Like many artists lionised by their admirers beyond comprehension, David Bowie – who died nearly a decade ago on 10 January 2016 – was a flawed, capricious figure who got it wrong, especially in his latter-day career, as often as he got it right. And he knew it, too.

The one-time Thin White Duke was at his lowest professional and personal ebb in 1988, having formed a failed hard-rock band called Tin Machine, which promptly imploded after releasing two unsuccessful albums. When its first eponymous record slunk out, the music critic Jon Wilde sorrowfully wrote ‘Hot tramp! We loved you so. Now sit down, man. You’re a fucking disgrace.’

This sense of betrayal – of Bowie having let not just his present-day fans down, but all of those who had supported him since his Space Oddity or Ziggy Stardust eras – went deep to the heart of many. But the artist formerly known as David Jones shrugged. As he once put it:

Bowie’s death canonised him, preserving his genius in aspic forever

It’s an honest, healthy approach for an artist to work only for yourself. I’ve suffered badly when I’ve pandered to the marketplace.

The reason why David Bowie still matters today, a decade on from his premature death aged 69, is because he was cleverer, and therefore more interesting, than everyone else around him. This cleverness didn’t........

© The Spectator