David Bowie | Space Oddity | The Man Who Sold the World | Hunky Dory
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars | Aladdin Sane | Pin Ups | Diamond Dogs | Young Americans
Station to Station | Low | "Heroes" | Lodger | Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) | Let's Dance | Tonight | Never Let Me Down
Tin Machine | Black Tie White Noise | The Buddha of Suburbia | Outside | Earthling | 'hours...' | The Next Day | ★
Changesonebowie
- Harsher in Hindsight: The parenthetical subtitle for the Title Track is meant to hint at World War III breaking out sometime between 1971 and 1980. While the idea was meant to be purely speculative given that the album released during a period of détente between the United States and the Soviet Union, 1979 would mark renewed tensions between the two superpowers that reignited widespread concerns about a third World War and a nuclear apocalypse throughout the 1980s.
- Mainstream Obscurity: The album was a commercial success and a fan-favorite, and it bears one of the most famous album covers of its era, but despite that, few people outside of dyed-in-the-wool Bowie fans are familiar with the actual contents of the record. Most laypeople won't be able to name a cut from it other than "The Jean Genie", and even then it's overshadowed in popularity by Bowie's other Glam Rock hits. Part of this is due to it sitting in the shadow of its far more famous predecessor, while another part is due to its Genre Roulette approach making it a harder sell than Bowie's other albums, which tend to be more consistent in style.
- Remade and Improved: "The Prettiest Star" was originally recorded as a non-album single in 1970. While it was well-regarded, Bowie's re-recording for this album in 1973 is widely viewed as superior to the original thanks to its beefed-up, Glam Rock-oriented sound and its rewritten lyrics, which tie in with the album's themes.
- Sequelitis: While well-regarded on its own merits, the album is generally seen as an inferior retread of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, to which it is a loose sequel.
