Paperback. This biography and critical analysis focuses on rock superstar David Bowie's most influential—and strangest—decade, the 1970s. Spanning the period from his first hit, 1969's "Space Oddity", to his 1980 album Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), journalist Peter Doggett unflinchingly analyzes 250 songs, tracing the themes that shaped Bowie's career, from the occult to fascism to his Ziggy Stardust alter ego, and along the way describing the artist's path from working class London kid to glittering global phenomenon.