david bowie Archives

Tuesday

April 7, 2026

Is Kanye West the David Bowie of his age?

Kanye “Ye” West has been barred from appearing at London’s Wireless Festival by dint of having his temporary visa withdrawn. The move has generally been met with approval, save by those disappointed fans of his music whose pre-ordered tickets will now be refunded. “Kanye West should never have been invited to headline Wireless,” said Prime Minister Keir Starmer. “This government stands firmly with the Jewish community, and we will not stop in our fight to confront and defeat the poison of antisemitism.” Fair enough, many might say. Last year Ye released a single entitled “HH” (Heil Hitler) and declared himself a Nazi on social media. Ye has now made a series

Friday

February 20, 2026

Anne Margaret Daniel

The many David Bowies

Alexander Larman is the author of a biography of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, and of Byron’s Women. Reading Larman’s new biography of David Bowie, one gets the sense that this could have been the end of a trilogy, given all three men’s talent and excesses. In fact, Bowie once considered playing Byron in a movie. Larman’s focus in Lazarus is on Bowie’s career from the end of the 1980s through to his final works: the musical Lazarus and the album Blackstar, the artist’s last gift to his fans, released on his 69th birthday – two days before his death from liver cancer in 2016. This is a thorough account

Thursday

February 5, 2026

Alexander Larman

The golden years of David Bowie

This year marks the anniversaries of two of David Bowie’s most compelling and powerful albums: 1976’s Station to Station and 2016’s Blackstar. Given that they are often – rightly – described as Bowie’s crowning artistic achievements, amid severe competition from his other releases, they also have the intriguing fillip that both were originally released in January: a fortunate time for the musician, who was born on January 8, 1947, even if it was also the month in which he finally departed this Earth. Yet the comparisons between Station to Station and Blackstar, which came out 40 years apart, are far more pervasive – and persuasive – than the serendipity of

Tuesday

January 27, 2026

Alexander Larman

What is Travis Scott doing in The Odyssey?

As far as teaser trailers for summer blockbusters go, it takes quite a lot to make jaded audiences – or cynical critics – sit up and say, “What the hell?” But what’s exactly what the latest trailer for Christopher Nolan’s eagerly awaited The Odyssey has done. Not because it has featured a couple of new shots of Tom Holland’s Telemachus squaring off with Robert Pattinson’s villainous Antinous, or Matt Damon’s Odysseus participating in the bloody sack of Troy with his fellow Greeks, but because it introduces the most unexpected cameo of the year, possibly of the decade. Ladies and gentlemen, enter the latest feature of Nolan’s all-star cast: the hip-hop