David Bowie

DAVID BOWIE Released The Title Track Of His Final Album ‘BLACKSTAR’ Today 10 Years Ago

Posted on by JL

Top singles from the past

19 November 2025

Late musical genius DAVID BOWIE released his 25th and final album Blackstar, on
8 January 2016, on his 69th birthday. Two days later, he passed away due to cancer.

At the time of recording, Bowie was already very ill. The LP was recorded secretly in New York City with his longtime co-producer Tony Visconti and a group of local jazz musicians.

The title track, stylised as ★ was released on 19 November 2015, today 10 years ago.

An elliptical, multi-faceted, and cryptic masterpiece. At 9:58, it was his second-longest recording, behind the ‘Station To Station’ song.

It lasted originally more than 11 minutes long, but after Bowie and Visconti learned that iTunes would not allow tracks for individual sale which lasted longer than 10 minutes.

Visconti: “That was total bullshit, but David was adamant it be the single, and he didn’t want both an album version and a single version, since that gets confusing.

“I can’t answer why (I’m a blackstar)
Just go with me (I’m not a filmstar)
I’ma take you home (I’m a blackstar)
Take your passport and shoes (I’m not a popstar)
And your sedatives, boo (I’m a blackstar)
You’re a flash in the pan (I’m not a marvel star)
I’m the Great I Am (I’m a blackstar)”

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DAVID BOWIE – 3rd Album ‘THE MAN WHO SOLD THE WORLD’ Released In The US 55 Years Ago Today

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Significant longplayers from yesteryear

4 November 2025


The American LP’s front cover

55 years ago today – on 4 November 1970 – the late genial starman
DAVID BOWIE released his third album THE MAN WHO SOLD THE WORLD
in the US. Six months later, in April 1971, it came out in his home country.

The LP’s artwork – featuring a cowboy in front of a mental asylum – designed by a Bowie friend, an underground comics artist called Michael J. Weller wasn’t really a Bowie-style image. At first Bowie thought it was a ‘horrible‘ idea but later in 1999 he stated that he “actually thought the cartoon cover was really cool”.

Six months later the UK front cover artwork featured the iconic image we all know
with Bowie on a chaise longue in a cream and blue satin ‘man’s dress‘, an early indication
of his interest in exploiting his androgynous appearance.

Despite laudatory criticisms, the album wasn’t a big commercial success at first
but went on selling more copies over the years as Bowie became a superstar.

SINGLE

ALBUM


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The American LP’s back sleeve

MOJO Magazine Presents 260-Page DAVID BOWIE Special

Posted on by JL

4 October 2025

“DAVID BOWIE’s contribution to music and culture was, and continues to be, immeasurable, a fact brought into sharp focus by his untimely death almost
10 years ago in 2016.

From his 1970s glam rock personas Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane, through a stint making bleak electronic music in Berlin with Brian Eno, and on to international superstardom with 1983’s Let’s Dance album and beyond, Bowie was always an innovator, influencer, style icon, and courageous and brilliant one-off.

Featuring 260 pages of in-depth features and exclusive interviews, and illustrated with dozens of iconic and rare images, CHANGES 1947-2016 brings together MOJO’s finest writing on the artist into one sumptuous, single-volume Super Deluxe Edition.

Within its heavy card covers, Bowie’s story is unfolded with unrivalled knowledge
and passion, from his early childhood in Brixton to his emotional last LP Blackstar,
and all points in between. Meanwhile, we also guide you through the singer’s key
albums and collaborators, and his 100 greatest songs.

DAVID BOWIE – Fascinating 20th Album ‘1. OUTSIDE’ Was Released Today 30 Years Ago

Posted on by JL

Significant longplayers from yesteryear

25 September 2025

DAVID BOWIE released his 20th LP, named OUTSIDE ((stylised as ‘1.Outside’ and
subtitled ‘The Nathan Adler Diaries: A Hyper-cycle’) on 25 September 1995, today
30 years ago. It generated mixed criticism.

One of his best in my Bowie book. He mixed several styles and genres to a challenging
and fascinating entirety, even though its total length was 74 minutes. A long, arousing, multi-faceted journey, totally worth the ride. Listening to this record is an event. Once again he showed his musical
chameleon expertise.

It was produced by his Berlin-era buddy Brian Eno.
It went to No. 8 in the UK, and to #21 in the US.

The Guardian (British newspaper wrote: “An excellent David Bowie album,
a genuine creative rebirth. Threatening and murky. His gift for the charismatically
disturbing seems to have reasserted itself.”

The Los Angeles Times said: “Overall, Bowie experiments in genres
that, by 1995, were being made more successfully by other artists.”

SINGLE

ALBUM


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DAVID BOWIE Released ‘SCARY MONSTERS (AND SUPER CREEPS) 45 Years Ago Today

Posted on by JL

Significant longplayers from the past

12 September 2025

Eternal icon DAVID BOWIE released his 14th longplayer
SCARY MONSTERS (AND SUPER CREEPS) today 45 years
ago, on 12 September 1980.

