Simon Critchley first encountered David Bowie in the early seventies,
when the singer appeared on Britain's most-watched music show, Top of
the Pops. His performance of "Starman" mesmerized Critchley: it was "so
sexual, so knowing, so strange." Two days later Critchley's mum bought a
copy of the single; she liked both the song and the performer's bright
orange hair (she had previously been a hairdresser). The seed of a
lifelong love affair was thus planted in the mind of her son, aged 12.
In this concise and engaging excursion through the songs of one of the
world's greatest pop stars, Critchley, whose writings on philosophy have
garnered widespread praise, melds personal narratives of how Bowie lit
up his dull life in southern England's suburbs with philosophical forays
into the way concepts of authenticity and identity are turned inside out
in Bowie's work. The result is nearly as provocative and mind-expanding
as the artist it portrays.