What do you think?
Rate this book
Forever Stardust: David Bowie Across the Universe
Most of the many books about David Bowie track his artistic 'changes' chronologically throughout his career. This book, uniquely, examines Bowie's 'sameness': his recurring themes, images, motifs and concepts as an artist, across all his creative work, from lyrics and music through to costumes, storyboards, films, plays and painting.To be published on Bowie's 70th birthday, Forever Stardust looks at Bowie's work not as a linear evolution through calendar time, to his tragic death in January 2016, but as a matrix, a dialogue, a network of ideas that echo back and forth across the five decades of his career, interacting with each other and with the surrounding culture. It explores Bowie's creative output as a whole, tracing the repetitions and obsessions that structure his work, discovering what they tell us about Bowie in all his forms, from Ziggy Stardust to David Jones.David Bowie challenged cultural expectations from the early 1970s until his final masterpiece, Blackstar. Forever Stardust offers a new understanding of this remarkable & significant artist.
- GenresNonfictionMusic
272 pages, Paperback
Published March 18, 2017
5 people are currently reading
33 people want to read
About the author
Will Brooker
27 books13 followersDr. Will Brooker is a writer and academic, Professor of Film and Cultural Studies at Kingston University, England, and an author of several books of cultural studies dealing with elements of modern pop culture and fandom, including Batman, Star Wars and Alice in Wonderland
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
December 13, 2024
Will Brooker’s “Forever Stardust” is a wonder of critical analysis and multi-textural deconstruction of the late David Bowie: the man, the music, the myths, and the truths. He attempts to answer the seemingly simple question--Who was David Bowie?---and comes to the conclusion that it is not a simple question at all.
For Bowiephiles, Bowie was many different things. He was a starman, a junkie, a girl with mousy hair, a thin white duke, a rock star, a diamond dog, a poet, a homosexual, a bisexual, a transsexual, a Brit, an American, a Berliner, a New Yorker, a man with no home, a husband, a father, a sinner, a saint, a human being, a legend, an outsider, a skinny kid from Brixton.
Perhaps this is why there are so many biographies and books written about Bowie. It’s hard to pin him down. He’s impossible to categorize, label, or pigeonhole, which was probably his goal in life.
Brooker starts by describing the difficulty in just figuring out Bowie’s authorship and ownership of the person known as Bowie. Just as his numerous manifestations of self throughout the decades make it virtually impossible to find an “authentic” Bowie, so too is it difficult to figure out what can be claimed as “original” Bowie material.
His entire career was a series of creative collaborations with other artists, some that he learned from, borrowed from, outright stole from, and yet ultimately created something unique and distinctly his own.
Despite this, while one can recognize a Bowie song a mile away from just a snippet of noise from a passing car radio or two seconds of vocals, finding an answer to the question, what makes Bowie Bowie?, is ultimately unattainable: “It foregrounds the fact that any interpretation of Bowie’s work involves subjective choices and selections, that we enter into what I’ve called the ‘Bowie matrix’ from a certain position, with a certain perspective, and that we make our own meaning in collaboration with the texts in that network, adding to the discourse rather than observing it from the outside. Any interpretation of Bowie’s work is a co-creation with Bowie; it is an art, not a science. Its findings are always and immediately open to debate. (p. 49)”
Brooker goes on to examine, in rigorous detail and well-researched analytics, some of the common themes that appear throughout Bowie’s lengthy career and in his music. Some of them are extremely obvious: such as Bowie’s fascination with and almost religious utilization of alien, otherworldly, and other science fictional elements. From his first real hit, “A Space Oddity” to his Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars persona to his mid-1990s albums, “1.Outside” and “Earthling” and up until his final album “Blackstar”, the concept of alienness/Otherness abounds.
Much like his other common theme of the ephemerality of gender and sexuality, which was, indeed, what put Bowie on the map.
Both concepts are tied together, in a sense, to explain Bowie’s struggle to be both a part of the in-crowd and an outlier figure. Indeed, it is this aspect of Bowie’s body of work that inspired and helped allay the fears of generations of teenagers who felt picked on, ostracized, hated, abused, and banned from normal society because they were gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans, or “fluid” in a rigid world ruled by heterosexuality.
