I won’t belabor this point. If David Bowie isn’t the most influential artist in the history of post-war pop music, he is at least on Mount Rushmore, along with Chuck Berry, Elvis, Lennon/McCartney, and David Jones… who came to be known as Bowie.
The others were instrumental in inventing and popularizing rock and roll, but Bowie has proven more important in many ways. Modern pop music relies more on what Bowie brought throughout the 1970s and ‘80s than those other giants. I dare say that if you queried a cross-section of 100 top-tier musicians from 2025, Bowie would be the most commonly cited influence.
That influence went well beyond music. Bowie was a cultural phenomenon in fashion and broadly defined performance art. He helped shape our modern conception of a pop star as a blank canvas onto which fans project their fantasies. Bowie was a polymath—an actor and mime, dancer and model—who always believed he had far more to offer than simply being a singer.
David Bowie's impact on modern pop music continues to be massive almost a decade after his death
And yet, Bowie released an astonishing amount of music for an artist who had a love-hate relationship with the entire notion of rock stardom. Between his debut in 1967 and Never Let Me Down in 1987, Bowie released 17 studio and three live albums. That’s an album a year for twenty straight years. Most of it was original material, except for one album dedicated to covers.
After trying on a few different styles in the late 1960s, Bowie would become the leading light in glam, synth-pop, and his own brand of blue-eyed soul while expanding the parameters of art rock. His music's impact would be felt in virtually every pop genre over the next several decades.
Then, when age and illness seemed to be conspiring to slow him down, Bowie released two albums in his final five years that would be the envy of most other musicians.
When the calendar turns over into January 2026, David Bowie will have been gone for ten years. Since I have a bad habit of letting milestones like that slip by, I thought I’d jump the gun a bit and do a countdown of David Bowie’s 25 greatest songs.
Any such list is highly personal. As a fan of Bowie’s early-‘70s output, I could have easily populated this list with the entirety of Hunky Dory and The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars (henceforth to be called Ziggy Stardust.)
I chose multiple selections from those albums, but in listening to Bowie’s entire discography – some of which I hadn’t heard in decades – I found many more contenders. So this will have a fair number of hits and a handful of more obscure tracks that deserve attention. At the same time, it will omit some fan favorites.
Teaser – only one of Bowie’s two Billboard chart toppers will show up here. With that out of the way, on to the countdown.
25. "Fashion" (1980)
Let’s get that teaser out of the way before I forget. “Let’s Dance” will not be on this list. Nor will “Golden Years.” Both were top ten hits, with the former being one of Bowie’s two number-one hits. I have nothing against either song. I think “Fashion,” from Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) is musically and lyrically better.
As a dance song about the rigidity of fashion, Bowie predated plenty of synth dance songs from the likes of Madonna and Lady Gaga in the decades that followed. Plus, he had a killer band playing behind him.
The pounding bass is courtesy of George Murray, while Carlos Alomar, one of the main forces behind the neo-soul Bowie was exploring in the mid-‘70s, provides the funky rhythm guitar. Then, soaring all about, art rock guitar god Robert Fripp is a marvel.
24. “All the Madmen” (1970)
Journeying back near the beginning of his career, “All the Madmen” is a standout track from Bowie’s third album, The Man Who Sold the World. Kurt Cobain and Nirvana would make the title track famous with their Unplugged cover. "All the Madmen" reveals Bowie’s early indebtedness to theatricality and English folk traditions, while starting to carve out a rock and roll signature.
The song is genre-less, moving from Bowie’s acoustic folk opening to Mick Ronson’s glammy rock fills and Ralph Mace’s art rock synths. Tony Visconti, who had begun producing Bowie on his previous album, plays the bass that unites all those pretty things.
23. “Fame” (1975)
Bowie had been a sensation for five years playing his cutting-edge glam in the U.K., but he was still looking for significant success in the USA when he came across the pond to begin a new musical chapter. Diving into the soul traditions of Philadelphia and the general vibe of NYC, Bowie recorded the album Young Americans with guitarist Carlos Alomar and a group of seasoned soul/funk pros.
For the album’s final track, he got together with John Lennon, who co-wrote (with Bowie and Alomar) a song about the price of fame. “Fame” would be Bowie’s first number-one song in the USA
22. “D.J.” (1979)
In the late 1970s, Bowie fled Los Angeles for Berlin. He was trying to escape the clutches of cocaine and other destructive influences. The three albums he recorded in Europe delved deeply into experimental art rock.
