My aim in Bowie is very simple: to try and find concepts that do justice to Bowie’s art in ways that are neither music journalism, dime store psychology, biography or crappy social history. I still don’t think we have a language that gives the huge importance of pop culture its due, that describes and dignifies it in the right way. For me, and for many many millions of others, the world first opened as a set of possibilities through pop music, especially Bowie’s music. Bowie is the most important artist tout court of the past six decades and someone just needs to say that and try and explain how his songs justify that claim. That’s what I am trying to do in the book.

Read Simon’s full introduction and the excerpt from his book on The Quietus