All of David Bowies' albums, ranked from worst to best

9 July 2025, 15:38 | Updated: 10 July 2025, 10:19

David Bowie released 30 albums – and we've ranked them all.

There are artists who were active for longer than David Bowie. Some who released more albums than he managed during his half century in pop (though not many).

But there are very few who produced such an eclectic and diverse back catalogue, flitting between pop, rock, music hall, jazz, soul, drum 'n' bass and much more besides.

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So ranking all 30 of his studio releases is no easy task, but we've done just that.

As for how we've hit that nice round number, we've included all David Bowie studio albums released during his lifetime, both Tin Machine records, the Bowie-dominated Labyrinth soundtrack and one posthumous release of a "lost" album - so no live records, compilations or EPs.

It's David Bowie, so even those albums at the bottom of our rankings are worth a listen, but we've charted them all the way up to the very best, and picked two must-listen songs from each.

1. Tin Machine II (1991)

   

   Baby Universal

   Tin Machine as a project were over-maligned. More than just a necessary defibrillator blast to David Bowie's artistic tendencies, they were a decent hard rocking band in their own right.

   But despite a few highlights and the live shows still showing plenty of spark, by their second outing it felt like it was running out of puff.

   The partnership with Reeves Gabrels and the Sales brothers was always a more equal collaboration rather than than Bowie + backing band, but having drummer Hunt Sales sing a couple of numbers was pushing that too far.

   LISTEN NOW: Baby Universal, Goodbye Mr Ed

2. Never Let Me Down (1987)

   

   Time Will Crawl (2018 Remaster)

   Widely acknowledged as Bowie's most disappointing album, and while like Tin Machine II it's not without its saving graces, it's a reputation that's probably deserved.

   Bowie was back writing plenty of songs, with just one cover (closing Iggy Pop cover 'Bang Bang'), but he often feels rusty and uninspired.

   One of those new songs, 1950s-inspired Erdal Kızılçay co-write 'Too Dizzy' was so hated by its author that Bowie deleted it from all reissues.

   

   David Bowie - Time Will Crawl, 2018 (Official Audio)

   Still, 'Time Will Crawl' emerges as one of his best songs of the decade and makes the whole thing worth the effort. And the fact of Bowie writing or co-writing ten songs shows he was putting in the effort.

   The theory was often that the album was good, but badly (ahem) let down by its bombastic late-'80s production.

   A long-planned reworking was finally put together as Never Let Me Down 2018 only proved that actually it was the songs that were the problem, not the sound.

   LISTEN NOW: Time Will Crawl, Zeroes

3. Tonight (1984)

   

   Loving The Alien (2018 Remaster)

   Where Let's Dance had just six newly-written songs, Tonight had just four. It really felt like Bowie's creative juices were running dry.

   There were three covers of songs he'd previously recorded with Iggy Pop, but despite an energetic 'Neighbourhood Threat', none had the sparkle of his previous 'China Girl' collaboration.

   There was also an old Chuck Jackson rework and, most disappointing of all, a limp rehash of The Beach Boys' 'God Only Knows'.

   But 'Loving The Alien' is a gorgeous, shimmering thing and Bowie's Tina Turner hook-up on Iggy cover 'Tonight' show that even when he's not on all cylinders, David Bowie still always comes up with something worth listening to.

   LISTEN NOW: Loving The Alien, Neighbourhood Threat

4. Pin Ups (1973)

   

   I Can't Explain (2015 Remaster)

   The first (and until the original Buddha of Suburbia album and swansong Blackstar) album to not just feature David Bowie alone on the front, with a heavily made up Twiggy making it more of a collaboration.

   That was appropriate, as Pin Ups was a covers album, taking in some of the 1960s influences that made David Bowie who he was, all given a (s)punky glam sheen.

   A song each from Them, Pink Floyd, The Mojos, The Easybeats, The Merseys and the Kinks and a couple each form The Who, The Yardbirds and Pretty Things. It's not groundbreaking or even essential, but it's a fun listen all the same.

