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If it's hard to pick out a "best of" from a discography as vast and rich in masterpieces as David Bowie's, it's no easier to put together an "anti best of" either, diving into that "Velvet Goldmine" full of precious nuggets which is the other side of the Thin White Duke's success — the more hidden one, made up of experiments, B-sides, outtakes, curios and songs that were left more in the shadows in his albums' tracklists, or included in side projects and related releases. In this playlist, also built as a chronological sequence retracing Bowie's life, we'll try to bring about thirty of them back into the light, digging deep into his body of work and making an inevitably ruthless selection from this enormous mass of material.

Karma Man

Let's start from the beginning, with one of the first songs written by a young David Bowie in search of success. It was performed during the BBC sessions recorded on 13 May 1968 and would later be included on the "Deram Anthology" and, subsequently, on the bonus disc of the deluxe edition of his self-titled debut LP, "David Bowie". A track that reflects the English dandy's interest in Tibetan Buddhism, already evident in a song from his debut LP, "Silly Boy Blue", at a time when artists like Pete Townshend, the Beach Boys, Donovan and the Beatles were charting their own personal paths towards "enlightenment". "Karma Man" boasts an intricate lyric that also touches on meditations on the Wheel of Existence and reincarnation. Around the same time, both David and Tony Visconti, his longtime right-hand man already present on this track, joined the Tibet Society precisely in order to study Tibetan Buddhism, a subject we'll return to later in this alternative Thin White Duke tracklist.

Letter To Hermione

We continue in the vein of this dazed, singer-songwriter folk of the early Bowie, the one of the self-titled debut, and, largely, also that of the following album "Space Oddity" from 1969, which would bring him his first success thanks to the title-track hit, but which also included curious, more intimate songs, like this missive addressed to his then-girlfriend Hermione Farthingale, with whom - again on the subject of Buddhism - he would spend three months in monastic isolation with four Tibetan lamas in Scotland... An exercise in atypical folk, seasoned with an already rather surreal and disorienting interpretive style, "Letter To Hermione" would remain one of the few explicitly love-themed lyrics of his career.

Saviour Machine

But it won't be the fair Hermione who marries young David, rather the American Angela Barnett, whom he would wed on March 20, 1970, a marriage that would last a decade, giving Bowie a son, Zowie (later renamed Joe). On the musical front, meanwhile, it's another encounter that changes the course of his career: that with guitarist Mick Ronson, in action on his third album "The Man Who Sold The World" (1970), with the trusty Tony Visconti behind the desk. And thanks also to their contribution, a hard, saturated sound is born, a sort of "hard-soul-rock", dominated by booming bass, slashing guitar and Moog (courtesy of Ralph Mace). With Bowie appearing for the first time in women's clothing on the cover (censored in the US) and writing grotesque lyrics steeped in a horror-tinged futurism, as in the case of this "Saviour Machine".

Quicksand

The former folksinger, meanwhile, has also grown as a singer and performer. Crucial was the meeting, which took place on July 14, 1967, with mime-dancer Lindsay Kemp, the first act of a long collaboration that would continue over the years. And so the sound changes too: it's time for Bowie to cast aside his folk-psychedelic experiments and embrace the nascent glam rock, a romantic and brazen musical hybrid that Marc Bolan had forged a year earlier with T. Rex, and which John Lennon would ironically dub "rock'n'roll with lipstick". And his first chapter of the glam era is already a masterpiece, called "Hunky Dory", on which Visconti is replaced behind the desk by the seasoned Ken Scott, with Bowie playing guitar, sax and piano, "as far as his skill allows" (as he wryly notes in the liner notes); then, for the more elaborate parts, there's a special guest: keyboardist Rick Wakeman of Yes. But the lion's share of the credit goes to Ronson's orchestral arrangements, which seal the triumph of Bowie the crooner, following in the footsteps of his mentor Scott Walker. It's the album of immortal hits like "Life On Mars?" and "Changes", but it also finds room for this wonderful ballad, which Bowie would often revive in his live sets in the years to come (including in a famous duet with Robert Smith of The Cure).

