David Bowie's 10th studio album was released on 23 January 1976.
Less than a month after the release of Young Americans in March 1975, 28-year-old Bowie announced his retirement, saying "There will be no more rock'n'roll records or tours from me. The last thing I want to be is some useless fucking rock singer." Bowie was descending into addiction and paranoia (he later said that he remembered little of the year 1975, and almost nothing of recording Station to Station) and had alienated many of his friends ("If you really want to lose all your friends and all of the relationships that you ever held dear, [cocaine is] the drug to do it with," he said).
Recorded in the fall of 1975, Bowie arrived at the studio with unfinished songs, mostly fragments and relied on guitarist Carlos Alomar, drummer Dennis Davis, and bassist George Murray to develop his ideas. Alomar later said, "It was one of the most glorious albums that I've ever done … We experimented so much on it." Fueled by cocaine, Bowie would work nonstop for days at a time, then crash and sleep for a day or two and then resume (at one point, he brought a bed into the studio).
Bowie subsisted on an all-white diet - mashed potatoes, milk, and cocaine (although some biographers said that he also ate red peppers) - and lost a great deal of weight, and the title song introduces the character of the Thin White Duke.
Station to Station was a commercial and critical success, peaking at #3 in the US (#5 in the UK); it is considered to not only be one of Bowie's best albums, but one of the best albums of all time.
