10 Rock Bands That Invented Their Own Genre
8. David Bowie
Saying that David Bowie delved into a couple of genres throughout his career would be a drastic understatement. Living up to his chameleon persona, Bowie practically approached his musical career like some sort of theatre show, going from the spacey Major Tom in the early days all the way to the Thin White Duke in later life and even adopting to genres like pop, drum and bass, and soul along the way. If there's one genre that he could practically have trademarked though, it would be glam rock.
Looking to break out of the persona of an aspiring folkie who sang songs about aliens, it was time for Bowie to adopt the persona of a supernatural rock star, with Ziggy Stardust setting the template for glam rock. As he took the usual trappings of old time rock and roll, the makeup and brash presentation gave these songs a life of their own, with both Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane living up to the kind of excess that everyone was waiting for.
Just a few years after Bowie's transformation, we got to see people like Slade and Sweet coming to the table, each looking like another offshoot of the alien we had gotten to know on Suffragette City. It didn't stop there either, with the glam metal of the '80s also finding a mentor in Bowie, with Nikki Sixx calling a song like Changes a turning point in his life. While Bowie was aiming for something a bit otherworldly, it turns out that there were a lot more adventurous rockers out there waiting for his permission to embrace their inner icon.