Moonage Daydream

While rock celebrates itself at grand pacifist gatherings, Bowie follows in the footsteps of Warhol's Pop Art, gazing into his dressing-room mirror in search of the right mask to bewitch his audience. The answer would come from the impossible combination of an interstellar being and an actor from Japanese Kabuki theatre. The first great character in his gallery, Ziggy Stardust, the protagonist of the 1972 album of the same name, which would yield so many memorable hits, from the title track to "Starman". But the heart of the record is distilled into the waking dream of "Moonage Daydream". The Lunar Era has arrived, and with it its messiah: "I'm an alligator, I'm a mama-papa coming for you/ I'm the space invader, I'll be a rock 'n' rolling bitch for you". Ziggy is a redeemer, but also "a whore", the symbol of the music business's own prostitution. Elevated by Bowie's shrill falsetto, the dizzying distortions of Ronson's Gibson Les Paul, and an explosive sax solo, it's a dazzling electric ride and the ultimate apotheosis of glam rock. Hidden for too long beneath Ziggy's stardust, "Moonage Daydream" would find its definitive consecration only many years later, when it gave its title to Brett Morgen's 2022 biopic on the life of David Bowie.

Velvet Goldmine

In the tracklist of "The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars", however, this little gem, recorded during those very same historic sessions, would find no place, except in later reissues. "Velvet Goldmine" is an engaging midtempo rocker bearing the trademark guitar lick of Mick Ronson's Les Paul, which David himself would describe as "lovely" and "very Bowie". It would become the B-side of the 1975 reissue of the "Space Oddity" single, alongside "Changes", the single that topped the British charts, giving the London dandy his first No. 1. Its ambiguous lyrics would spark debate, seemingly telling of homosexual encounters, even as the title "Velvet Goldmine" itself is said to be slang for the female genitalia. Bowie would explain that it's a story told through the eyes of Ziggy Stardust's groupies, with lines like "You got crazy legs, you got amazing head/ You got rings on your fingers and your hair's hot red" ("Hai delle gambe da pazzi, una testa incredibile/ Hai delle ali sulle dita e dei capelli rosso fuoco") And again: "You're my taste, my trip, I'll be your master zip/ I'll suck your hair for kicks, you make me jump to my feet". ("Sei il mio viaggio di prova, sarò la tua energia principale/ Ti succhierò i capelli per divertimento, mi fai scattare in piedi"). Born as an afterthought, "Velvet Goldmine" would over time become an anthem of the glam era, to the point of lending its title to Todd Haynes' 1998 film, which tells the story of that period.

John, I'm Only Dancing

Shortly after the release of "Ziggy Stardust", Bowie also put out this other song with probably homosexual lyrics, in which the narrator tells his companion not to worry about the girl who's with him, because she's just there to dance. It's one of those songs that, despite never making it onto the official Lp tracklists, has become a classic over time. Credit goes, in this case, to a catchy sound with almost funky undertones, as well as to a striking video, directed by Mick Rock, featuring androgynous dancers from Lindsay Kemp's mime troupe.

Lady Grinning Soul

This is the great season of Ziggy Stardust and the various characters orbiting his galaxy. He is "the man who fell to Earth", the messiah of a rock revolution that lasts just one season, the span between his rise and his fall. And in this parable lies the whole representation of Bowie's art: the staging of Warhol's "fifteen minutes of fame", the morbid hedonism of Dorian Gray, the parody of stardom and the fleeting myths of consumer society, and, not least, the omens of a grim Orwellian future. But Bowie already has a new icon in store: Aladdin Sane (a pun on "A Lad Insane", a crazy guy), the 1973 Lp for which he had himself photographed with a multicolored lightning bolt across his face, sporting a slightly altered make-up and a new set of splendid songs that hold up to the excellent standard of its predecessor. If with "Ziggy" he celebrated the apotheosis of the glam era, with "Aladdin Sane" Bowie officiates its sarcastic requiem, playing the part of a fallen aristocrat who looks in the mirror and watches time "bend and scratch like a whore", burning through fame and glory in a hurry. While the wild pianism of the title track and the rock'n'roll of "The Jean Genie" are the ones that made the biggest splash, this dark, decadent ballad remains in the background - guiltily left off all subsequent compilations - closing out the tracklist in the most melodramatic fashion, complete with an alienating, Brechtian cabaret accompaniment to match the mysterious universe of "Lady Grinning Soul".

