History Trivia / DAVIDBOWIE

* AuthorsSavingThrow: Bowie expressed regret for his comments in interviews during the [[Music/StationToStation Thin White Duke]] era, during which he occasionally expressed sympathy with fascism (due, it's generally accepted, to getting LostInCharacter as the Duke, who actually was a fascist). After this point, on the rare occasions when he would express political themes in his work, they often tended to be anti-fascist, anti-racist, or otherwise anti-authoritarian. Good examples are the videos for "China Girl" and "Let's Dance", as well as much of the content of ''Tin Machine''. He also called out Creator/{{MTV}} for not playing black artists in the early days. The line "To be insulted by these fascists is so degrading" from ''Music/ScaryMonstersAndSuperCreeps'' is also generally considered to be an apology for this period. (It may be worth pointing out that some of Bowie's pre-Duke material also had anti-authoritarian themes, most notably ''Music/DiamondDogs'', which started out life as a musical adaptation of Creator/GeorgeOrwell's ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour'', and still had several songs referencing the book even after Orwell's estate refused him the permission to use the work. It may also be worth noting that Bowie performed with a racially integrated backing band for most of TheSeventies).

* BreakthroughHit: "Starman". In the U.K., his ''Top of the Pops'' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v342TST9tFw performance of this song]], complete with some FauxYay between him and guitarist Mick Ronson, is as fondly recalled as a superstar-making moment as Music/MichaelJackson's performance of "Billie Jean" on ''Motown 25'' is everywhere else. The 1973 reissue of "Space Oddity" was his U.S. breakthrough (with "Fame" proving his staying power by topping the charts two years later).

** He was preparing a musical version of ''[[Literature/NineteenEightyFour 1984]]'' as a post-Ziggy Stardust project, but couldn't get the rights from Orwell's widow; some of the songs he wrote for it were recorded and released on ''Music/DiamondDogs''. A 1980 ''New Music Express'' interview revealed he actually worked on a surreal, partially-animated film based on the album, intending to release it DirectToVideo.

** While Bowie expressed open regret for much of his output during the '80s, he reserved his strongest, yet least-vocalized vitriol for the ''Music/NeverLetMeDown'' track "Too Dizzy", banning it from ever seeing the light of day again after the album's original 1987 release. Bowie's labels and his estate have adhered to his request to this day, not even including it in the otherwise comprehensive BoxedSet ''Loving the Alien (1983-1988)''. Bowie himself dismissed "Too Dizzy" as a throwaway song and described it as his least favorite track on his least favorite album, while biographer Nicholas Pegg attributes the self-imposed ban to the song's unintentionally creepy lyrics, being a jealousy song that accidentally came off as a stalker anthem.

** Whenever Bowie looked back on his first album, ''David Live'', he never did so fondly, describing it as "the final death of Ziggy [Stardust]" and joking that it should've been called ''David Bowie Is Alive and Well and Living Only in Theory''.

** After Creator/{{Rykodisc}}'s rights to Bowie's 1969-1980 catalog lapsed in 1998, Creator/{{EMI}} and Creator/CapitolRecords made plans to keep them in print, briefly reissuing ''Music/PinUps'', ''David Live'', and ''Music/YoungAmericans'' under the EMI-Capitol Entertainment Properties imprint. However, these plans were scrapped when Creator/VirginRecords put together their own in-house remasters in 1999, which included not only the studio albums in Rykodisc's series, but also ''Music/LetsDance'', ''Music/{{Tonight}}'', ''Music/NeverLetMeDown'', and ''Music/{{Tin Machine|Album}}''. Since then, the Rykodisc [=CDs=] have never been reissued.