When the Starman fell to Earth with a bump

A NEW BOOK ABOUT DAVID BOWIE CHARTS THE MUSIC LEGEND'S 'LOST DECADES'.BY ALEXANDER LARMAN

- 

IT’S 10 years since David Bowie died and the world lost one of the most influential and loved musical icons of all time.

But a steady stream of reissues, live albums and biographies means that his presence is always felt.

Younger artists, from Lady Gaga and the Last Dinner Party to Charli xcx and Arctic Monkeys, are open about how indebted to Bowie they are, and he has inspired everyone from politicians to filmmakers including Christopher Nolan and Martin Scorsese, who both cast him in their pictures.

In terms of personal and cultural influence in Britain, Bowie is probably second only to the Beatles, and in terms of longevity he long surpassed them.

As someone who turned down a knighthood, he was averse to any kind of public fawning over him, but he remains one of the most popular rock stars the country ever produced, a proud Londoner whose many years living in Switzerland and New York never diluted his love for his home country, nor the affection the British feel for him today.

Yet three-and-a-half decades ago, it was a very different story.

Music critic Jon Wilde ended one damning review with the words, “sit down, man, you're a f***ing disgrace”, and as Bowie struggled to interest the world in the dire hard-rock act Tin Machine that he founded in the late 80s, it seemed as if The Man Who Fell To Earth was now the man who was washed up.

But 25 years later, Bowie could release his final album, the magnificent swansong Blackstar, two days before his death, and know that he would be remembered as a god among mere mortals as long as his music is listened to, and loved.

So what changed, and what went so right in the interim?

Bowie initially came to fame in 1969, after several false starts, with his hit single Space Oddity. Released on July 11 that year, it became far more prominent when the BBC used it as background music 10 days later to accompany their footage of the Apollo 11 moon landings.