SIMON GODDARD – Bowie Odyssey 75

RELEASE YEAR: 2025
BAND URL: https://omnibuspress.com/products/bowie-odyssey-75

The sixth entry in Simon Goddard’s magnificent and irresistible series of books on the life and times of the inimitable David Bowie in the seventies is yet another exquisitely written and perfectly compiled piece of work that leaves nothing to be desired.

While Bowie Odyssey 70 was an enjoyable read, it did feel slightly incohesive and unable to maintain its momentum from time to time, whereas its successor established a unique tone, style, and flair that conjured up an atmosphere and a way of storytelling unlike anything else out there, and no other author out there has told David’s story in such an innovative and hard-hitting manner as Bowie Odyssey 71 and the four books that followed it have. The latest output is quite possibly the most evocative one yet, and its bleakness positively leaps from the page and appears so prominent that one can almost reach out and touch it. From drug-induced paranoia, occult insanity, and a nasty legal showdown with former manager Tony DeFries in the cesspits and sewers of sunny Los Angeles to a drab and depressing Britain riddled with murder, loneliness, and bad politics, Goddard’s latest stroke of literary genius is exactly the kind of book you will be urging your friends to read so that you can discuss it with them.

As the Thin White Duke obsessed over fascism and indulged in all the vices of rock ‘n’ roll all the while crafting and recording the compositions that would constitute the Young Americans and Station to Station LPs, his home country was on the brink of a musical revolution (i.e. punk rock) and radical political change (i.e. Thatcherism), and the way in which these parallel stories and events are woven together is simply sublime. Within the gem’s hallowed pages, we also come across a vile rapist in a mask living out his sick fantasies as well as a hardcore right-wing murderer roaming the streets and alleys of England. As demoralizing and dismal as times were, there were glimmers of mad genius and inspired ideas too, and as Goddard’s bone-chilling yet entertaining exploration of the oftentimes surreal world of Bowie unfolds, we are introduced (and in some cases re-introduced) to such colorful characters as Sex Pistols manager and SEX shop owner Malcolm McLaren, the inimitable Iggy Pop, a washed-up version of the New York Dolls, and Margaret Thatcher. Tragic, funny, thought-provoking, and gritty, Bowie Odyssey 75 is flawless and unmissable.