David Bowie is as well-known for his singles as he is for his powerhouse albums and full-length records. There are quite a few career-defining singles from David Bowie that even non-fans will recognize, and a handful of them are absolutely essential listening. Let’s take a look at some essential Bowie tracks!
1. “Let’s Dance”
This is probably David Bowie’s most well-known pop track. “Let’s Dance” was released back in 1983 and proved a lot about Bowie. Not only did it prove that he was a dynamic musician, but it also proved that he wouldn’t let follow the ebb and flow of musical trends. Rather, he’d set them. And he certainly set a trend with “Let’s Dance”.
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2. “Space Oddity”
This career-defining David Bowie track is often believed to have been inspired by the moon landing, considering it was released around the same time in 1969. However, Bowie said that the song was more or less inspired by art itself: Namely, the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey.
“It was written because of going to see the film ‘2001’, which I found amazing,” Bowie once said. “I was out of my gourd anyway, I was very stoned when I went to see it, several times, and it was really a revelation to me. It got the song flowing.”
3. “Life On Mars?”
Few songs are as legendary as “Life On Mars?”. It’s a powerful, on-point track and one of the greatest songs ever written by Bowie. It’s wild that this 1971 track from Hunky Dory was only really popular across the pond when it was first released. After Bowie’s death in 2016, this song got a lot of radio play globally.
4. “Fashion”
Another excellent career-defining David Bowie hit, “Fashion” has been all over the radio airwaves since it was first released back in 1980. According to Bowie, he wrote the song to “move on a little from that Ray Davies concept of fashion, to suggest more of a gritted-teeth determination and an unsureness about why one’s doing it.”
5. “Starman”
When one thinks of David Bowie, one often thinks of the 1972 song “Starman”. Few sings are as closely associated with Bowie as this one from the Ziggy Stardust era. Nobody could do an octave leap quite like Ziggy himself.
Photo by Steve Back/Daily Mail/Shutterstock
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