Bowie’s early years have been scrutinised repeatedly but people tend to speed through the last act, from the early ‘90s to his death in 2016. Alexander Larman’s ‘Lazarus: The Second Coming Of David Bowie’ looks at his resurrection and the mystery of his final days in Manhattan in attractively honest detail, a book that’s as fondly critical of his artistic decisions as it’s celebratory. Under discussion here …

… ‘David Bowie was a fictional invention and much of his life an act’

… how wrong so many album reviews turned out to be

… “he liked to be liked and he put a lot of effort into being liked”

… Eno, Tony Visconti, Nile Rodgers, Pet Shop Boys and his endless search for collaborators

… the Lucian Freud incident at the Dorchester

… Scott Walker’s taped message: “I see God in the window”

... “he trusted in the idea he was a genius”

… the sharp contrast been his public image and private life

… how his Lord’s Prayer at the Freddie Mercury tribute was a deliberate attempt to steal the show

… the piercing question Tin Machine were asked on ‘Wogan’

… and the struggle to find anything sincere in his interviews.

Order ‘Lazarus’ here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lazarus-Second-Coming-David-Bowie/dp/1917923449

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