In the latest in his series of Bowie books it’s 1975 and Simon Goddard examines the ‘bad Bowie’, the Thin White Duke who believed that he was in “great danger from witches, warlocks and other psychic parasites intent on destroying him with spells, hexes and wickedest juju”. Drugs are bad for you, kids, and this proves why. But, and with Bowie there’s always a but, what about the little matter of Station to Station and The Man Who Fell to Earth, both critically acclaimed pieces of work that, arguably, were never bettered by Bowie. Drug addled “cocaine cunt” or not the man put in a bit of a shift in 1975. But this book isn’t just about Bowie’s year it’s also about what else was abroad in 75, from Malcom Malcolm’s failure to rehabilitate the New York Dolls to his utterly heinous attempt to mythologise a rapist (bollocks to this scumbag’s aka - Google it if you so wish). Then, among other things, there’s football hooligans, the rise of Maggie Thatcher and England’s slump into cultural and political conservatism - though, what’s happening at St. Martin’s College of Art? Later Bowie renounced the comments and behaviour from this year (and the next) putting them down to drug induced paranoia and depression although as Simon Goddard puts it, Bowie will always be “an irregular triangle in a world of squares”. Most people would have died or been well and truly cancelled but Bowie rose from the personal nadir of 1975 and 1976 little knowing the biggest hits and, arguably, biggest reinventions were yet to come. Superbly written, Bowie Odyssey 75 is stuffed full of quotable lines, cynical bon mots and cut-throat wit - there’s no question that Simon Goddard is in the middle of a rock biog gold strike. I eagerly await the next volume, 1976, the year of punk and how Bowie went from shit-talking Thin White Duke to shit-talking thin white Nazi.

Bowie Odyssey 75 – Simon Goddard - publ. by Omnibus Press £17.99

Steven Long