For Bowie, sexuality was never a big deal: he had sex with whomever he wanted because he could. But he recognized the importance of supporting those who perhaps could not be as free or open with their sexuality as he could. For many of these scared, awkward teenagers, Bowie’s music was liberating. It was an approval that they could not get from their parents, teachers, and society in general.
Another chapter focuses on Bowie’s motifs of death and resurrection, which can be found in a surprising amount of his work. Again, Brooker ties this into the idea of personal isolation and transformation, themes that Bowie understood well in his personal life. With fears of suffering the same mental illness (schizophrenia) that his older brother suffered from, nearly dying from alcohol, cocaine, and a myriad of other drugs, the death of his father when he was a teenager, and losing friends throughout his life for various reasons, Bowie experienced his fair share of isolating near-death experiences.
But he also experienced many glorious transformations throughout his life. Indeed, transformation and (I daresay) “changes” are what kept Bowie going. It’s what fueled him. It’s what made him the popular (pop/rock/glam/black) star that he was until his dying day. Of course, January 10, 2016 was, for Bowie (and his fans), merely just another transformation.
For Bowiephiles, Bowie was many different things. He was a starman, a junkie, a girl with mousy hair, a thin white duke, a rock star, a diamond dog, a poet, a homosexual, a bisexual, a transsexual, a Brit, an American, a Berliner, a New Yorker, a man with no home, a husband, a father, a sinner, a saint, a human being, a legend, an outsider, a skinny kid from Brixton.
Perhaps this is why there are so many biographies and books written about Bowie. It’s hard to pin him down. He’s impossible to categorize, label, or pigeonhole, which was probably his goal in life.
Brooker starts by describing the difficulty in just figuring out Bowie’s authorship and ownership of the person known as Bowie. Just as his numerous manifestations of self throughout the decades make it virtually impossible to find an “authentic” Bowie, so too is it difficult to figure out what can be claimed as “original” Bowie material.
His entire career was a series of creative collaborations with other artists, some that he learned from, borrowed from, outright stole from, and yet ultimately created something unique and distinctly his own.
Despite this, while one can recognize a Bowie song a mile away from just a snippet of noise from a passing car radio or two seconds of vocals, finding an answer to the question, what makes Bowie Bowie?, is ultimately unattainable: “It foregrounds the fact that any interpretation of Bowie’s work involves subjective choices and selections, that we enter into what I’ve called the ‘Bowie matrix’ from a certain position, with a certain perspective, and that we make our own meaning in collaboration with the texts in that network, adding to the discourse rather than observing it from the outside. Any interpretation of Bowie’s work is a co-creation with Bowie; it is an art, not a science. Its findings are always and immediately open to debate. (p. 49)”
Brooker goes on to examine, in rigorous detail and well-researched analytics, some of the common themes that appear throughout Bowie’s lengthy career and in his music. Some of them are extremely obvious: such as Bowie’s fascination with and almost religious utilization of alien, otherworldly, and other science fictional elements. From his first real hit, “A Space Oddity” to his Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars persona to his mid-1990s albums, “1.Outside” and “Earthling” and up until his final album “Blackstar”, the concept of alienness/Otherness abounds.
Much like his other common theme of the ephemerality of gender and sexuality, which was, indeed, what put Bowie on the map.
Both concepts are tied together, in a sense, to explain Bowie’s struggle to be both a part of the in-crowd and an outlier figure. Indeed, it is this aspect of Bowie’s body of work that inspired and helped allay the fears of generations of teenagers who felt picked on, ostracized, hated, abused, and banned from normal society because they were gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans, or “fluid” in a rigid world ruled by heterosexuality.
For Bowie, sexuality was never a big deal: he had sex with whomever he wanted because he could. But he recognized the importance of supporting those who perhaps could not be as free or open with their sexuality as he could. For many of these scared, awkward teenagers, Bowie’s music was liberating. It was an approval that they could not get from their parents, teachers, and society in general.
Another chapter focuses on Bowie’s motifs of death and resurrection, which can be found in a surprising amount of his work. Again, Brooker ties this into the idea of personal isolation and transformation, themes that Bowie understood well in his personal life. With fears of suffering the same mental illness (schizophrenia) that his older brother suffered from, nearly dying from alcohol, cocaine, and a myriad of other drugs, the death of his father when he was a teenager, and losing friends throughout his life for various reasons, Bowie experienced his fair share of isolating near-death experiences.
