaker 03

  "Black Star" seems incredibly well-designed. It feels like this is something that is absolutely meticulously planned out. And whether it's tied to the fact that he knew he wasn't going to have that many more years left and he wants to do a final statement, obviously his death coinciding almost simultaneously with the release of it means that it's always going to be connected with that. But I think, as a piece of art, it's just pretty striking. And the thing about it also is, it's fresh sounding.

• 49:25Speaker 02

  In "Lazarus," one of its singles, he sings "Look up here, I'm in heaven." And the album turns out to be Bowie's swan song. He dies on the 10th of January 2016, just two days after the album is released. The star man has finally ascended.

• 49:49Speaker 02

  Throughout his long and intensely creative life, David Bowie's boundless originality and capacity for reinvention helped to shape popular music on both sides of the Atlantic and inspired a new generation of artists.

• 50:04Speaker 03

  It helped that he'd been around the 60s, kind of in the margins, watching everything happen. Bowie is someone who can see how stories go and can see how trends go and how you need to go left when you're supposed to go right and zigzag and so forth. So I think one of the things he does is provide a template for how, as a pop musician, you can have a life, have a career. It's a stretch to compare Taylor Swift to him, but you can see Taylor Swift is doing Bowie stuff and that she has, every couple of years, she has a new look, she has a new thing, she moves here, she moves there, and I think that's a very much a Bowie map.

• 50:41Speaker 02

  Often dubbed "The Chameleon of Rock," the endless variety of Bowie's music means that even today, he continues to find new fans.

• 50:51Speaker 02

  Like Lazarus, rising from the grave, his songs are brought back to life by each subsequent generation of music lovers.

• 51:00Speaker 03

  I think the variety of his music means that even if you think stuff like Ziggy Stardust is kind of hokey, you might still like Fame, that might appeal to you, or you might like Heroes, or you might even like the sort of R&B stylings of the mid 90s with Earthling. I feel like there's some type of Bowie music that appeals to everybody.

• 51:30Speaker 02

  Next time on Short History of, we'll bring you a short history of Nikola Tesla.

• 51:36Speaker 03

  Nikola Tesla obtained more than 300 patents, and he's credited with inventing, obviously, the electric motor, long-distance transmission, power transmission, radio, robots, remote control, all of which serve as the very foundation of our modern economy.

• 51:53Speaker 03

  In one movie, one of the characters asks, "What did Tesla invent?" And the other guy responds, "Oh, the 20th century."

• 52:03Speaker 05

  But I mean, even long after his death, Tesla was, you know, continued to inspire great minds. He had visions for cell phones, radar, laser weapons, artificial intelligence, the list sort of goes on.

• 52:14Speaker 02

  That's next time.

• 52:23Speaker 02

  If you can't wait a week until the next episode, you can listen to it right away by subscribing to Noiser Plus. Head to www.noiser.com/subscriptions for more information.

• 52:35Speaker 00

  Hey Spotify listeners. When you travel with American Airlines, you'll enjoy comfort and convenience at every altitude. Before takeoff, unwind in the Admiral's Club Lounge with curated self-serve offerings of hearty bites and refreshments. In-flight, stay connected with high-speed Wi-Fi, sponsored by AT&T. Your journey is designed to feel easy from the moment you check in to the moment you arrive. No matter where you're going, American gets you there. Book now at aa.com.

• 53:00Speaker 06

  This fall, discover why there are two sides to every pancake story at Cracker Barrel. The edgy side, created by the golden crispy edges, and the softer side, made up of those warm fluffy centers. So slow down, make time to bring in the family, day or night, and try the new Sweet Cream Caramel Apple Pancakes. Three of the world's best buttermilk pancakes, topped with fried cinnamon apples, caramel drizzle, and sweet vanilla cream. Then dig in and write your own breakfast story. Welcome home to Cracker Barrel.