How 'Ashes To Ashes' Put The First Act Of David Bowie's Career To Rest

In 1980, David Bowie was in the middle of a new kind of transformation. After launching himself to stardom in 1969 with his first hit single, "Space Oddity," he spent a decade morphing from Major Tom to Ziggy Stardust to Aladdin Sane to Halloween Jack to The Thin White Duke — a series of characters that also emblemized radically different approaches to rock music, from sci-fi glam to stark experimentalism. By the end of the '70s, however, he dispensed with such alter egos. Instead, he absorbed them all into a single if mercurial persona, one known simply as David Bowie. And that persona hinged on "Ashes To Ashes."

His 1979 album, , wrapped up a groundbreaking, three-album collaboration with Brian Eno that had yielded his most acclaimed work to date, including the full-lengths and But the final installment of this Berlin Trilogy also exhausted Bowie and Eno's partnership. , as excellent as it was, felt anticlimactic. At the end of the year, he recorded a new version of