The man who saw the future of pop music’s rich pageant

BIOGRAPHY: David Bowie: A Life, By Dylan Jones, Preface Publishing, €25

Who was David Bowie? The man himself had to deal with this question so many times that eventually he came up with a perfect answer. “David Bowie is the sum of however many people are thinking of me at any given time,” he told Hot Press magazine in 1999. “The perception belongs to them. I have no control over it.”

Since Bowie ...