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IMAGINE TRYING TO KEEP UP WITH

David Bowie in 1973. We’re chronically aware of the demands on our time in 2023, but consider Bowie’s schedule for that year, starting with 84 Ziggy Stardust dates in the UK, the USA and Japan. Another classic album, Aladdin Sane, written and recorded between shows and released in April. The denouement of the Ziggy era at Hammersmith Odeon in July. Then straight back into the studio to construct Pin Ups, in the shops only six months after Aladdin Sane. “We moved at such intensity, such speed,” Bowie told Melody Maker in May, as if it was all over, as if a few days on the Trans-Siberian Express constituted a major retreat from fame. There were collaborations to pursue, too, a US TV special, and a rock opera that would soon reconfigure itself into Diamond Dogs. It all remains dizzying to even contemplate: meticulous, high-concept masterpieces seemingly put together on the fly; nuanced personae that most sane artists would lean into for years, rinsed and disposed of in a matter of months.

Is half a century long enough for everyone involved to get their breath back? This month in MOJO, Tom Doyle reconvenes the musicians, confidants and managers who spent 1973 with Bowie, and tries to take stock of “what the hell happened”, 50 years on. “It was pretty manic,” Bowie’s friend Geoff MacCormack tells us, unsurprisingly. “He was in a hurry. But he had the talent to do it. The output was unbelievable.”