David Bowie Sold His Soul In 1983. Here's Why.

In 1983, David Bowie did what no one expected: he sold out stadiums, topped the charts, and signed the biggest record deal of his life. But behind the success of Let's Dance, the Serious Moonlight Tour, and the mainstream fame, something was cracking. This classic rock documentary explores the moment Bowie traded his art rock legacy for pop superstardom and why he spent the rest of the 80s trying to recover. He spent the next twelve years explaining why it nearly destroyed him. In this episode of Rock Chronicles Radio, Bowie tells the story in his own words, drawn from the remarkably candid interviews he gave in 1995: the "Phil Collins years" of Tonight and Never Let Me Down, the bloated Glass Spider Tour that ended with the stage set burned in a field in New Zealand, the critical mockery of Tin Machine, and the long road back with Brian Eno, the album 1. Outside, and a tour with Nine Inch Nails where he refused to play the hits. At the center of it all: John Lennon, the man who co-wrote Fame with Bowie in 1975 and described his music better than any critic ever did ("rock and roll with lipstick on"). Lennon's brutal honesty became the standard Bowie measured himself against for the rest of his life. This is not the story of Ziggy Stardust or the Thin White Duke. This is the story of what happens when the master of reinvention wakes up as the one thing he never wanted to be: predictable.