   LISTEN NOW: Sorrow, Where Have All The Good Times Gone

5. Lodger (1979)

   

   Boys Keep Swinging (2017 Remaster)

   The third part in Bowie's so-called "Berlin trilogy" was actually recorded in Switzerland and New York City.

   Brian Eno co-wrote six of its ten songs, and you can sense his glacial iciness throughout. It's smart, arty, and truthfully not nearly as fun as the two albums that preceded it.

   It's still a great album though, and with producer Tony Visconti marshalling an all-star band (Adrian Belew, Carlos Alomar, Dennis Davis and George Murray) towards the sound of the 1980s

   LISTEN NOW: Boys Keep Swinging, DJ

6. David Bowie (1967)

   

   Love You Till Tuesday

   Often ignored, maligned or forgotten completely, David Bowie's first album is an utterly charming collection of gentle psychedelic music hall that finds Bowie heavily in debt to the sound of Anthony Newly.

   Sure, he's very much still finding his feet and throwing plenty at the wall with much of it failing to stick, but even in this early stage of his career there's an intangible star quality that's impossible to ignore.

   In fact, the only real black mark is that novelty gigglefest 'The Laughing Gnome' failed to make the cut.

   LISTEN NOW: Love You Till Tuesday, Rubber Band

7. Toy (2000/2021)

   

   Toy (Your Turn To Drive)

   After his triumphant and unexpected return in 2013 with The Next Day, it seems almost impossible to remember that just over a decade earlier a record label was happy to shelve a recorded, completed David Bowie album.

   An odd cousin of Pin Ups, Toy saw Bowie cover one particular 1960s artist... himself!

   The reworking of his Deram hits* (*not exactly hits) plus one new '60s-style song, recorded with his glorious fin de siècle band (Mark Plati, Earl Slick, Gail Ann Dorsey, Mike Garson and Sterling Campbell) is a lovely thing, despite the incredibly ugly album cover.

   LISTEN NOW: Toy (Your Turn To Drive), The London Boys

8. David Bowie (aka Space Oddity) (1969)

   

   Space Oddity (2019 Mix)

   Officially called David Bowie (but not to be confused with his debut of the same name), sometimes retitled after The Hit as Space Oddity, oddly called Man of Words/Man of Music in the US, David Bowie (1969) was a bit of a flop despite the success of its lead and only single.

   But actually, David Bowie is really strong record, and a much more coherent statement of intent than its predecessor, in part thanks to producer Tony Visconti.

   It's unfairly seen by some as a bit of juvenile, hippie, folkish meandering, but there's an intelligent and tinge of world weary thoughtfulness that permeates throughout.

   LISTEN NOW: Space Oddity, Memory of a Free Festival

9. Tin Machine (1989)

   

   Heaven's in Here (1999 Remaster)

   For a long time "Tin Machine" was seen as nothing more than a punchline. The total nadir of Bowie as a recording artist.

   Thankfully enough dust has settled now for people to rightly not just see Tin Machine as a crucial part of the Bowie narrative, but also to appreciate the quality and especially the energy of the Tin Machine album.

   No, it's hardly all-killer and its 14 songs could be hacked down by three (or six?) for a better listening experience, but on its best moments you've easily got some of Bowie's best songs of the decade.

   LISTEN NOW: Heaven's In Here, I Can't Read

10. 'hours...' (1999)

    

    Something in the Air

    It had been said a few times in the years since, but helped by some successful recent compilations, 'hours...' was the first of David Bowie's later albums that seemed to get plenty in the mainstream chorusing "the best album since Scary Monsters...".

    Truthfully it wasn't nearly that, but after a couple of records of out-and-out experimentation, many were happy to see Bowie getting back to good old fashioned classic songwriting, with its introspective lyrics packed with and religious allusions.

