![]() ![]() Around this time, he appeared in the title role of the Broadway drama The Elephant Man, and to considerable acclaim. Towards the end of the 1970s, he finally kicked his drug habit, and recorded the album many of his fans consider his best, the Japanese-influenced "Scary Monsters". He fled back to Europe, finally settling in Berlin, where he changed musical direction again and recorded three of the most influential albums of all time, an electronic trilogy with Brian Eno "Low, Heroes and Lodger". Reports of his insanity started to appear, and he continued to waste away physically. As his drug problem heightened, his behavior became more erratic. The following year, he released "Station to Station," containing some of the material he had written for the soundtrack to this film (which was not used). With a permanently-dilated pupil and skeletal frame, he certainly looked the part of an alien. He also appeared in his first major film, The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976). This produced his first number one hit in the US, "Fame". Musically, he released "Young Americans", a soul (or plastic soul as he later referred to it) album. In the mid-1970s, Bowie was a heavy cocaine abuser and sometime heroin user. This album was followed by others in a similar vein, rock albums built around a central character and concerned with futuristic themes of Armageddon, gender dysfunction/confusion, as well as more contemporary themes such as the destructiveness of success and fame, and the dangers inherent in star worship. However, he made the first of many successful "comebacks" in 1972 with "Ziggy Stardust", a concept album about a space-age rock star. The album, which followed "Space Oddity", and the two, which followed (one of which included the song "The Man Who Sold The World", covered by Lulu and Nirvana) failed to produce another hit single, and Bowie's career appeared to be in decline. 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. He finally achieved his commercial breakthrough in 1969 with the song "Space Oddity", which was released at the time of the moon landing. He dabbled in many different styles of music (without commercial success), and other art forms such as acting, mime, painting, and play-writing. The 1960s were not a happy period for Bowie, who remained a struggling artist, awaiting his breakthrough. Born David Jones, he changed his name to Bowie in the 1960s, to avoid confusion with the then well-known Davy Jones (lead singer of The Monkees). ![]() David Bowie was one of the most influential and prolific writers and performers of popular music, but he was much more than that he was also an accomplished actor, a mime and an intellectual, as well as an art lover whose appreciation and knowledge of it had led to him amassing one of the biggest collections of 20th century art. ![]()
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