After the success of his 10-million selling 1983 album Let’s Dance, David Bowie felt, as he put it, “rather rootless”, struggling with the sense that he was being lumped into one, admittedly revered, box. Determined to stick to his chameleonic ways, he flailed both critically and commercially with follow-up albums such as his band’s adventurous self-titled 1989 record Tin Machine and 1993’s The Buddha of Suburbia. One particularly savage review in Melody Maker of 1991’s Tin Machine II closed with the remark, “Sit down, man, you’re a f***ing disgrace,” which Bowie’s longtime PR Alan Edwards told writer John Wilde had reduced the musician to tears.
A new Channel 4 documentary now sets out to explore what is described as a “relatively unexamined” period of David Bowie’s musical output as well as the later years building towards his final masterpiece, Blackstar, released days before his death aged 69 on 10 January 2016. Directed by Jonathan Stiasny, it includes commentary from some of those closest to him, including producer Tony Visconti, guitarist Earl Slick and promoter John Giddings, as well as archive footage and interviews with Bowie himself.
