David Bowie--Fame (1975)

     Madonna has been lauded for her ability to reinvent herself and her character, and rightly so. She used the video age to position herself in a way no woman has done before or since, and that very few artists have been able to do and I have always been a fan. Having said that, her music is still for the dance floor and has matured over the years, but a decade before "Like a Virgin", David Bowie was redefining himself musically EACH ALBUM.
      With each release in the 70's, Bowie was not only changing who he was, but the music changed along with it. From Aladden Sane to Ziggy Stardust, through the pop and soul of "Diamond Dogs" and "Young Americans", the thin white Duke morphing into his (in my opinion) most interesting years as a minimalist. Bowie never let anyone pigeonhole him into any one style. For the now strong underground FM movement, he became a superstar and early 70's rock hero. For top 40, he was maddeningly hard to slot, which is why many of his songs that are considered "hits" were either not released stateside, or never made the charts.
     "Fame" was born from a day spent with John Lennon. Bowie had met the star in New York, and after a long conversation which included the pros and cons of being stars, they went to a studio and jammed a bit. David, who was in a row with his management, poured his anger and resentment into a song developed from the earlier chat with Lennon.
     It was the only top 10 single he had in the US during the 70's reaching #1 in the spring of 1975. He was to go on to have much bigger chart success in the early 80s...