But he also experienced many glorious transformations throughout his life. Indeed, transformation and (I daresay) “changes” are what kept Bowie going. It’s what fueled him. It’s what made him the popular (pop/rock/glam/black) star that he was until his dying day. Of course, January 10, 2016 was, for Bowie (and his fans), merely just another transformation.
May 7, 2025
Pretty good read. The author describes it in the introduction as “a study of the structures, themes and motifs that run through Bowie’s work”. He definitely approaches the topic with an academic lens - you encounter quotes by Derrida, Barthes, and Foucault for example in the first chapter alone.
There are a lot of deep dives into the songs which isn’t something I ever find very interesting but is hardly out of place in a biography of a musician. I enjoyed the chapter on race and the one on gender and sexuality. By a couple of the later ones my eyes were starting to glaze over a little bit though. Still, I don’t imagine there’s a lot left unsaid about Bowie, so I appreciated that the author was able to bring a fresh (to me anyway) perspective.
There are a lot of deep dives into the songs which isn’t something I ever find very interesting but is hardly out of place in a biography of a musician. I enjoyed the chapter on race and the one on gender and sexuality. By a couple of the later ones my eyes were starting to glaze over a little bit though. Still, I don’t imagine there’s a lot left unsaid about Bowie, so I appreciated that the author was able to bring a fresh (to me anyway) perspective.
August 25, 2017
I am a huge Bowie fan so this is in no way an unbiased review.
Fangirl since the age of 8 years old, there is little I do not know of Mr. Bowie, aka David Jones. Ever more hungry for more details or more addition to the legend I looked to this new book.
It seems the author has no pictures inside and a drawn picture on the front which shows me that he did not get permission to use such material. This bothers me as I like to make sure that the artist being discussed is being compensated.
Will researched Bowie for a year and I find that he does prove that here; although not in a very organized way. He quotes from authors of "Alias Bowie" which David himself debunked when published in the 80s.
There's a line that the author uses that really bothers me; "David is racist like all white people are racist". What? Sorry? First white guy on soul train, huge Little Richard fan, Iman's husband, charitable donor to Africa? There is even a famous clip of him bothering MTV about not including black artists on their channel enough. He had band members Luther Vandross, Carlos Alomar.....
To say that I was offended was putting it mildly.
A Bowie book needs pictures. As much as he was a man of words, his personas and images were/are works of art.
Some tid bits but for big fans I'd look elsewhere. Disappointing.
Fangirl since the age of 8 years old, there is little I do not know of Mr. Bowie, aka David Jones. Ever more hungry for more details or more addition to the legend I looked to this new book.
It seems the author has no pictures inside and a drawn picture on the front which shows me that he did not get permission to use such material. This bothers me as I like to make sure that the artist being discussed is being compensated.
Will researched Bowie for a year and I find that he does prove that here; although not in a very organized way. He quotes from authors of "Alias Bowie" which David himself debunked when published in the 80s.
There's a line that the author uses that really bothers me; "David is racist like all white people are racist". What? Sorry? First white guy on soul train, huge Little Richard fan, Iman's husband, charitable donor to Africa? There is even a famous clip of him bothering MTV about not including black artists on their channel enough. He had band members Luther Vandross, Carlos Alomar.....
To say that I was offended was putting it mildly.
A Bowie book needs pictures. As much as he was a man of words, his personas and images were/are works of art.
Some tid bits but for big fans I'd look elsewhere. Disappointing.
October 14, 2018
Really enjoyed this book. A look at the various commonalities that feature in Bowie's work - the recurring themes and motifs. I found that Brooker's writings, which he characterises as "a subjective, personal reading of 'David Bowie'. Aren't they all?" - to be admirably unwilling to reach conclusions, positing multiple interpretations and never choosing one over another, while considering all in detail. My own inclinations are similar, but this book is much more detailed and developed. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
December 23, 2019
If you, like me, want to consider the Bowie thematic matrix (0f gender and sexuality, identity, death and resurrection) through the philosophical lens of Derrida, Bahktin & Deleuze, then this book is for you.
Otherwise, it probably isn't.
Otherwise, it probably isn't.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews