14232949

Yup, chart positions are definitely a measure of how good a record is.

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Bowie certainly ranks up there, and he is a legend, but I felt that when it came to The Mid-80's, Tin Machine, and a good amount of his 90's music, he slightly slipped. Still, when it comes to returning to form and still adapting to changes, as well as dealing with the business side of things (especially in his parting ways with MainMan) he's a clear winner in that. Also, in viewing his entire career, he had quite a slow start as the world rejected his Deram recordings until he became Ziggy and his Early 70's saw him trying out things that still did not seriously fit perfectly despite having some wonderful songs. It was finding the right image and taking it from there, especially with excellent musicians helping out.

To me most of his appeal is certainly that of an artist in a great world of his own, more Artistic than Street Level. He helped pioneer or popularize a lot - Music Promotion (Videos), Glam, Punk (Ziggy's comparatively short hair in the era of Boogie), androgynous images, the brief but still stylish New Romantics (The Thin White Duke era), Ambient (Low and 'Heroes'), Synths in music, Gothic (Ziggy's influence on the early days of that), and on and on.

Still, when it came to the final effect, it's more of a great actor who got caught up in music instead who knows how to whip up classic songs and concepts. He's a great singer and a brilliant showman who learned by trial and error while not worrying if he ever made another mistake.

Still, I believe that a some of Bowie's style was certainly sparked by observing a certain "Performance" by one Mick Jagger, and that's a serious compliment to both Jagger's only great film (any other film so far has been pretty weak...must be a Deal with the Devil in there, somewhere...ha ha) and Bowie's stage presence and music. Remember, "The only performance that makes it, that makes it all the way, is the one that achieves madness!" are the words to think about.

By throwing in a lot of artistic influences, he succeeded.

I'm convinced that those were words Bowie learned from as he was exiting his "laughing Gnome" stage.
Throw in some influence of The Velvet Underground and The Stooges, and one has a small part of what went into what made his style great.

Mrd00d

Bingo.

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Mrd00d's Last.fm

NEWGUY562

there are great songs that were singles that didnt chart well but there are more great songs that are classics that charted well..unfortunately both doesnt go with bowie.

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Bowie's Man of Words-Man of Music/Man Who Sold the World era was a time of fine songs that seriously missed the charts with only one big hit in there. In fact, I'm sure many have marked him as a one hit wonder with "Space Oddity" for a long time before Ziggy played guitar. "Starman" was the song that suggested that he was going to be around for a while, although Hunky Dory was a cult hit in it's original Pre-Ziggy run.

NEWGUY562

the first album i checked out by bowie was hunky dory and well i didn't see the big deal :/ it bugged me because everybody else did! :[

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Some of the songs were not that great, but it was the one that had "Changes," "Queen Bitch," "Oh! You Pretty Things," and "Life On Mars." Leading up to what happened next. In a way, those four songs were the ones that set the scene.

That cover, though, was not one of the better ones.

NEWGUY562

i actually liked that cover lol..the only bowie album that i could actually listen through the whole way were young americans & station to station

NoQuarter

I think Led Zeppelin had a pretty flawless career until Mr Bonham sadly passed. But hey there reunion was amazing and proved they still have it even if Plant can't quite hit the high notes anymore, but damn the guy can still out-sing most singers.

Music Fanatic

do you think Michael Jackson is on this list? it seems to me that when he was on top he was as equal as the Beatles, or maybe even surpassed them