Starman to Blackstar Edition Part 1

Hit Parade | Music History and Music Trivia

Slate Podcasts

Music, Music History,

4.8 • 2.2K Ratings

🗓️ 17 January 2026

⏱️ 65 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Chameleon: That’s long been the word used to describe David Bowie, pop music’s shapeshifting extraterrestrial. He shifted personas, genres, and looks, emerging from swinging London with psychedelic folk before steamrolling through glam rock, disco, funk, new wave, alt-rock, and even jazz.

Less remarked was Bowie’s savvy about shifting through commercial phases—he wore pop stardom like a costume, too. He drifted in and out of the spotlight, and on and off the charts, before one final chart-topping farewell 10 years ago this month.

Join Chris Molanphy as he takes us from station to station across the chart career of David Bowie, on a journey from Starman to Blackstar.

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Podcast production by Kevin Bendis.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey there, Hit Parade listeners. What you're about to hear is part one of this episode. Part two will
0:07.1	arrive in your podcast feed at the end of the month. Would you like to hear this episode all at
0:12.2	once the day it drops? Sign up for Slate Plus. It supports not only this show, but all of Slate's
0:19.2	acclaimed journalism and podcasts. just go to slate.com
0:23.9	slash hit parade plus. You'll get to hear every hit parade episode in full the day it arrives,
0:31.2	plus Hit Parade The Bridge, our bonus episodes, with guest interviews, deeper dives on our episode topics, and pop chart trivia.
0:40.2	Once again, to join, that's slate.com slash hitparade plus. Thanks, and now please enjoy part one of this hit parade episode.
0:50.8	Music episode. Welcome to Hit Parade, a podcast of Pop Chart History from Slate magazine, about the hits from
1:07.6	coast to coast. I'm Chris Malanfi, chart analyst, pop critic, and writer of Slate's
1:13.0	Why Is This Song Number One series on today's show. 50 years ago, in January, 1975, David Bowie
1:22.6	was climbing Billboard's Hot 100 with his archetypal single, Changes. It was the second attempt to turn
1:31.3	that classic song into a hit. Originally released on Bowie's 1971 album, Hunky Dory, changes had climbed
1:41.4	as high as number 66 the first time in 1972.
1:47.0	But a couple of years later, Bowie had broken through on the charts.
1:52.3	So RCA reissued changes, promoting it as Bowie's ultimate statement of purpose.
1:58.9	As he sings in the lyrics, he had to be a different man.
2:04.7	It's going to have to be a different man. Time may change me, but I can't trace time.
2:13.2	It didn't work. In the winter of 75, changes stalled at number 41, just missing the American
2:22.0	top 40 again. But just a couple of months later, Bowie proved any remaining doubters wrong.
2:29.9	He could not only change, he could become a new kind of pop star.
2:35.7	His next single sounded like this.
2:38.5	Young Americans transformed David Bowie into a soul man, with hip-shaking rhythms and funky grooves inviting listeners onto the dance floor.
	...

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