Many of the compositions eschewed traditional pop song structures in favor of the early krautrock of Kraftwerk and Neu! “D.J.,” from the final Berlin album, Lodger (recorded in Switzerland), combined that sense of experimentation with a strong song about one of Bowie’s favorite topics – performance. “I am a D.J. – I am what I play” becomes a frantic search for identity.
21. “Cactus” (2002)
A fairly commonly accepted history suggests that by the late '80s, David Bowie went into decline. He was still a big name. Though perhaps not as frequently as he had done in the previous two decades, he still put out music. That decline lasted until 2013, when he was in the final years of his life.
But that history ignores plenty of good songs. The albums, on the whole, were not anywhere near his best. However, as a song like “Cactus,” from 2002’s Heathen suggests, he was still capable of greatness. The fact that “Cactus” is a cover of a Pixies song 1988 should not diminish the style and life that Bowie, reunited with producer Tony Visconti after a long absence, gives it.
20. “Modern Love” (1983)
From the album that produced “Let’s Dance” (the album’s title as well), “Modern Love” is one more magnificent hybrid of dance pop, swing, and Little Richard-inspired boogie woogie, all with a ska beat.
Adding to the who’s who of guitar players who wanted to record with Bowie, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Nile Rodgers, who produced the album, make appearances. Pianos, horns, and sax round out the infectious sound.
19. “I’m Afraid of Americans” (1997)
It’s not my intention to claim that Bowie’s albums of the 1990s have somehow been grossly underestimated. The album Earthling received decent reviews when it came out in 1997, though no one was making grand claims.
The industrial banger, “I’m Afraid of Americans,” written by Bowie and his long-time collaborator Brian Eno, has proven to be prophetic in identifying the collapse at the center of something in the American psyche.
18. “Rebel Rebel” (1974)
We’ll get to Ziggy Stardust soon enough. When thinking about “Rebel Rebel”, it's important to realize that it came from an album a few years later, when Bowie was killing off one alter ego – the glam god Ziggy – and forging ahead into new uncharted territory.
“Rebel Rebel” still has the hallmarks of a glorious glam rocker with its iconic guitar riff and proto-glam opening lyric “You’ve got your mother in a whirl – She’s not sure if you’re a boy or a girl.” But something a little bit different slipped into the Diamond Dogs album. Was it punk? Disco? A return to old-school rock & roll? Maybe a little bit of it all.
17. “Oh You Pretty Things” (1971)
For my money, Hunky Dory is one of the 1970’s best albums. It was Bowie's fourth, and the first one in which he unified all his disparate stylings into a coherent whole. “Oh You Pretty Things” begins with a nod to the theatricality of his earliest works with a bit of a piano intro before moving into what seems to be a folk-rocky ballad, built entirely on that piano groove.
But as the first verse concludes with the line “All the nightmares came today…” we veer off into different territory. By the time the chorus arrives, a layered attack that suggests new age before that was a thing. “The Earth is a bitch, we’ve finished our news – Homo sapiens have outgrown their use” is about as devastating a lyrics as you will find in a generally peppy piano tune.
Pulling that off was part of the Bowie magic.
16. “Space Oddity” (1969)
I go back and forth on the song introducing David Bowie to the world. I think it is a good song at times, but it gets overvalued due to its historical significance. Then I listened again and realized that even if he didn’t know what he was doing then, David Bowie’s genius was on display from a very early age in his career.
Bowie’s first self-titled album is something of a fun oddity itself. It is a witty, cheeky collection of songs closer to Anthony Newley than to rock and roll at the time. His second album—self-titled for some reason—was essentially the same, though it drifted more into folk music.
It had one futuristic track that began as a simple folk tune but, again, started layering sound upon sound to create something different.
Bowie revealed one of the subjects that would fascinate him throughout his career. The image of the performer, in this case an astronaut, and whether he has any autonomy apart from the gaze of the masses. Fortunately, the song became a huge hit, giving the album its title in subsequent releases.
15. “Dirty Boys” (2013)
If you are waiting for something from Bowie’s final album Blackstar, I’m afraid you will be disappointed. I think Blackstar is a wonderful farewell but I think in some ways, the timing of Bowie’s death caused his final album to overshadow the album that preceded it, The Next Day.
Aside from having one of the most thoughtful covers in all rock music, The Next Day is a sensational return to form long after people thought an aging and ailing Bowie could muster it. This jazzy, nightmarish track – featuring a marauding sax played by Steve Elson and Earl Slick’s counterpoint guitar – is a jazz-era film noir in song.
14. “Suffragette City” (1972)
This is the first song on my list from Ziggy Stardust, but it easily could have been excluded from the album. It might never have been a David Bowie song at all. Bowie was often generous with his time and talents with the artists he liked, so he offered this song to a struggling Mott the Hoople to record in the early ‘70s.
