Despite the plethora of existing books about the British glam rocker (e.g., David Buckley's Strange Fascination
), Spitz, formerly of Spin
magazine and the author of a look at the punk band Green Day (Nobody Likes You
), concentrates on the complex evolution of Bowie's music to deliver an evenhanded, critically thorough, while still reverential life of the Thin White Duke. Born David Jones in the Brixton suburbs of London in 1947, Bowie treaded the musical edges from blues to mod to rock-and-roll, moving from band to band in his teens and trying out different personas. Assuming the name of an American frontiersman who died at the Alamo, Bowie took his cues from influences as diverse as Bob Dylan, the Velvet Underground, and Marcel Marceau, playing with mime, theater, fashion and sheer showmanship. In the beginning, record companies didn't know how to classify him, with albums like Space Oddity
, The Man Who Sold the World
and Hunky Dory
; it was The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust
and Spiders from Mars
, depicting Bowie's red-haired rooster haircut and bisexual persona, that sparked the public's fancy. Phenomenal success ensued, and even in his most cocaine-fueled paranoid period during the mid-1970s, Bowie never stopped changing himself, constantly experimenting with new forms, be they Kabuki, disco, New Wave, punk or Brit pop. Spitz concentrates on the heady years culminating in Scary Monsters
and underscores the deafening void that Bowie's recent silence has left in the music world. (Oct.)
