A handwritten note listing David Bowie's favourite songs has been unearthed in the archives of the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A). The note, titled 'Memo for radio show — list of favourite records', includes tracks by The Beatles, Sonic Youth, and Little Richard, among others.
The discovery comes ahead of the opening of the David Bowie Centre at the V&A East Storehouse in Hackney Wick on September 13. The archive comprises over 90,000 items related to the iconic artist, tracing his creative processes and cultural impact.
Among the listed favourites are The Beatles' 'Across The Universe', which Bowie covered on his 1975 album 'Young Americans', and Sonic Youth's 'Tom Violence'. Other selections include Jeff Beck's 'Beck's Bolero', Roxy Music's 'Mother of Pearl', and The Walker Brothers' 'The Electrician'. The full list spans classical, jazz, and rock genres.
Additional papers found in the archive include a 1995 list of 'ins' and 'outs', with 'chaos surfing' and 'David Bowie' listed as 'ins', while 'post-modernism' and 'religion' were 'outs'. The archive also reveals that Bowie spent his final months working on an 18th-century musical titled 'The Spectator', a project unknown even to his closest collaborators until notes were discovered in his locked study after his death in 2016.
