David Bowie

During the mid-1990s sessions for Outside, Bowie worked with Ty Roberts, who had made interactive CD-ROMs for him and Brian Eno, on the Verbasizer, a Mac program that split typed sentences into columns and randomly recombined their words into lyric fragments. Roberts says it automated the paper cut-up method he had seen Bowie use in the studio, and Bowie demonstrated the program on camera in the 1997 documentary Inspirations.

According to co-creator Ron Roy, Bowie approved the BowieNet project pitched by Robert Goodale and Roy in late 1996 and put money into it. The service was announced on 17 July 1998 and launched on 1 September 1998, combining dial-up internet access at $19.95 a month with a davidbowie.com email address, chat rooms and places for fans to post their own art. Roy says Bowie insisted it not be a promotional site and, having relied on his record label for his earlier website, asked for a web-design firm of his own.

In 1994 Bowie joined the editorial board of the art magazine Modern Painters. According to Sotheby's, he contributed interviews and reviews there, including an interview with the painter Balthus that he proposed to the editors, one with Damien Hirst, a review of the 1995 Johannesburg Biennale and a piece on Jean-Michel Basquiat. On 1 April 1998 he launched the art-book publisher 21 Publishing at Jeff Koons's studio, with William Boyd's book on the invented painter Nat Tate as its first title.

On 3 July 1973, on the last night of the Ziggy Stardust tour at London's Hammersmith Odeon, Bowie told the audience it was 'the last show we'll ever do'. According to Variety, guitarist Mick Ronson had been told beforehand, having been sworn to secrecy in exchange for a solo deal, while drummer Woody Woodmansey did not realize his future plans had been cancelled; Ultimate Classic Rock reports Suzi Ronson saying everyone knew except Woodmansey and bassist Trevor Bolder.

The announcement is consistent with a decisive willingness to end a persona that was still drawing large audiences. The accounts of bandmembers who were not told in advance also show a cost of that style, which is why this profile treats the trait as dual-edged. Decisiveness

In 1977 at Hansa Studios in Berlin, producer Tony Visconti says Bowie finished the lyrics for 'Heroes' while Visconti was away for a couple of hours, then sang the lead vocal, which Visconti says is 'probably take three', and the backing vocals. Visconti puts the whole sequence at about five hours, adds that this 'doesn't always happen', and says Bowie usually let lyric ideas germinate for a month or two beforehand. The account was given to Sound On Sound in 2004, decades after the session.

It illustrates fast execution once material had settled in his mind. Visconti presents the speed as unusual and describes a longer incubation beforehand, so this is one example rather than a general rule about Bowie's pace. Execution Speed

In 1982, according to Nile Rodgers, Bowie told him 'I want you to make hits', and Rolling Stone reports that Bowie told his usual producer Tony Visconti he wanted a change for the project. The resulting album Let's Dance, co-produced by Bowie and Rodgers, was cut in about 17 days at New York's Power Station with a band Rodgers assembled and the then little-known guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan, whom Bowie had seen at the Montreux Jazz Festival.

The change of producer, band and sound offers one example of his readiness to change collaborators in order to change the music. Rodgers's account is one participant's recollection, and how much of the finished sound came from Bowie and how much from Rodgers remains a matter on which the accounts differ. Adaptability