I’ve listened to this album a few times so far today, and I think that it would come as little surprise that I’m a huge Bowie fan. After all, “Major Tom” was a story that I wrote explicitly based on “Space Oddity.” Is it fan-fiction? It might be, but I like to think about it as something a bit different.

While “Space Oddity” is the most famous song on the album, it is also the first on the tracklist, and it sets the tone for the rest of the album. Bowie is one of the major figures in the transition between the rebellious 1960s and the disillusioned 1970s. Serious revolutionary impulses were rechanneled to consumption and “culture,” and David Bowie made a serious mark on the trans-Atlantic, sonic landscape. The album is a must-listen for those purposes.