10 Greatest David Bowie Songs
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David Bowie wasn't just a unique artist, he was truly decades ahead of his time. His fashion, his musicality, his diversity. Everything about him exuded originality and forward thinking. It's for these reasons that he remained at the very forefront of popular music for almost 5 decades.
It seemed that he churned out era-defining albums at will. Heroes. Ziggy Stardust. Scary Monsters. Low. Station To Station. The list goes on and on. He did this whilst constantly reinventing his sound, never going stagnant. At times he was experimenting with glam rock, other times it was funk. Sometimes he'd indulge in straight up pop, and other times he'd pop up with abstract ambient pieces.
This artistic flair continued right up until Bowie passed away, with his last album Blackstar being released just two days prior to his death. It probably stands as one of his most experimental works to date, as well as his darkest considering some of the lyrics allude to his very own death.
Whittling the 10 best Bowie albums is a hard enough task, let alone trying to conceive of his 10 very best songs, but here is our best shot.
10. Space Oddity
This is what launched David Bowie into the proverbial stratosphere. This is easily one of Bowie's signature songs and no list can be complete without it. It solidified his style as an extremely conceptual songwriter with a psychedelic edge.
It always seems that the longer the song goes on, the more grandiose it gets. Every element of the song is brought in so gently that you hardly notice just how much is going on by the time it ends. The softly strumming guitar, the low horns, the military-esque drums. They all creep up on you so subtly but so effectively.
It's no wonder that this is one of four Bowie songs that was included in The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. Without this song, we may not have been blessed with the stellar career of his we have the pleasure of enjoying. Space Oddity is the definition of an essential Bowie track.