See Emily Play

But even for a brilliant composer like Bowie, the time for covers always comes. Among the most original in his (not exactly short) series are the ones on "Pin Ups", a 1973 album made up entirely of new versions of rock classics from 1964-1967. Particularly notable are the psychedelic shades of "See Emily Play", which also confirms Bowie's extraordinary melodic instincts. His cover of the 1967 Pink Floyd track has been called by his biographer Nicholas Pegg one of the album's standout moments, from the ticking guitar intro to the fading strings at the end, with a production style reminiscent of "Sgt. Pepper's", built entirely on piano and synth lines, with backing vocals pitched an octave below the lead, recalling certain moods from "Hunky Dory". A little gem, largely forgotten in favor of other (and often less effective) Bowie covers.

Sweet Thing

But Bowie has realized that the glam rock scene is now running out of air, and he needs to get rid of his alter ego Ziggy Stardust as soon as possible, making him "die" on stage and disbanding the Spiders From Mars. The new frontier is a new concept album, about the "Diamond Dogs" - the survivors of a nuclear catastrophe that has reduced mankind to a state of deranged dogs, while the world is now subjugated by Big Brother. A futuristic concept album inspired by Orwell's "1984", it won't enjoy great commercial success, but it will lay the groundwork for imminent new Bowie metamorphoses. The unsettling cover art, showing Bowie transformed into a monstrous being, half man, half dog, illustrates this not-quite-understood epic, from which we've pulled the unsettling "Sweet Thing", staged in a kind of menacing, post-Brel-ian crooning that forms a three-part suite together with "The Candidate"-"Sweet Thing (Reprise)".

All The Young Dudes

Staging the dystopian delirium of "Diamond Dogs" is a stunning tour, designed by Jules Fisher: in an apocalyptic setting, amid crumbling skyscrapers and spaceships, limping dog-men and other scattered remnants of humanity scramble about. Bowie holds court from atop a crane, acts, mimes and changes his look frequently. From that night at Philadelphia's Tower Theatre came the double live album "David Live", from which we've dug up another gem: Bowie's own sung version of "All The Young Dudes", the rousing track he had given to his friends Mott The Hoople not long before. It's the glam generational anthem, a dazzling snapshot of the era of the "dudes", the neo-freaks of the glam era intent on turning their hippie cousins' dreary eco-pacifist gatherings into an unrestrained festival of kitsch. "Peace and love", sure, but without any more ideological or political strings attached. What triumphs instead is disengagement, cross-dressing and sexual ambiguity, in a profusion of sequins and glitter, feathers and mascara, boots and spacesuits. It's the age of "glam" and of an intoxicating new Swingin' London.

Who Can I Be Now?

But if Ziggy Stardust has long been dead, glam too is now on its last legs. So Bowie engineers a new rebirth. And what rises again, like a modern-day phoenix, is a dandy who has lost his platform boots, sequins and a good deal of mascara along the way, but has kept an ambiguous, unsettling look. The new musical frontier, already hinted at in some of the arrangements on the Diamond Dogs Tour, is America — specifically the America of funk, rhythm'n'blues and the nascent disco sound of Philadelphia. An America that has shed the sinister undertones described in "Aladdin Sane" and "Hunky Dory", going back to being "the land of a thousand dances". "Young Americans" leaves fans a bit disoriented, but is hailed by the press as "the first plastic soul record cut by a white musician". In its final tracklist, this "Who Can I Be Now?" would be sacrificed to make room for the two tracks recorded in the session with John Lennon: "Fame" and the cover of "Across The Universe". A shame, because this sinuous slice of white soul fully embodied the shifting image of 70s Bowie and offered an illuminating glimpse into his foray into the Philly Sound: “If it’s all a vast creation/ Putting on a face that’s new/ Someone has to see/ A role for him and me/ Someone might as well be you”. Restored on the 1991 Rykodisc reissue, it would later also be included in the 2016 box set that took its name.

