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David Bowie’s ‘Ashes To Ashes’ single was released on 8 August 1980, more than a month before the album Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps).

The single contained an edited version, reducing the song’s length from 4:25 to 3:37. The b-side was the Lodger song ‘Move On’.

In the UK ‘Ashes To Ashes’ entered the chart at number four, and climbed to the top spot a week later, becoming David Bowie’s fastest-selling single to date. It was his second UK chart-topper; the first had been, fittingly, a reissue of ‘Space Oddity’.

Three sleeve variants were issued for ‘Ashes To Ashes’ was released, with different border artwork and central photograph of Bowie. Additionally, the first 100,000 UK copies came with one of four sets of stamps.

In the US the single fared far less well, peaking at number 79 on the Cash Box chart and 101 on the Billboard Bubbling Under the Hot 100 chart. Its highest placing was on the US Billboard Disco Top 100, where it reached number 21.

‘Ashes To Ashes’ was a top ten hit in Australia, Austria, Germany, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. It reached the top 20 in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Switzerland.

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‘Boys Keep Swinging’ was the first single released from David Bowie’s Lodger album.

The single was released on 27 April 1979, ahead of the album. Its b-side was another album track, ‘Fantastic Voyage’.

Also in April, director David Mallet filmed David Bowie in promotional clips for ‘Boys Keep Swinging’. ‘DJ’ and ‘Look Back In Anger’. The shoot took place at Ewart Studios in Wandsworth, London.

Bowie appeared in four different guises in the ‘Boys Keep Swinging’ clip: as the main performer in a Mod suit and tie; and dressed in drag as the trio of backing singers. The singers were in the styles of Coronation Street’s Bet Lynch, Lauren Bacall, and Bowie’s Just A Gigolo co-star Marlene Dietrich.

Towards the end of the song, each of the singers individually sashayed forward. Two took off their wigs and smeared their makeup, in a foreshadowing of the Pierrot-style imagery of the ‘Ashes To Ashes’ video, while the third blew a kiss to the camera.

The makeup move, according to Bowie, was “a well-known drag act finale gesture which I appropriated. I really liked the idea of screwing up make-up after all the meticulous work that had gone into it. It was a nice destructive thing to to – quite anarchistic.”

The video and accompanying publicity helped propel ‘Boys Keep Swinging’ back up the UK charts to a high of number seven, becoming Bowie’s biggest hit there since ‘Sound And Vision’.

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David Bowie’s “Heroes” was issued as a single on 23 September 1977, ahead of the album’s 14 October release. The b-side was ‘V-2 Schneider’.

The single was an edited version which reduced the running time from 6:07 to 3:32, and omitted the first two and final verses. This shorter version has become a mainstay of Bowie compilations.

“Heroes” was not a major hit upon its release, peaking at number 24 in the UK. In the US it was a commercial failure, going no further than number 126 on the Record World singles chart.

It fared better in Ireland and the Netherlands, where it reached numbers eight and nine in their respective charts, and made the top 20 in Austria, Australia, Belgium, and Germany.

The German and French versions were released in their respective countries as ‘Helden’ and ‘Héros’. These, plus the English version and ‘V-2 Schneider’, were compiled for a four-song 7″ single in Australia. In Spain the full-length English album version was issued as a 12″ single.

‘Helden’ and ‘Héros’, plus the extended English/German and English/French album versions, were included in a “Heroes” EP included in the 2017 box set A New Career In A New Town (1977–1982). The edited English-language single was included in the same box’s compilation Re:Call 3.

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David Bowie’s single ‘Fame’ was issued as a single on 25 July 1975, four months after the Young Americans album’s release, with ‘Right’ on the b-side.

The single became Bowie’s first US number one, topping the Billboard Hot 100 before Bowie had achieved a similar feat in the United Kingdom.

That was my least favourite track on the album,, even though John had contributed to it and everything, and I had no idea, as with ‘Let’s Dance’, that that was what a commercial single is. I haven’t got a clue when it comes to singles. I just don’t know about them, I don’t get it, and ‘Fame’ was really out of left-field for me.
David Bowie, 1990
The Complete David Bowie, Nicholas Pegg

It also topped the Canadian singles chart, but fared less well in the UK, where it peaked at number 17.

John Lennon, Bowie’s collaborator on ‘Fame’, later drew a connection with ‘Whatever Gets You Thru The Night’, his own chart-topping collaboration with Elton John.

So he got his first number one. I felt like, that was like a karmic thing, you know. Elton gave… with me and Elton I got my first number one, so I passed it on to Bowie and he got his first and I like that track.
John Lennon, 1980
BBC Radio One

‘Fame’ was edited for single release from 4:21 to 3:30. This version was also included on the 1980 compilation The Best Of Bowie, and on Re:Call 2 in the 2016 box set Who Can I Be Now? (1974–1976).

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