Fame (David Bowie song)

The song was a major commercial success in North America, becoming Bowie's first number 1 single on both the US Billboard Hot 100 and the Canadian Singles Chart. The song was one of the most successful singles of the year, ranking at number 7 on the Billboard Year-End Hot 100. However, it was less successful in Europe, reaching number 17 in the UK Singles Chart.


In 1990, Bowie remixed the song under the title "Fame '90" to coincide with his Sound+Vision Tour. "Fame" has since appeared on many compilation albums, and was remastered in 2016 as part of the Who Can I Be Now? (1974–1976) box set.


The song is one of four of Bowie's songs to be included in The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.

Background[edit]

With the release of his 1972 album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, Bowie achieved stardom.^[7] On that album, Bowie presented his aspirations to become famous in "Star", which also encapsulated the fantasies of "every adolescent dreamer miming into a hairbrush in a suburban bedroom", on top of Bowie's own frustration with not having fulfilled his potential.^[8] By the beginning of 1975, "fame" meant a couple of different things to Bowie. It meant not only his stardom, but also impending lawsuits that were the result of the ending of Bowie's relationship with his manager Tony Defries.^[9] It also meant an expensive musical theatre project concocted by Defries, titled Fame, that was financed through MainMan, a company that was built around Bowie's fame; the show was an examination of Marilyn Monroe that closed after one night on Broadway and after already flopping off-Broadway.^[9] The failure of Fame almost ruined MainMan and was traumatic on Bowie and Defries' relationship.^[9]


Bowie would later describe "Fame" as "nasty, angry", and fully admitted that it was written "with a degree of malice" aimed at MainMan. This is supported by biographer Peter Doggett, who writes: "every time in "Fame" that Bowie snapped back with a cynical retort about its pitfalls, he had [Defries] and [Defries's] epic folly in mind," and noted the lyric "bully for you, chilly for me" as the striking example.^[9] In 1990, Bowie recalled the song as his "least favourite track on the album"^[10] and reflected: "I'd had very upsetting management problems and a lot of that was built into the song. I've left all that behind me, now... I think fame itself is not a rewarding thing. The most you can say is that it gets you a seat in restaurants."^[11]

Release and reception[edit]

"Fame" was released on 7 March 1975 as the final track on Bowie's ninth studio album Young Americans.^[22][23] It was subsequently released by RCA Records (as PB 10320) as the second single from the album in the US in June 1975 and the following month in the UK, with fellow album track "Right" as the B-side.^[1][24][25]


"Fame" became Bowie's first song to top the Billboard Hot 100, displacing "Rhinestone Cowboy" by Glen Campbell during the week of 20 September 1975. The following week, "Fame" dropped to number two behind John Denver's "I'm Sorry" for a week, before returning to the top spot for one final week, ultimately being replaced at number one by Neil Sedaka's "Bad Blood". Bowie would later claim that he had "absolutely no idea" that the song would do so well as a single, saying "I wouldn't know how to pick a single if it hit me in the face."^[26] Despite "Fame" being Bowie's then-biggest success on the American charts, the song only reached number 17 in the UK Singles Chart.


Cash Box said that "with a scintillating rhythm track and chicken-guitar courtesy of Mr. Lennon, David's versatile voice blends with John's to produce an ethereal dancer with some r&b psychedelia thrown in."^[27] Dave Thompson of AllMusic calls the track "a hard-funking dance storm whose lyrics – a hostile riposte on the personal cost of success – utterly belie the upbeat tempo and feel of the song."^[28] Following Bowie's death in 2016, Rolling Stone listed it as one of Bowie's 30 essential songs.^[29] In 2018, the writers of NME, in their list of Bowie's 41 greatest songs, ranked "Fame" at number 21.^[30] In 2016, Ultimate Classic Rock placed the single at number 25 in a list ranking every Bowie single from worst to best.^[31]


"Fame" was used as the soundtrack of an animated music video of the same title, directed by Richard Jefferies and Mark Kirkland while students at California Institute of the Arts. The film, released in 1975, went on to win the Student Academy Award for animation and aired on NBC's The Midnight Special.^[32]


The song is one of four Bowie songs to be included in The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.^[33]


A 40th anniversary version of "Fame" was released in 2015 and peaked at number 141 in France.^[34]