Wild Is The Wind

Meanwhile, Bowie makes his film debut with a role in Nicolas Roeg's "The Man Who Fell To Earth" (1976) and settles in Los Angeles, where he would begin one of the darkest, most dramatic periods of his life, sinking into full-blown narcotic chaos, prey to dealers and loan sharks as well as his own demons. His marriage is falling apart, relations with his managers are stormy, and his very existence seems on the verge of imploding. Skeletal and emaciated like some urban vampire, he retreats to his apartment, a prisoner of his own phobias. Yet it's precisely during those California days, in deranged sessions lit by black candles burned to ward off spirits, that a revolutionary record like "Station To Station" (1976) is born — an album that would kick off another intoxicating musical season, with its cold fusion of guitar-driven rock and electronics, the warm pulse of black music and icy Kraftwerk-style synths. Alongside classics like "Golden Years", "Tvc15" and the sumptuous title track, the album also features this gem: a poignant, deeply theatrical cover of "Wild Is The Wind", a theme written by Dimitri Tiomkin in 1956 for a western film, here arranged with acoustic guitars and soft keyboards that support some spine-tingling vocal acrobatics. Bowie shows real growth here as a singer too, revealing for the first time that deep, powerful voice destined to become one of his defining traits.

Always Crashing In The Same Car

"Station To Station" is also the incubator for a new character, the celebrated Thin White Duke: black pleated trousers, waistcoat and white shirt, red-blond hair slicked back. A cold, aristocratic being, alienated by urban paranoia and isolated in his own world of robotic music. Onto him Bowie pours all the nightmares and delirium of his terrible California experience, from which he emerges by answering the call of Europe, that "mother" culture in so many ways opposed to the American one that was by then destroying him. During the "Station To Station" tour, together with his friend Iggy Pop, he finds himself crossing Eastern Europe by train. So, once the shows are over, he moves with Iggy to Berlin, a city full of contrasts and cultural ferment that would inspire his famous trilogy, made in collaboration with Brian Eno. The first chapter is the essential "Low" (1977). While "Sound And Vision" and "Be My Wife" were its singles, this last track recorded for the album never got the credit it deserved, completed in November '76 after much second-guessing by Bowie, who changed the arrangement several times. The lyrics of "Always Crashing In The Same Car" refer to a real accident that happened to Bowie, when, a little tipsy behind the wheel, he was unable to park his car in an underground garage in Berlin, ending up driving round and round and badly scraping the sides of the car as he crashed into other parked vehicles. A metaphor for the dead end the Thin White Duke had reached after the devastating California period.

Some Are

Alternating between songs and more expansive episodes closer to ambient music, "Low" crowns Bowie's most daring experiment: an original fusion of European culture (kraut-rock, existentialism) and African-American culture (rhythm'n'blues), tearing down barriers once and for all while at the same time creating one of his truest, most profound records. Its original tracklist, however, would not include this evocative "Some Are". A track credited to the Bowie-Eno duo, but actually written by Bowie alone in 1975 as part of the aborted soundtrack project for "The Man Who Fell To Earth", where it was meant to accompany the scene in which Mary-Lou's character watches a Christmas sleigh pass by in the street. The track would later be added as a bonus track on the CD reissue of "Low", and its worth would also be recognized by Philip Glass, who would include it in the second movement of his 1993 "Low Symphony". Bowie himself would later rehabilitate it, using that version as the musical introduction to the dates of his Outside Tour.

V2 Schneider

Assisted by his trusty collaborator Tony Visconti in his "Berlin clinic", Bowie manages to fuse European culture (kraut-rock, ambient music, existentialism) and African-American culture (rhythm'n'blues), tearing down every remaining barrier. The second chapter of the trilogy is recorded at Hansa Studios by the Wall by an all-star team: alongside Bowie (handling vocals, keyboards, guitars, saxophone and koto) and Eno, there's Robert Fripp (guitarist and leader of King Crimson), Carlos Alomar (guitar), Dennis Davis (percussion) and George Murray (bass). It's a new hallucination somewhere between rock and electronics, between avant-garde atmospheres — tense, claustrophobic, icy — and a two-part structure that puts almost all the vocal tracks on side one and the instrumentals on side two. Once again, the lesson of Kraftwerk proves decisive, with an ongoing exchange of references and nods between the two acts that would go on to have a decisive impact on the imagination of new generations of wave musicians, starting with Ultravox and Joy Division. Bowie himself would in turn end up captivating the German quartet, who on "Trans-Europe Express" would sing: "...from station to station, back to Dusseldorf city, meet Iggy Pop and David Bowie...". And the game of cross-references would continue with an instrumental track from "Heroes", the next chapter of the Thin White Duke's Berlin trilogy, dedicated to one of the founders of the Düsseldorf band, Florian Schneider, who passed away in 2020. We too wanted to remember him, in this playlist, with the illuminating "V2 Schneider".