    The album isn't as good as some people made out at the time, nor as boring as its detractors would have you think. There's still that sly experimental approach to songwriting, despite the admitted safety of the production.

    LISTEN NOW: Something In The Air, Survive

11. The Man Who Sold The World (1970)

    

    The Man Who Sold the World (2015 Remaster)

    Whatever Bowie hoped night happen after the success of 'Space Oddity', after two flop David Bowie albums it wasn't really clear what the man would do next.

    The answer was obviously "put on a beautiful dress and make a stark, hard rocking album packed with dense literary references and Friedrich Nietzschean philosophy" because of course.

    The wasn't a hit on its release, but its stature has grown increasingly over the years and marks the start of a golden decade that Bowie would pretty much own from beginning to end.

    LISTEN NOW: The Man Who Sold The World, The Superman

12. Reality (2003)

    

    Bring Me The Disco King

    On the heels of Glastonbury 2000 and the success of Heathen only a year earlier, Bowie was on something of a roll.

    We didn't know it at the time but Reality would be Bowie's last album for a decade. When we thought it was his farewell LP it was a great, and often underrated, one.

    Its stunning bookends steal the show ('Bring Me The Disco King' had been percolating since the early 1990s), but in the middle its a slick, rocking collection of strong originals and a couple of unexpected covers (The Modern Lovers and George Harrison).

    LISTEN NOW: New Killer Star, Bring Me The Disco King

13. The Buddha of Suburbia (1993)

    

    Sex And The Church (2021 Remaster)

    You can't really call any David Bowie album "forgotten", but The Buddha of Suburbia felt pretty close to that at the time.

    Its roots came in the score Bowie created for the BBC adaptation of Hanif Kureishi's masterpiece, and its original cover suggested that it was little more than a collection of his musical cues.

    What actually happened was that, together with Erdal Kızılçay, Bowie completely reworked that score into a proper, brilliant album that riffed on his own 1970s sounds but turned them into something modern and marvellous.

    LISTEN NOW: Strangers When We Meet, Sex and the Church

14. The Next Day (2013)

    

    The Stars (Are Out Tonight)

    One of the biggest shocks in music history, and one of the most wonderful surprises. After ten years out of the business and out of the public eye, it was widely accepted that, after suffering a heart attack on stage during his A Reality Tour in 2004, that David Bowie had retired.

    The Flaming Lips even asked in song 'Is David Bowie Dying?'. The Next Day and its title track in particular was more than just a comeback. It was a sharp riposte ("Here I am / not quite dying.."). It runs out of steam before the end of its 14 tracks, but it feels harsh to moan about too much of what is always a good thing.

    Many assumed the artwork was some sort of trolling joke when it was first revealed, but like the album itself it was proof of Bowie's enduring wit, resilience, and ability to absorb his entire past and spit it out as something new and inspiring, again.

    Listen Now: The Stars (Are Out Tonight), The Next Day

15. Heathen (2002)

    

    Sunday

    After 'hours...' there was David Bowie's triumphant return to Glastonbury Festival.

    His first set at the 1971 festival had been packed with songs from the then-forthcoming Hunky Dory. His 2000 comeback was a career-spanning celebration that rubber-stamped his national treasure status.

    So expectations would have been sky-high for his next studio album, and Bowie both dodged and met them with the tune heavy but still lightly experimental Heathen album.

    It included some of Bowie's best (and best-produced) songs together with unexpected covers of Pixies, Neil Young and quirky psychobilly icon Legendary Stardust Cowboy.

    Listen Now: Sunday, Everyone Says 'Hi'

16. Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) (1980)

    

    David Bowie - Ashes To Ashes

    After bossing the 1970s, it was an open question as to whether David Bowie would be able to keep things going for another decade.

    Not only was he having to compete in a new post-punk pop marketplace with hip-hop and other sounds catching up with his own experimentation, by Lodger it seemed as though he might be running out of zip.