His first album following the Berlin Trilogy – Low, Heroes and Lodger) was Bowie’s attempt
at creating a more commercial record after the trilogy proved successful artistically but less so commercially. It was co-produced by Tony Visconti., It topped the charts in the UK, Australia, France, New Zealand and peaked at #12 in the US.

The cover artwork of the LP is a large-scale collage by the artist Edward Bell featuring Bowie in the Pierrot costume worn in the ‘Ashes to Ashes’ video clip, along with photographs taken by the photographer Brian Duffy, who was reportedly upset by the final artwork, as he felt the cartoon demeaned his photographs.

The album’s lead single, Ashes To Ashes revisited
the character of Major Tom from Space Oddity.

Stereogum: “Scary Monsters would eventually be hailed as a successful marriage between Bowie’s experimental impulses and his songwriting acumen. Its infectious art-rock situated it perfectly at the dawn of new wave — a genre obviously heavily indebted to Bowie — yet at the same time it seemed to carry the whole preceding decade with it.

It was a capstone, summary, and new beginning all at once, emerging from Bowie’s dizzying ‘70s run.”

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British Music Monthly UNCUT Has New Issue Out With Cover Star DAVID BOWIE

Posted on by JL

20 August 2025

The new Uncut Magazine issue contains a lot of Bowie, with several posters,
and a Map Of David Bowie’s America, that puts out the New York-set cover story
into the wider context of Bowie’s lengthy relationship with his adopted home
country.

Also stories about Ozzy Osbourne, Evan Dando, Ethel Cain,
Joan Shelley, Alabama Shakes, and multiple album reviews.

This month’s Free CD, dubbed ‘Sounds Of The New West Vol. 7′
features 15 tracks with artists such as Wednesday, Case Oats,
Eeve Adams, Slow Motion Cowboys, Friendship, and more.

You can purchase a copy and have it
sent to your home address. Info HERE.

DAVID BOWIE – Timeless Masterstroke ‘ASHES TO ASHES’ Released 45 Years Ago Today

Posted on by JL

Top singles from the past

1 Augustus 2025

Eternal musical genius DAVID BOWIE scored one
of his many masterly hits with ASHES TO ASHES.

The classic stroke was released this
day 45 years ago, on 1 August 1980.
It topped the UK Singles Chart.

Bowie: “When I originally wrote about Major Tom, I was a very pragmatic and self-opinionated lad that thought he knew all about the great American dream and where it started and where it should stop. Here we had the great blast of American technological know-how shoving this guy up into space, but once he gets there he’s not quite sure why he’s there. And that’s where I left him.”

Later he said, jokingly, in an interview: “It really is an ode
to childhood, if you like, a popular nursery rhyme. It’s about
space men becoming junkies.”

It featured on his 14th LP, titled Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps).

Ashes to ashes, funk to funky
We know Major Tom’s a junkie
Strung out in heaven’s high
Hitting an all-time low

Discography

26 July 2006 – Final TOP OF THE POPS Edition Taped

Posted on by JL

26 July 2025

The final edition of legendary British record chart TV programme TOP OF THE POPS
was recorded at BBC Television Centre in London on 26 July 2006, today 29 years ago.
It was broadcasted on July 30th.

Just under 200 members of the public were in the audience for the show. Former classic performances from the Spice Girls, Wham!, Madonna, Beyoncé and Robbie Williams featured in the show alongside The Rolling Stones who were the very first band to appear on Top of the Pops on New Year’s Day in 1964.

TUTV‘s 3 picks of historic TOTP performances.

1972

1991

2007

DAVID BOWIE – Gospel Choir Single ‘MEMORY OF A FREE FESTIVAL’ Featuring MARC BOLAN Released 55 Years Ago Today

Posted on by JL

12 June 2025

The late musical genius DAVID BOWIE (8 January 1947 – 10 January 2016)
released a single, called MEMORY OF A FREE FESTIVAL on 12 June 1970,
today 55 years ago.

It featured on his 2nd self-titled LP.

The single featured Marc Bolan
on lead guitar and backing vocals.

Originally recorded as a 7-minute opus in 1969, it was reworked in 1970. His label
Mercury Records, believed that the track had a better chance of success as a single
than the LP’s track ‘The Prettiest Star’, released earlier in the year. Bowie and producer
Tony Visconti roughly split the track in half, re-recording it so both halves could
function as individual songs.

Biographer David Buckley described the song as “a sort of trippy retake of the Stones’ ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ but with a smiley lyric”. The track was written as a homage to
the Free Festival, organised by the Beckenham Arts Lab, which was held at Croydon
Road Recreation Ground in Beckenham (UK) on 16 August 1969.

Sounds like a hippie hymn turning, midway, into a gospel choir song.

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