Red Sails

The third chapter of the trilogy, "Lodger", is undoubtedly the most underrated, despite being no less forward-looking than the other two. It's the logical culmination of that exploration of ethno-music only sketched out in the previous works: Bowie leans further into funk sonorities, moving closer to the path blazed by David Byrne, also alongside Eno himself, and fine-tunes advanced recording techniques, seeking out randomness in composition and anticipating the use of loops. Less celebrated than other tracks on the album — such as "Look Back In Anger" or "Boys Keep Swinging" — this particular track showcases a relentless motorik beat in the style of Neu! (another key reference point for the Thin White Duke), married to Middle Eastern-tinged atmospheres, making for a masterclass in ethno-rock. A genuine trip with (red) sails unfurled.

It's No Game (No. 1)

After two years of German exile, Bowie decided to return to the United States: his definitive farewell to Berlin was sealed a year later, with a new album and a new stylistic shift. “Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)” is the link between Bowie's “avant-garde” phase and his subsequent turn towards pop-dance. It's the album of timeless hits like “Fashion” and “Ashes To Ashes”. But it also contains other, lesser-known gems, such as this unsettling “It's No Game (N.1)”, the fruit of his partnership with Robert Fripp, renewed after the glories of “Heroes”. His Crimson Majesty's spectacular guitar returns to slash and claw, accompanied by the (Japanese-language) vocalizations of singer Michi Hirota, with Bowie following her by singing the English translation in an almost tormented manner. The Thin White Duke would later explain that he wanted a shrill female voice on the track to “break down a particular kind of sexist attitude about Japanese girls and women in general”. On the album, the song is split into two parts, placed at the beginning and end of the record.

Criminal World

As we mentioned, “Scary Monsters” marks a gradual transition from Bowie's most avant-garde phase (which it nonetheless fully embodies) to his pop phase, which arrives in 1983 with the sensational turn of “Let's Dance”, all dancefloor rhythms and glossy sounds, masterfully overseen by producer Nile Rodgers, one of the gurus of disco music at the helm of Chic. The album inevitably makes the usual purist critics wince. But there's little doubt it was dance music of the highest class. And alongside the hits that would earn Bowie sensational worldwide success – the title track, “China Girl”, “Modern Love”, “Cat People” – the tracklist also finds room for a successful cover, in a very smooth and polished version, of “Criminal World”, the splendid track that opened the 1976 self-titled album by Duncan Browne's Metro, one of Bowie's favourite cult bands; here, with velvety voice, he once again conjures the unsettling scenarios of that “criminal world where the girls are like baby-faced boys”.

Don't Look Down

But after the renewed wave of popularity brought by “Let's Dance” and a colossal (and memorable) tour like the Serious Moonlight, Bowie had to face the gradual decline of the '80s. Indeed, the following album, “Tonight”, disappointed pretty much everyone, despite the success of the fine single “Loving The Alien”. But at least Bowie hinted at his extreme eclecticism, even going so far as to give reggae pulses to this track written by Iggy Pop and his former Stooges partner James Williamson, for the Iguana's 1979 solo album, “New Values”. Almost a holiday divertissement, this “Don't Look Down” reveals all the flavour of its strange alchemy. “I wanted to work with Iggy again, and he with me,” the English dandy would explain, pre-empting fans left baffled by such boldness. Yet, given it was Bowie, they should have been used to it by then…

Zeroes

His global showman attitude, however, was far from spent, leading him to stage pharaonic shows like the Glass Spider Tour, complete with a throne mounted on a giant spider, which drew three million people to stadiums around the world, including a historic stop at Rome's Stadio Flaminio, which this writer had the good fortune to attend. Unfortunately, that live setlist was dominated by tracks from another disappointing album of the period, “Never Let Me Down” (1987), from which we can at least salvage this driving rock number with an epic, melodic opening that seems to echo “Heroes”. And who knows who the Thin White Duke was referring to when he sang “Tonight, the Zeroes will be singing for you!”.

