Bowie was born on the 8th of January 1947 (as David Jones). He is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger and is known as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s. A year after his first hit 'Space Oddity', his album 'The Man Who Sold the World'. The cover for the first UK version, Bowie is seen in a 'man's dress', an early indication of his interest in exploiting his androgynous appearance even before he re-emerged in 1972 during the glam rock era with the flamboyant, androgynous alter ego Ziggy Stardust for the album 'The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars'. Within this album 'Ziggy' is an alien being in human form, trying to present humanity with a message of hope in the last five years of its existence. After his 1975 album, 'Young Americans' Bowie recorded the album 'Low' in 1977 with Brain Eno.
Post Modernism:
- Hyperreality - His alter ego 'Ziggy Stardust' was a character from which Bowie could experiment. Ziggy was a definitive rock star figure, aesthetically striking and bold. He was a persona for Bowie's album and a whole story was created around him. Bowie intended for the album to serve as a 'soundtrack' for a stage show or television production about 'Ziggy Stardust'. The story being that the world was due to end in five years and the character of 'Ziggy' would use music to bring hope to the people.
- Boundaries - Bowie allowed himself to experiment different genres and one of the reasons he was so innovative was the fact that he blended genres and blurred the edges between them. Though he is known for his rock music he also progressed to soul, jazz, funk, glam rock, folk and more.
- Concepts of sexuality - It was said that Bowie was 'a taboo-breaker and a dabbler ... mined sexual intrigue for its ability to shock', 'his interest in homosexual and bisexual culture had been more a product of the times and the situation in which he found himself than his own feelings'.
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