    But Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) was an utterly successful synthesis of arty pretension, pure pop melody, and a similarly well-constructed hybrid of glam-esque sensibilities with the slick commercialism of the 1980s, all while sounding remarkably fresh for a popstar 14 albums in.

    LISTEN NOW: Ashes To Ashes, Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)

17. Labyrinth (1986)

    

    Magic Dance

    Is it really a David Bowie album? While The Buddha of Suburbia was a bona fide Bowie LP masquerading as a score, Labyrinth is not just a legitimate OST for Jim Hensons puppet fantasy (which Bowie OWNED as Goblin King Jareth), but DB only actually contributed half of the record's 12 tracks.

    But we're including it all the same, because those six songs featuring Bowie easily surpass the vast majority of his albums either side of them.

    Without the suffocating weight of Having To Make a David Bowie Album perhaps, Bowie lets himself go and throws himself into the character with melodic abandon, coming up with a clutch of songs that are good enough to survive all on their own.

    LISTEN NOW: Magic Dance, Underground

18. Let's Dance (1983)

    

    Modern Love (2018 Remaster)

    David Bowie enjoyed a load of decent sized hits in the 1970s. He also was a total critical darling with legions of adoring fans.

    But, maybe just for fun, after stretching his commercial limbs with Scary Monsters... in the 1980s Bowie thought he might as well try absolute mainstream superstardom for size.

    While he obviously was all in on the idea, he also took something of a back seat, only writing or co-writing a handful of actually new songs for the project.

    So it was up to Chic man Nile Rodgers (and guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan) at the Power Station in New York for the slickest, poppiest, danciest record he made to date that still sounds remarkably fresh today.

    LISTEN NOW: Modern Love, Let's Dance

19. Diamond Dogs (1974)

    

    Diamond Dogs (2016 Remaster)

    Diamond Dogs sounds a bit like what it was: a mashup of unfinished projects (a Nineteen Eighty-Four musical, Ziggy spinoff, and Halloween Jack... something)

    But when the parts are this good it doesn't really matter that they don't quite meld. David Bowie took sole production credit with Ken Scott leaving the gang and Tony Visconti only returning as mixer and strings man on '1984'.

    Their reunion would prove yet more fruitful as the decade continued, but leading proceedings himself, Bowie successfully serves up a harder, sleazier, scuzzier glam sound than ...Ziggy... or Aladdin Sane as well as some truly enduring hits.

    LISTEN NOW: Diamond Dogs, Sweet Thing/Candidate/Sweet Thing (Reprise)

20. Earthling (1997)

    

    I'm Afraid of Americans

    More than even Tin Machine, Earthling made David Bowie into something of a laughing stock in some quarters in the 1990s. "David Bowie goes jungle, lol" seemed to be the received wisdom.

    More fool them. Earthling is absolutely one of the man's very best, most giddy, most enjoyable, most tuneful albums. And enough people agreed to send it to number 6 in the UK charts.

    While he incorporated some more modern sounds, it never sounds less than absolutely David Bowie. The sound is much more coherent than the album that preceded it, but at only nine tracks it never outstays its welcome.

    LISTEN NOW: Little Wonder, I'm Afraid of Americans

21. Black Tie White Noise (1993)

    

    I Know It's Gonna Happen Someday (2021 Remaster)

    The "great David Bowie 1990s comeback album" tag got attached to pretty much every single album Bowie put out in the '90s (with the obvious exception of Tin Machine II).

    We'll attach the label to Black Tie White Noise, an unlikely reunion with Nile Rodgers that saw Bowie take a more active role than the last time around.

    It all came together in an understated, jazzy and deeply melodic inspired by two very different 1992 events: Bowie's marriage to Iman and the LA riots

    Not only did Bowie write a clutch of new songs for this record, he played both guitar and saxophone, with the sound rounded out by guest spots from old pals Mike Garson and Mick Ronson, as well as some new faces

22. "Heroes" (1977)

    

    Heroes (2017 Remaster)

    Before we sing the praises of "Heroes", it's worth mentioning that in just nine months in 1977, David Bowie released (or co-released anyway) FOUR of the greatest albums of own time.

