Before David Bowie was a transformational rock star whose ability to effortlessly shapeshift between baroque pop, psychedelic rock, electronic rock, neo-soul, and dance music had fully taken shape he was a struggling artist whose career was very much at the crossroads. After his self-titled dance hall record David Bowie was a flop commercially, Bowie showed glimpses of the musician he would become in the following decade with his release of his second album. The opening song “Space Oddity”, based off Stanley Kubrick’s tour-de-force film 2001: A Space Odyssey, showed glimmers of the world building Bowie would eventually become known for. Featuring an astronaut named Major Tom, the track tells a somber tale of a malfunction on the spaceship he inhabits that will eventually claim his life. And yet, despite this grim reality he faces, Major Tom is either in a state of bliss or completely unaware of the fate that will befall him. There’s a certain poetry to this song that has always resonated with me– the nobility of acceptance, the strength that can be found in solitude, and the significance each second can have when you truly are living in the moment. “Space Oddity” has all of that in spades, and while the rest of the album doesn’t ever live up to the magnitude of that song, it provided a framework that Bowie would turn to later in the decade which made him one of the most important musicians in the history of music.
Standout Songs: “Space Oddity”, “Letter to Hermione”, “Wild Eyed Boy From Freecloud”, “Memory of a Free Festival”
