Episode Details

David Bowie became famous by inventing a character, then killed that character onstage and became someone else entirely. He repeated this pattern for forty years, shedding identities like a psychological submarine surfacing in new waters each time. No other musician made reinvention itself the art form.

This episode traces Bowie from his South London childhood through Ziggy Stardust, the Thin White Duke, his Berlin period, and his final album Blackstar, released two days before his death as one last act of creative control.

• He created and killed off the Ziggy Stardust persona in a single tour
• His Berlin Trilogy with Brian Eno produced three of the most influential albums of the 1970s
• He had two different-colored eyes due to a childhood fight that permanently dilated one pupil
• Blackstar was released two days before his death and is widely seen as his planned farewell