    His own Low (January 14) and "Heroes" (October 14), as well as Iggy Pop's The Idiot (March 18) and Lust For Life (September 9).

    "Heroes", was actually the only album of the "Berlin Trilogy" entirely recorded in Berlin and, with Robert Fripp lending a helping hand, of the three records it's the one that best combines the very biggest, soaring choruses with a more stark, motorik sound.

    The second side showed that Bowie was still very much in the mood for atmospheric instrumentals, but the album has much more growl and prowl than the other two Berlin records.

    LISTEN NOW: "Heroes", V-2 Schneider

23. 1. Outside (1995)

    

    Outside

    David Bowie's most OTT, wacky and maybe his most wonderful concept album. 1.Outside or The Nathan Adler Diaries: A Hyper-cycle takes advantage of the full length of a CD to roll out just under 75 minutes of glorious insanity.

    It's actually the first Bowie album co-produced by Brian Eno (it was Bowie and Visconti who produced the Berlin Trilogy), and he also played synthesisers, treatments and "strategies".

    But this is still a David Bowie album, and he completely lets himself go with this nonlinear, frankly nonsensical, manic, millennial narrative, soundtracked by waves of paranoid shizophonia, absurd spoken-word segues and experimental, ambient art rock.

    Yes, it's too long, but sometimes more is more, and it makes for an endlessly rewarding listen that offers something new every time you listen.

    LISTEN NOW: Outside, We Prick You

24. Aladdin Sane (1973)

    

    Aladdin Sane (2013 Remaster)

    After Ziggy, Bowie broke up the band with a stunning announcement at the Hammersmith Apollo that took half the band by as much surprise as the crowed. By then though he already had Aladdin Sane ready to go.

    It's often billed as "Ziggy in America" and in the listening that's not a bad label, though there's still a British sensibility that Bowie can never escape ("Time fell w**king to the floor" is not something any American would sing).

    While not the full scuzz of Diamond Dogs, it's a harder, rockier sound than ...Ziggy... typified by a glammy cover of The Rolling Stones' 'Let's Spend the Night Together'.

    The album also saw the entrance of pianist Mike Garson, who would go on to appear on another couple of handful of Bowie albums. His experimental, jazzy playing, added a whole new dimension to the Bowie sound.

    LISTEN NOW: Aladdin Sane (1913-1938-197?), The Jean Genie

25. Young Americans (1975)

    

    Young Americans (2016 Remaster)

    Authenticity and the "plastic soul" moaning be damned. Young Americans is simply the greatest blue-eyed soul album this side of Dusty Springfield's Dusty in Memphis.

    The title track and John Lennon collaboration 'Fame' capture have most endured, but – with the exception of the unnecessary cover of The Beatles' 'Across The Universe' – the eight song record is a tight, funked up slice of soul with real depth and honesty.

    Having been unable to hire Sigma Sound's MFSB house band, Bowie still amassed an incredible batch of musicians who helped him get the vibe he was looking for, including Andy Newmark, Willie Weeks and Carlos Alomar, as well as a then little-known singer called Luther Vandross, who also pitched in with 'Funky Music (Is a Part of Me)', which became 'Fascination'.

    Outtakes 'John, I'm Only Dancing (Again), 'Who Can I Be Now?' and 'It's Gonna Be Me' would later emerge, and they're every bit as good as the songs on the finished album.

    LISTEN NOW: 'Young Americans', 'Fascination'

26. Blackstar (2016)

    

    David Bowie - Lazarus (Video)

    Blackstar will forever be associated with David Bowie's tragic death from liver cancer, just two days after it was released on his 69th birthday. It added a layer of weight that can feel suffocating at times, and forces you to look at the album through particularly dark lenses.

