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| Birth Name(s) : David Robert Hayward-Jones |
Date of Birth: January 8, 1947 |
| Status:
Married
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Partner:
N/A |
| Profession:
Actor/Musician |
Official Site
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Full David Bowie Biography
David Bowie is widely regarded as one of the most influential writers of pop music. Born 'David Jones' he changed his name to Bowie in the 60s, to avoid confusion with the then well-known Davy Jones (lead singer of the Monkees).
The 60s were not a happy period for Bowie, who remained a struggling artist awaiting his breakthrough. He dabbled in many different styles of music (without commercial success), and other art forms such as acting, mime, painting, and playwriting. He finally achieved his commercial breakthrough in 1969 with the song 'Space Oddity', which was released at the time of the moon landing. Despite the fact that the literal meaning of the lyrics relates to an astronaut who is lost in space, this song was used by the BBC in their coverage of the moon landing, and this helped it become such a success.
Towards the end of the 70s, he finally kicked his drug habit, and recorded the album many of his fans consider his best, the Japanese-influenced 'Scary Monsters'. Around this time, he played the Elephant Man on Broadway, to considerable acclaim.
The next few years saw something of a drop-off in his musical output as his acting career flourished, culminating in his acclaimed performance in Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983). In 1983, he recorded 'Let's Dance', an album which proved an unexpected massive commercial success, and produced his second number 1 hit single in the US. The tour which followed, 'Serious Moonlight', was his most successful ever.
After the comparative failure of Labyrinth (1986), the movie industry appears to have decided that Bowie was not a sufficient name to be a lead actor in a major movie, and since that date, most of his roles have been cameos or glorified cameos. He himself also seems to have lost interest in movie acting. Tin Machine toured extensively and released two albums, with little critical or commercial success.
In 1992, Bowie again changed direction and re-launched his solo career with 'Black Tie White Noise', a 'wedding' album inspired by his recent marriage to Iman. To date, the 90s have been kinder to Bowie than the late 80s. He has released three albums to considerable critical acclaim and reasonable commercial success. In 1995, he renewed his working relationship with Brian Eno to record 'Outside'. After an initial hostile reaction from the critics, this album has now taken its place with his classic albums.
In a career spanning four decades, Bowie has influenced the course of popular music several times and influenced several generations of musicians. His promotional videos in the 70s and 80s are regarded as ground-breaking, and as a live concert act, he is regarded as the most theatrical of them all. |
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Additional David Bowie Biography
David Bowie (IPA: ) (born David Robert Jones on January 8, 1947) is an English singer, songwriter, actor, multi-instrumentalist, producer, arranger, and audio engineer.
He then confounded the expectations of both his record label and his American audiences by recording the minimalist album Low – the first of three collaborations with Brian Eno. His most experimental works to date, the so-called "Berlin Trilogy" nevertheless produced three UK top-five albums. The anthem-like, towering title track of the second work "Heroes" (1977) is widely regarded as a milestone in rock and pop, ranked 46 on Rolling Stone Magazine's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
In 2004, Rolling Stone Magazine ranked him 39th on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
Bowie released his first album in 1967 for the Decca Records offshoot Deram, simply called David Bowie, an amalgam of pop, psychedelia and music hall. Around the same time he issued a novelty single utilising speeded-up Chipmunk-style vocals, "The Laughing Gnome", with the B-side "The Gospel According to Tony Day". None of these managed to chart, and he would not cut another record for two years. His Deram material from the album and various singles was later recycled in a multitude of compilations.
The Spiders From Mars came together again on Aladdin Sane, released in April 1973 and his first #1 album in the UK. Described by Bowie as "Ziggy goes to America", all the new songs were written on ship, bus or trains during the first leg of his US Ziggy Stardust tour. The album's cover, featuring Bowie shirtless with Ziggy hair and a red, black, and blue lightning bolt across his face, has been labelled "as startling as rock covers ever got". Aladdin Sane included the UK #2 hit "The Jean Genie", the UK #3 hit "Drive-In Saturday", and a rendition of The Rolling Stones' "Let's Spend the Night Together". Mike Garson joined Bowie to play piano on this album, and his solo on the title track is often cited as one of the album's highlights.
Bowie's next album was originally planned to be a live album recorded on the Serious Moonlight Tour, but EMI demanded another studio album instead. The resulting album, 1984's Tonight, was also dance-oriented, featuring collaborations with Tina Turner (and Iggy Pop), as well as various covers, including one of The Beach Boys' "God Only Knows". Critics labeled it a lazy effort, dashed off by Bowie simply to recapture Let's Dance's chart success, partially due to the fact most of the tracks were either covers or rerecordings of earlier material. Yet the album bore the transatlantic Top Ten hit "Blue Jean" whose complete video, a 22-minute short film directed by Julien Temple, reflected Bowie's long-standing interest in combining music with drama. This video would win Bowie his only Grammy to date, for Best Short-Form Music Video. It also featured "Loving the Alien", a remix of which was a minor hit in 1985. The album also has a pair of dance rewrites of "Neighborhood Threat" and "Tonight", old songs Bowie wrote with Iggy Pop which had originally appeared on Lust for Life.
After the less successful second album Tin Machine II and the complete failure of live album Tin Machine Live: Oy Vey, Baby, Bowie tired of having to work in a group setting where his creativity was limited, and finally disbanded Tin Machine to work on his own. But the Tin Machine venture did show that Bowie had learned some harsh lessons from the previous decade, and was determined to get serious about concentrating on music more than commercial success.
1999 found Bowie composing the soundtrack for a computer game called "Omikron: The Nomad Soul". David Bowie and his wife, Iman, made appearances as characters in the game. That same year, re-recorded tracks from the game and new music was released in the album 'hours...' featured "What's Really Happening", the lyrics for which were written by Alex Grant, the winner of Bowie's "Cyber Song Contest" Internet competition. This album presented Bowie's exit from heavy electronica, with an emphasis on more live instruments, and, through songs like "Thursday's Child" and "Survive", a thematic move into Bowie's sense of his own aging and sentimentalism. After this album, Bowie's guitarist, Reeves Gabrels, quit working with Bowie, feeling that the music was becoming "too soft".
For 2006, Bowie once again announced a break from performance, but he made a surprise guest appearance at David Gilmour's May 29, 2006 concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London. He sang "Arnold Layne" and "Comfortably Numb", closing the concert. The former performance was released, on December 26, as a single. |
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David Bowie Quote(s)
| I know about Kylie and Robbie and Pop Idol and stuff like that. You can't get away from that when you hit the (British) shore, so I know all about the cruise ship entertainment aspect of British pop. |
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