REBIRTH OF THE STARMAN

A Seventies' superstar, by the Nineties David Bowie was washed up creatively and commercially. Then something extraordinary happened. Ten years after his tragic death aged just 69, a brilliant new book charts his incredible reinvention

- By Alexander Larman

Performing with Tin Machine in November 1991 David Bowie 1947-2016

JANUARY 10 marks the tenth anniversary of the death of David Bowie, one of the best-loved British musicians of all time. In truth, it doesn’t seem like a decade that he has been gone, because even though he is no longer around, the steady stream of reissues, live albums and biographies that have emerged since 2016 means that his presence is always felt.

Younger artists from Lady Gaga and the Last Dinner Party to Charli xcx and the Arctic Monkeys are open about how indebted to Bowie they are.

He has inspired everyone from politicians - most notably David Cameron, a fully paid-up fan who called the other David “a master of reinvention, who kept getting it right” — 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.

It might be going too far to call him a national treasure — as someone who turned down a knighthood, he was averse to any kind of public fawning - but he remains one of the most popular rock stars the country has ever produced. He was 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.

The music critic Jon Wilde ended one especially 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.