Mott turned it down, and Bowie wrote a different number for them (“All the Young Dudes”) to resurrect Mott’s career, so Bowie included it toward the end of Ziggy. Musically, it fits just fine, but lyrically, it is not part of the Ziggy storyline.
I have seen it suggested that “Suffagette City” should be heard as the type of song Ziggy would have played, and that makes a lot of sense, especially considering its creative use of language, as befits an alien rock star, and its hard-charging beat. However you see it, it is one of Bowie’s most entertaining romps.
13. “Ashes to Ashes” (1980)
Another song from Scary Monsters that hits you with its weirdness full on from the needle drop. But it eventually becomes a lovely chorus that recalls Bowie's first major hit and iconic character, “Major Tom.” This might be an appropriate moment to mention one of the things I think gets overlooked in discussions of Bowie’s work.
As previously noted, Scary Monsters theoretically came after his Berlin experience, which came after his plastic-soul experience, which came after glam, which came after folk…. That may all be true, but it isn’t as if Bowie sealed off all the previous periods of his journey.
He kept pieces of everything and pulled them out as needed. So he is resurrecting a character from a different era and using musical ideas he found in Germany and the New York discos, all in the service of a new sound.
12. “Watch That Man” (1973)
Bowie rushed out Alladin Sane to capitalize on Ziggy Stardust's success. Its opener, “Watch That Man,” overlayed glam atop an old-fashioned American rock & roll song, complete with soul-based backing singers.
It is one of Bowie’s hardest rockers from the era, closer to the Stones than to T Rex. Frequent collaborators like Woody Woodmansey went wild on drums, while Mike Garson bangs out a Little Richard-style piano riff.
11. “Sound and Vision (1977)
If you are a fan of the Berlin albums, I apologize. They are not my favorites, though I have included a couple of great tunes from them. One of the best came from the first Berlin album, Low. I know people who consider this Bowie’s true masterpiece.
On the first side of Low, where he sticks to somewhat more traditional songs, Bowie produced the insanely catchy “Sound and Vision.” One of the most remarkable things about “Sound and Vision” is that Bowie created it at one of the lowest points of his life. He had fled L.A. to clean himself up.
He weighed practically nothing and was heavily into drugs at the time. Bowie brought longtime friend Iggy Pop, who was in even direr condition. Iggy appears on some of Low's tracks, but not this one. Bowie was exploring new sounds along with Brian Eno, who is only credited as a background singer on this track, but almost certainly played a bigger role in its creation.
10. “Diamond Dogs” (1974)
“Diamond Dogs” is kick-ass rock & roll, delivered with conviction by Bowie and his frequent collaborators. Even though bass player Herbie Flowers didn’t think much of it then, it has grown in rep over the years. When it first came out, it fell into a trench between the end of Ziggy and the beginning of the plastic-soul American years.
That affected both Alladin Sane and Diamond Dogs to some degree. Now we can hear Bowie wailing on sax and exhorting his screaming fans to genocide as a form of punk music grounded in throwback rock.
9. “Five Years” (1972)
It would still be an outstanding achievement if “Five Years” was merely a crescendo of apocalypse crammed into a singable four-and-a-half-minute pop song. Seeing how it sets up the towering Ziggy Stardust album on such a dramatic note, it soars even higher.
From the simple Woody Woodmansey shuffle that plays alone for the first fifteen seconds through that same drumbeat that closes the final fifteen seconds alone, “Five Years” builds on Bowie’s rare ability to blend the cosmic – “news guy wept as he told us, Earth was really dying” – with the everyday “Saw you in an ice cream parlor, drinking milkshakes cold and long.”
It also lets the actor in Bowie run mad, crying and screaming into the mic, while that simple heartbeat of a drum ticks on underneath.
8. “Andy Warhol/Song for Bob Dylan/Queen Bitch” (1971)
As I’ve been writing this, I’ve stopped on more than one occasion to ask myself, “Can that be right? Do I have 'Rebel Rebel' at 18? “Sound and Vision,” which has been running through my head nonstop since I started, is only 11? “China Girl” didn’t even cut?” (Sorry if you were waiting for it.) The breadth and quality of Bowie’s discography make me virtually sure that I left out one or two of your favorites.
So forgive me an indulgence here. I am cheating. I’m getting three songs for the price of one, which makes this a top 27. These three, that comes toward the end of Hunky Dory are not linked in the way that side two of Abbey Road is. Thematically, however, they are cut from the same cloth. Tributes to three seminal New Yorkers (not by birth, mind you) who hugely influenced Bowie.