This Is Not America

Bowie also had many historic duets to his name. And even though it's not exactly obscure, this playlist couldn't leave out this writer's favourite, which is neither the ultra-famous “Under Pressure” with Freddie Mercury nor the equally famous “Dancing In The Streets” with Mick Jagger, but rather this track co-written with jazz-fusion composer Pat Metheny for the soundtrack of John Schlesinger's 1985 film “The Falcon and the Snowman”. “This Is Not America” is a splendid midtempo ballad embellished by the intricate work of Metheny's electric guitar. An instrumental-only version of the piece, written by Metheny himself with Lyle Mays and titled “Chris”, would also be included on the film's soundtrack. “This Is Not America” adds a drum machine and Bowie's vocals to the base track. Metheny would later note that the lyrics written by Bowie were “deep and full of meaning, absolutely perfect for the film”.

When The Wind Blows

With film soundtracks, in fact, Bowie always had a good rapport, even during a not-especially-inspired period of his career such as the '80s. So we'd also like to remember this track, recorded for the soundtrack of the 1986 animated film “When the Wind Blows”, directed by Jimmy Murakami and based on the 1982 graphic novel of the same name by British artist Raymond Briggs (the author of the iconic “The Snowman”, for which Bowie had already provided a filmed introduction). The whole soundtrack is worth checking out, featuring tracks arranged by Roger Waters, Genesis, Squeeze and Paul Hardcastle, while the title song, which shares its name with the film, was entrusted precisely to the Thin White Duke, and recalls somewhat the contemporary sounds of Iggy Pop's “Blah Blah Blah”, not coincidentally produced by Bowie himself. A track born from a collaboration between Bowie and multi-instrumentalist Erdal Kızılçay, featuring yet another resounding vocal performance from the London dandy.

Pallas Athena

As the '80s drew to a close, Bowie also began to rediscover his best form of inspiration. Having set aside his heavy experience with Tin Machine, he threw himself into the new decade with a different attitude, re-emerging in 1993 with an innovative album that deserves to be fully reappraised: "Black Tie White Noise", produced by Nile Rodgers and made together with the trumpeter of the same name, Lester Bowie. Its title inspired by the 1992 Los Angeles riots, which raised the issue of racism within the American legal system, it's a record that carries the euphoria following David's marriage to the stunning Somali model Iman (on June 6, 1992, in Florence), and unleashes a hybrid sound in which house, jazz, rock and soul become the coordinates of a new attempt to redefine modern dance music, as shown in this irresistible, mythologically-inspired dancefloor novelty, of which several anonymous remixes were also released to American clubs in 1993, achieving considerable success.

Buddha Of Suburbia

By the mid-1990s, the Thin White Duke felt free from the pressure of topping the charts and devoted himself to the most varied activities, spanning music, film and art. Confirmation that this was a phase of creative reawakening for Bowie also comes from "The Buddha Of Suburbia", the soundtrack to the TV film of the same name, based on the novel by Anglo-Pakistani writer Hanif Kureishi. A work that would enjoy no commercial success, partly due to a conflict with his record label, but one the English artist would always regard as among his finest, even once declaring it his favorite album. He would remark, pointedly: "it was treated as a soundtrack and therefore unable to earn any money - a genuine disgrace." On the record, Bowie also delivers a great showcase of his own musicianship, aided only by Erdal Kizilcay (himself a multi-instrumentalist), pianist Mike Garson (on two tracks) and Lenny Kravitz (on the alternate version of the title track). "The Buddha Of Suburbia" would also give Bowie the chance to revisit, in some way, his interest in Buddhism, cultivated since the '60s, as shown by that very "Karma Man" with which we opened this playlist.

