Top 5 Top Ten Lists Where You Won’t Find Bowie

This is my attempt at humor. If you don’t think it’s funny, be glad it’s not a top 10 list!

1. Top 10 Debut Albums. I actually saw someone ask this question on social media and get hundreds of responses. Do you know what was absent? David Bowie (1967). Yeah, yeah, some diehard fans actually like this curiosity, but most look the other way and pretend Space Oddity was Bowie’s debut.

2. Top 10 Country Crossovers. Country was one of the few musical genres Bowie claimed not to like. Yes, he did a tongue-in-cheek live performance of “Bus Stop” as a country song with Tin Machine, and yes, Chris Young borrowed from “Rebel Rebel” for his country hit, “Young Love and Saturday Night,” but beyond that we were never going to see Bowie make this stylistic ch-ch-change.

3. Top 10 British Singers who Sang without An Accent. Did you ever notice how many British singers don’t sound British while singing? Bowie wasn’t one of them. If you imitate David Bowie, you are likely to imitate his cockney singing voice, which he really only used in a few songs like, “Scary Monsters.” Try saying his name in what you think of as his voice and not pronouncing the “o” in Bowie as a diphthong. I’ll bet you can’t do it! Sure, Bowie himself had many songs where the accent wasn’t so pronounced, but that’s not how most people remember it.

4. Top 10 Love Songs. Bowie wrote more than 400 songs, and sure, a handful could be classified as love songs, but probably not enough to fill up an entire album. It’s the most common topic for pop music— unless you’re David Bowie.

5. Worst of the 70s. The 70s have a terrible reputation as a music decade…and for a lot of other reasons, too. But, first, the reputation is unfair overall. And second, usually whoever says this adds, “except, that is, for David Bowie.” Bowie’s 70s output was so good that it cast a shadow over some truly excellent music he made later. Now, worst of the 60s? See item #1…