Best of Bowie

These 20 songs cover the radio high points of David Bowie's career, almost too quickly summing up the multiple stylistic shifts of the great art rocker. Then again, merely 20 tracks won't be enough for anyone who's drawn to more than a few of the songs collected here; that's where the fun work of digging through Bowie's album catalog comes in. Yet this route through his history—from post-showtunes pop ("Changes") to glam hard rock ("Suffragette City," "Rebel Rebel"), "plastic soul" ("Fame"), punk-era avant-garde ("Heroes"), '80s polish ("Modern Love"), and so on—shows common emotional ground. It ultimately transcends image games, as fun as those may be. Bowie's ability to draw and intrigue an audience via his own obsessions is a gift that, in the end, makes his greatest work accessible but also challenging in the most entertaining way.