Few rock stars are as suited to the kinds of coffee table bio cum discography divethat Quarto publishes on a semi-regular basis as David Bowie. He had a huge number of records and a huge number of looks. Few rock writers are as suited to penning this kind of book as Martin Popoff, who always brings the personality and humor sadly lacking in most boilerplate tomes of this type.
I'm not a hundred percent convinced that Bowie and Popoff are the ideal match though, or at least, I'm not sure if Bowie fans more hardcore than I will feel that way. Popoff tends to ratchet up the wiseassery in David Bowie: Rock 'N' Roll Chameleon (originally published as a slipcased package called Bowie @ 75 in 2022) to the point that I wondered if he even likes Bowie all that much. He certainly doesn't have much patience for Bowie's more outlandish looks, and he doesn't seem overly taken with the music Bowie made during his superstar seventies phase, saving his most effusive praise for Bowie's eponymous music hall debut on Deram and his nichey post-eighties discs. Stardusters who really want to feel the love won't feel it here.
But I appreciated Popoff's somewhat more detached point of view, even when I didn't agree with his musical assessments, which was often. And he does a good job of covering the major beats of Bowie's life, wisely holding back on the brickbats when discussing more serious matters, such as the suicide of the artist's beloved brother and our hero's own sad demise. And with its honey pot of color photos of Bowie at his most outre (dig him as a pompadoured mod mime) and most sharply tasteful, loyal fans will still find a lot to enjoy outside the text of Rock 'N' Roll Chameleon.
