Let’s Dance by David Bowie

Let's Dance, David Bowie's fifteenth studio album, came out on EMI America on 14 April 1983, and it's his boldest change of direction yet: the art-rock outsider reborn as a dancefloor king. He co-produced it with Nile Rodgers, cut it at the Power Station in New York in December 1982 with players from Rodgers' band Chic, and brought in a then-unknown Texas blues guitarist named Stevie Ray Vaughan to play lead. For the first time on one of his albums, Bowie didn't touch an instrument; he just sang.

The result is post-disco with muscle, crossing dance-rock, dance-pop and new wave. The title track struts and shimmers, "Modern Love" is a joyous rave-up, and "China Girl", a song Bowie and Iggy Pop had first cut for Pop's The Idiot, gets a glossy new makeover. There's also a cover of Metro's "Criminal World" and a reworked "Cat People (Putting Out Fire)", which he'd first cut with Giorgio Moroder in 1982 for the movie Cat People.

It was a phenomenon. The album went to number one in country after country, all four singles were hits, the videos for "Let's Dance" and "China Girl" were all over MTV, and the Serious Moonlight Tour kept the party going through 1983. It remains his best-selling album and turned him into a genuine superstar, though critics were divided. The success came at a cost: Tonight and Never Let Me Down drew poor reviews, and Bowie later dismissed the whole stretch as his "Phil Collins years".

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.