In these days of fast-tracked success, it's often forgotten that David Bowie had been knocking around the music business for almost a decade before Ziggy Stardust finally made him a star. In fact, you'd have to go right back to 1964 when, billed as Davie Jones With The King Bees, he got his first break, releasing a one-off single, Liza Jane, which promptly disappeared without trace. Undaunted, he bounced back with more flops under various guises until, handily coinciding with man's first walk on the moon, he released 1969's Space Oddity, giving him a hit at last.

It was during the '70s, though, that he came into his own, especially once his theatrical, sexually ambivalent, sci-fi creation Ziggy changed rock's landscape forever, brightening things up no end and influencing generations of followers. Impossible to second guess, he quickly followed up Ziggy by indulging in his own kind of white-boy soul shuffle before decamping to Berlin where, assisted by Brian Eno, he recorded three albums of icy, nascent electronica that gave Gary Numan most of his ideas. In the early '80s, thanks to MTV and Let's Dance's trip into the mainstream, he enjoyed even greater levels of popularity.

Since then, he has rather lost his way - and a large chunk of his audience, too - with a series of largely interchangeable albums that have failed to set pulses racing. Despite that, the sheer originality, breadth and influence of his peak-period '70s work have meant that his reputation as one of rock's major figures remains firmly intact. It's a legacy always worth another listen. Peter Kane

Essential

Hunky Dory
RCA, 1971
Unable to build on the success of 1969's Space Oddity, it looked for a time as if Bowie could just have been a one-hit curiosity. Though initially coolly received by the public, Hunky Dory was where he really came good as a distinctive songwriter, trading in The Man Who Sold The World's hefty guitars for something more subtle. The result was a treasury of pop excellence (Changes; Oh! You Pretty Things; Life On Mars?), plus some memorable toadying up to Andy Warhol and Bob Dylan, and a rocking Lou Reed homage, Queen Bitch.
Download: Changes // Life On Mars? // Queen Bitch

The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars
RCA, 1972
As a cautionary tale about pop stardom, Ziggy Stardust doesn't hold much water. Not that it matters. With Bowie theatrically blurring the line between creator and creation and guitarist Mick Ronson giving it plenty of welly, it stands as one of the all-time great rock albums, finally marking the point of career lift-off. In Ziggy's gender-bending wake, nothing would be the same again.
Download: Starman // Ziggy Stardust // Suffragette City

Station To Sation
RCA, 1976
Enter The Thin White Duke: the bonkers, Bolivian marching dust phase when he got into a spot of bother espousing the merits of fascism. Putting that to one side, Station To Station ranks as one of his finest, a bridge between the "plastic soul" of Young Americans and the artier leanings of the Berlin trilogy: Low, "Heroes" and Lodger. With Golden Years as the big hit single, the album's icy detachment and white-boy funk would also prove hugely influential over the next decade.
Download: Station To Station // Golden Years // Wild Is The Wind

Recommended

The Man Who Sold The World
Philips, 1970
In an age of macho heavy rock the world wasn't quite ready for an effete-looking man in a dress peddling strange songs about madness, thinking machines and Nietzschean theories of the übermensch. But with future guitar hero and willing foil Mick Ronson getting on board for the first time, livening things up no end, this was where the seeds for Ziggy and his Spiders From Mars were sown. The title track was later covered by Lulu and Nirvana, which is not something you can often say.
Download: The Width Of A Circle // The Man Who Sold The World // The Supermen

Diamond Dogs
RCA, 1974
With plans for a musical version of the novel Nighteen Eighty-Four scuppered by George Orwell's estate, our hero settled on his own nightmare vision of the future instead. Session men Tony Newman and Herbie Flowers were brought in to replace the Spiders From Mars, and Bowie took care of guitar duties himself. Ever restless, there were shifts in the music, too, sax, Moog and Mellotron heightening the drama, while 1984's dose of Philadelphia soul was a portent of where he was heading next.
Download: Diamond Dogs // Rebel Rebel // 1984 // Sweet Thing

Scary Monsters
RCA, 1980
Turning his back on the narcotic, Eno-assisted soundscaping of his Berlin years and having survived punk's onslaught, Scary Monsters kicked off the new decade in handsome style. Ashes To Ashes, with its imaginative video and knowing nod back to Space Oddity, gave him only his second UK Number 1. Fashion strutted its stuff with funky catwalk disdain. Elsewhere, Up The Hill Backwards, It's No Game and the reeling title track kept standards consistently high.
Download: Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) // Ashes To Ashes // Fashion

For the connoisseur

Young Americans
RCA, 1975
Though Diamond Dogs had dropped the odd hint of an increasing interest in R&B, who would have guessed that for his next studio album he'd return in the guise of a blue-eyed soul man? Never one to do things by halves, he booked into Philadelphia's Sigma Sound Studios, hired the best session men available and came up with this: a collection of stylised, disco-fied funk that Bowie himself called "the phoniest R&B I've ever heard". He's not far wrong. Still, Fame, written with John Lennon, was a killer and reached the top of the US charts.
Download: Young Americans // Fame

Let's Dance
EMI, 1983
Following a three-year break after Scary Monsters, a time spent sharpening his thespian skills on stage and screen, Let's Dance restored pop's great chameleon to the spotlight with a dance-rock bang. With MTV in its infancy, the timing could hardly have been better. Just as important, co-producer Nile Rodgers of Chic fame made sure the sound was suitably big and radio-friendly, the title track, Modern Love and China Girl (borrowed back from Iggy Pop) all making memorable singles. A pity the rest isn't much more than glossy filler.
Download: Modern Love // China Girl // Let's Dance

Tin Machine
EMI, 1989
Of all the reinventions, Tin Machine's back-to-basics, "just one of the guys in the band" rocker is easily the most derided. A project put together with brothers Tony and Hunt Sales, a rhythm section encountered when producing Iggy Pop's 1977 album Lust For Life, plus Reeves Gabrels, whose squalling guitar possessed all the restraint of an attack dog scenting blood, it largely fell on disbelieving ears. More than 20 years later, maybe it's time to admit that it's a decent old racket, riffy Wild Thing rip-offs and exaggerated Cockney accents notwithstanding.
Download: Crack City // I Can't Read

11:01 AM | 26/12/2011