No Control

This time, everyone took notice of the Thin White Duke's rediscovered musical form. In 1995, he released what is perhaps his most inspired album since "Scary Monsters", for which he also returned to collaborate with Brian Eno. The sumptuous "Outside" sounds like a synthesis of Bowie's electronic experimentation, updated to the sounds of the new decade (especially the industrial of Nine Inch Nails) and to cyber-punk aesthetics. Its narrative hook follows the investigations of detective Nathan Adler of the Art Crimes division, set in a hypothetical turn-of-the-millennium society. Highlights include hits like the title track, "Heart Filthy Lesson" and "Hallo Spaceboy" featuring the Pet Shop Boys. We, however, went digging for a lesser-known track, though one of the most striking of the bunch, with synths scarred by Reeves Gabrels' distorted guitar and a highly theatrical vocal performance from Bowie. Discussing this "No Control", Eno revealed in his diary: "Much of the track was performed in an hour, including Bowie's vocal part, which impressed me - watching him tune in to the right balance between sincerity and parody was one of the most fascinating things I've ever seen in a studio." Not bad, coming from one of the greatest producers of all time.

Telling Lies

But Bowie's motto has always been: "if something works, throw it away." So, instead of riding the wave of nostalgia, he dove into a new sonic universe, that of underground clubs, driven by the frantic rhythms of jungle and drum'n'bass. It was a bold gamble, but the former Thin White Duke pulled it off once again, with the new, prescient album "Earthling", preceded - another novelty for the time - by this track, which was launched on the Internet. The electrifying "Telling Lies" pits razor-sharp guitars (again courtesy of Gabrels) in furious hand-to-hand combat with a bass/drums rhythm section running wild, over a synthetic backdrop teeming with all manner of samples. The result is a sonic centrifuge that both intoxicates and enthralls.

Slow Burn

Having reached a new creative peak with "Earthling", Bowie went through another, less inspired period: "Hours" (1999) disappointed expectations, looking back to the past with classic, somewhat nostalgic ballads. Nor was "Heathen" entirely convincing, released three years later in an attempt to recapture a more robust, electronic sound. Yet it's impossible to remain indifferent to the thoroughly Bowie-esque charm of this single, for which we're willing to make an exception to this playlist's usual rule - after all, it was indeed the record's single and biggest hit - on account of the fact that it nonetheless remains one of the Thin White Duke's most underrated songs, further hurt by a broader dip in interest surrounding the English musician's exploits at the dawn of the new millennium (though it wouldn't last long). "Slow Burn" is epic rock that "burns slow" (nomen omen!), set alight by the guitar of Pete Townshend (no less!) and a biting bassline. And Bowie carries it home in his own inimitable way, with another masterful, melodramatically-tinged performance.

Valentine's Day

The decline, however, seems to be underscored by a flat record like “Reality” (2003). With age comes some ailments too: in 2004 Bowie is forced into surgery for a cardiovascular problem that had struck him on tour. From then on his career seems to grind to a halt: no concerts or records, few public appearances, until, in 2013, the surprise arrives. To celebrate his 66th birthday, the English artist, with faithful Visconti once again behind the mixing desk, releases a new album, “The Next Day”, which wins over the press above all for its poignant revisiting of the Berlin era on “Where Are We Now?”. We, however, have chosen this delicate elegy, “Valentine’s Day”, in which the Thin White Duke returns to pop form, wholeheartedly reclaiming his most sweetly melancholic pathos, on an album that resembles a compendium of his many past eras, broken apart, reassembled and reshaped anew.

I Can’t Give Everything Away

Three years later comes “Blackstar”, his great epitaph of a record. A musical testament that chills the blood, because just shortly after the album's release, on 10 January 2016, comes the news of David Bowie's death, after an 18-month battle with cancer. His friend Visconti would remember him in the best possible way: “His death was no different from his life – a work of art. He made Blackstar for us, as a parting gift. He was an extraordinary man full of love and life. He will always be with us”. But if it's true, as Fred Frith and Howard Howe write in their essay “Art Into Pop”, that “Bowie is a blank canvas on which people write their own dreams”, all that's left is to close our eyes and keep living forever suspended in his stardust. And we wanted to close this tracklist dedicated to his lesser-known output, worth rediscovering, with this electronic, velvety “I Can’t Give Everything Away”, which would remain the final track of David Bowie's final album.

May God’s love be with you.

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16/01/2026