They are written in distinct styles that suit each honoree, so “Andy Warhol” has the icy cold weirdness of the man himself, while “Song for Bob Dylan” is a genuine folk tribute with lyrics that befit a future Nobelist. Finally, “Queen Bitch” is the Lou Reed who Bowie was about to reinvent by producing his breakthrough solo album Transformer.
7. “Starman” (1972)
“Starman” begins as a peppy folk song with Bowie singing over his acoustic guitar. But soon it runs into another space age romp. Mick Ronson's electric guitar joins in to give it a glam frosting. It’s one more song about a celebrity performer – this time, even more obviously than in “Space Oddity” – the performer is a genuine alien.
This is the arrival of Ziggy, a being who came to pacify a dying race in its final days and who would be devoured by those who worshipped him. It was the subject of many of Bowie's most personal songs and also his first popular hit since “Space Oddity.”
6. “Young Americans” (1975)
Then, they were gone as quickly as Ziggy, Aladin, and Diamond Dogs appeared. With the Andy Newmark tumbling drum groove and David Sanborn’s wailing sax, Bowie again reinvented himself, this time diving into his take on American soul music – “plastic soul.”
Carlos Alomar begins his run as Bowie’s new guitar muse, while a group of background singers, including a young Luther Vandross, provide genuine, decidedly not plastic, soul. Capturing the disillusionment of the mid-‘70s to a tee, “Young Americans” allowed Bowie to show off his exceptional range, both tonal and emotional.
5. “TVC15” (1976)
Station to Station was the album that Bowie recorded during his final days in L.A., caught in the drug-fueled funk that would cause him to flee the continent. It featured the epic title cut and the hit “Golden Years.” But the song that has evolved over time and now seems more potent than ever is the futuristic “TVC15.”
It features the E Street Band’s Roy Bittan banging out a jagged piano pattern while Carlos Alomar and Earl Slick propel the guitars. The horror quality of modern technology, which was about to become popular in David Cronenberg's films, was fertile soil at the time.
Bowie said this particular nightmare came from Iggy Pop’s paranoid delusions, but Bowie set it to the catchiest pop melodies.
4. “The Jean Genie” (1973)
While other tracks on Alladin Sane – “Cracked Actor,” “Drive-In Saturday” – tend to divide listeners, I don’t think anybody who doesn’t like “The Jean Genie.” Bowie’s homage to Iggy has a simple orchestration, with Trevor Bolder and Woody Woodmansey pounding out the relentless blues rhythm on bass and drums, while Mick Ronson rocks out on guitar.
Bowie adds some harmonica to crank up the blues vibe. But it’s a very glammy blues that is simply irresistible.
3. “Life on Mars” (1971)
“Space Oddity” and “Starman” had both concerned themselves with spacemen of one sort or another. In between those two songs, one of the high points of Hunky Dory uses the idea of space differently – as the great unknown that beckons a dreary and worn out world that is hoping for some new distraction.
It features some of his most perceptive poetry – “It’s on America’s tortured brow – That Mickey Mouse has grown up a cow – Now the workers have struck for fame – ‘Cause Lenin’s on sale again,” and a melodic structure that he would return to in which verse morphs into chorus almost imperceptibly.
Mick Ronson, the guitar muse during the early glam days, arranges a soaring wall of strings that builds up the mundane life of a “girl with the mousy hair" into an epic story of dreaming of more.
2. “Changes” (1971)
I told you Hunky Dory was my favorite, right? Two of my top three Bowie songs come from his fourth album. “Changes” was the lead track, and if ever a song suited an artist, this was it. Hunky Dory already represented a change from the fumbling first three albums into a unified collection of songs.
No one could know then that “change” would be the operative word in Bowie’s career. But he seemed to know–or at least he sensed the transformative power of …. transformation. “Changes” did not feature guitars. Rick Wakeman is on the piano, and Ronson is on Mellotron, over the rhythm Bolder and Woodmansey laid down. Bowie added an expressionistic sax throughout.
1. “Heroes” (1977)
Knocking “Changes” out of the top spot takes a lot. “Heroes” is the anthemic heart of the second of the Berlin albums, and it is grand enough to occupy the top spot. Bowie pulled out all the stops musically. Robert Fripp and Carlos Alomar on guitars. Brian Eno is manipulating everything: orchestral strings and synths, backing vocals.
It is all as grand as can be. “We can be heroes, just for one day” was a sentiment everyone could give in to. It is almost fifty years after its release, and nearly a decade after its creator went to find out if there is life on Mars.