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“David Bowie was the greatest artist in any medium from the 1970s onwards,” says philosopher Simon Critchley. His opinion is hardly unfounded: A Bowie fan since first glimpsing the artist on the British TV show Top of the Pops at age 12, Critchley, now in his 60s, often turns to him as a muse and a mirror. (Critchley makes music himself with his longtime collaborator, John Simmons.) In the midst of the pandemic this past January, five years after Bowie’s death, Critchely wrote a New York Times op-ed titled “What Would Bowie Do?,” searching for answers in the dystopian worlds of his songs.
The philosopher, who’s currently on sabbatical from his work as a professor at The New School for Social Research, recently shared with us a definitive Bowie playlist, featuring tracks arranged in the order they appear in his 2014 book, Bowie. He suggests listening to them while doing something else, such as mowing the lawn or cleaning the house, or with a “nice, strong” gin and tonic. In doing so, one might perceive, as Critchley has, Bowie’s ability to conjure up a multitude of emotions through song. “Music—and this is its miracle, which is why life without music would be a mistake, as Nietzsche said—can somehow hold those emotions, and hold us there for that moment,” he says. “We are the music for as long as it lasts.”
At its best, Critchley believes, music can be transcendent, and of particular use as we try to make sense of ourselves and the world around us now. “Everyone is lost. Everyone is lonely. Everyone has pangs of deep spiritual hunger. The pandemic has forced us to face this on a day-by-day, hour-by-hour basis,” he says. “My intuition is that music can help us describe how we feel, and can allow us to feel something more.”
Listen to Critchley’s David Bowie playlist on Spotify.
“Starman,” David Bowie
“Suffragette City,” David Bowie
“Andy Warhol,” David Bowie
“Life on Mars?” David Bowie
“Quicksand,” David Bowie
“Five Years,” David Bowie
“The Secret Life of Arabia,” David Bowie
“Warszawa,” David Bowie
“The Passenger,” Iggy Pop
“Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide,” David Bowie
“Changes,” David Bowie
“Valentine’s Day,” David Bowie
“Heat,” David Bowie
“V-2 Schneider,” David Bowie
“Rebel Rebel,” David Bowie
“The Supermen,” David Bowie
“After All,” David Bowie
“Heroes,” David Bowie
“Space Oddity,” David Bowie
“Ashes to Ashes,” David Bowie
“Oh! You Pretty Things,” David Bowie
“Drive-In Saturday,” David Bowie
“Future Legend,” David Bowie
“All the Madmen,” David Bowie
“Sweet Thing,” David Bowie
“Candidate,” David Bowie
“Sweet Thing - Reprise,” David Bowie
“We Are the Dead,” David Bowie
“It’s No Game (Pt. 1),” David Bowie
“It’s No Game (Pt. 2),” David Bowie
“Up the Hill Backwards,” David Bowie
“All the Young Dudes,” David Bowie
“Reflektor,” Arcade Fire
“Repetition,” David Bowie
“Sound and Vision,” David Bowie
“Always Crashing in the Same Car,” David Bowie
“Be My Wife,” David Bowie
“Station to Station,” David Bowie
“Let’s Dance,” David Bowie
“Blackout,” David Bowie
“5:15 the Angels Have Gone,” David Bowie
“Where Are We Now?,” David Bowie
“Absolute Beginners,” David Bowie
“Survive,” David Bowie
“Heathen (The Rays),” David Bowie
“The Loneliest Guy,” David Bowie
“Hallo Spaceboy,” David Bowie
“Reality,” David Bowie
“The Width of a Circle,” David Bowie
“Seven,” David Bowie
“Word on a Wing,” David Bowie
“No Control,” David Bowie
“Slow Burn,” David Bowie
“Loving The Alien,” David Bowie
“The Next Day,” David Bowie
“Sunday,” David Bowie
“Blackstar,” David Bowie
“I Can’t Give Everything Away,” David Bowie
“Dollar Days,” David Bowie
“You Feel So Lonely You Could Die,” David Bowie
“Girl Loves Me,” David Bowie
“Lazarus,” David Bowie
“Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!,” Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
“Time,” David Bowie
“Sheila Take a Bow,” The Smiths
