Whatever you thought of the various couture coups or fashion faux pas, you can never accuse Dame Dave of not making the effort.Īlways knowing who best to collaborate with He looked indomitably cool during his ‘Young Americans’ phase, his frightwig and tights in Labyrinth perhaps signifying a style nadir (not that you get to choose what you wear in a movie). The orange hair (with yellow streak) he adopted for his lead role in the Nicolas Roeg movie The Man Who Fell To Earth became the look for one of his most iconic album covers, Low. On the cover of ‘The Man Who Sold The World’ he managed to alienate many of those who might have bought the record by lying prostrate on a chaise-longue in a dress and fetching laceup boots some people just weren’t ready for it in 1970. The character also made an appearance in the 90’s Pet Shop Boys collaboration ‘Hello Spaceboy’, making Major Tom one of pop’s most enduring characters.īowie was never scared of a little dress up. Tom came crashing down to earth again in 1980 (“strung out in heaven’s high, hitting an all-time low”) in the delightfully dark ‘Ashes to Ashes’, a no.1.

Luck arrived in the form of Neil Armstrong landing on the moon in 1969 and canny Bowie introduced us to Major Tom in his epic ‘Space Oddity’, capturing the public’s imagination and the first major hit of his career in the process. He tried all sorts of shenanigans before he got it right, including impersonating light entertainer Anthony Newley and becoming a folk singer, and when he wasn’t singing his extracurricular activities included mime artistry and founding the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Long Haired Men! Had Bowie started his career in the 21st Century then you’d imagine he’d have been dropped by his record label and become a music industry pariah long ago. It’s well documented that David Bowie wasn’t an overnight success.

To celebrate, here’s ten of the legendary singer’s greatest achievements. Reportedly inspired by the moon landings, Bowie’s space-tastic track documenting the adventures of Major Tom was his first big hit. On this day in 1969, David Bowie was at Trident Studios in London recording what would become the album version of ‘Space Oddity’.

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