    But we had two days with Blackstar before we knew anything about Bowie's illness, and even then it was clear that he had left us with something special.

    Just seven tracks, two of which were re-recordings of songs from a couple of years earlier, it nevertheless stands as a towering, monumental achievement. Proof that neither age nor sickness had diminished the brightness of Bowie's own star.

    Dense, powerful, and breathtakingly beautiful.

    LISTEN NOW: Lazarus, Blackstar

27. The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars (1972)

    

    Ziggy Stardust (2012 Remaster)

    Bowie had already knocked out a record of proto-glam with Hunky Dory, but it's The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars that saw Bowie fully absorb and extend the giddy sound that was around him

    Equal parts T. Rex, Lou Reed and Bowie's own cinematic sensibilities, the "story" in the supposedly conceptual Ziggy album doesn't stand up one little bit, but that doesn't matter at all when it's banger after banger after banger.

    After years of hoping to be a star, David Bowie achieved that goal by basically just pretending that he was one, and while he would swiftly move on, after that performance of 'Starman' on Top of the Pops, for many David Bowie and Ziggy Stardust would forever be inseparable.

28. Station To Station (1976)

    

    Station to Station (2016 Remaster)

    "The return of the Thin White Duke/ Throwing darts in lovers' eyes..."

    It's the Berlin Trilogy that gets most of the credit for Bowie's experimental shift in the mid-1970s, but really on Station To Station where he started to break out of the confines of glam/rock/pop/soul and make something that really sounded like the future.

    There's the obvious influence of Kraftwerk and the lingering soul influence from the preceding Young Americans, but here, influenced by his acting in The Man Who Fell To Earth, Aleister Crowley, old favourite Nietzsche, the Kabbalah, Christianity, and industrial amounts of cocaine, Bowie melded them into something truly new.

    And it was all topped off by a heart wrenching cover of Johnny Mathis's 'Wild is the Wind' that shouldn't have worked but just did.

    LISTEN NOW: Station To Station, Wild is the Wind

29. Hunky Dory (1971)

    

    Life on Mars? (2015 Remaster)

    Bowie had kicked off the decade with The Man Who Sold The World, the record where he really started to sound like himself.

    It wasn't a hit, but Bowie didn't mind. He was already moving on fast. He toned down his harder rock tendencies for a folkier sound that would better suit the collection of new songs he had mainly written the piano.

    Not yet the Spiders, Bowie enlisted Mick Ronson, Trevor Bolder and Mick Woodmansey to help realise the sound, while Rick Wakeman pitched in on piano.

    Bowie would end up making more experimental, quirkier, bigger, bolshier music in his career, but when it comes to simply a collection of out and out classic tunes that still have serious intellectual and emotional depth, it's hard to argue with the perfection of Hunky Dory.

    LISTEN NOW: Changes, Life on Mars?

30. Low (1977)

    

    Warszawa (2017 Remaster)

    Having taken an leap with Station to Station and then reminded everyone of his most tuneful moments with the Changesonebowie compilation, Bowie brought both sides of his pop character together with 1977's Low.

    The first of the Berlin Trilogy, it was actually started at Château d'Hérouville in France before being finished of at Hansa by the Wall, and it's an album of two perfect halves.

    Side one is a collection of Proper Pop Songs that are as accessible as they are artful. Tunes as big as anything he'd done before, but with enough edge about them to keep you on your toes.

    The second side of ambient, melodic soundscapes grew out of the intended (but effectively rejected) score ideas for The Man Who Fell To Earth, that movie's loss was very much our gain, as they paint stunning pictures in the mind without any need for visuals.

    Often hailed for its influence on everyone from Joy Division to Phil Collins to Radiohead, simply on its own terms as 40 odd minutes of beautiful sounds, Low is an endlessly rewarding album that's every bit as tuneful as it is experimental.