Bowie: Every tour and studio album

David BowiePA

Rock legend David Bowie - the man, his music and manner - inspired millions around the world in a career spanning 51 years.

He was a prolific writer, toured extensively and released his last album days before he died.

We take a look at the David Bowie's career in numbers - from world tours to numbers of platinum-selling albums.

David Bowie's touring history, 1972-2004

David Bowie propelled himself to international superstardom with his epic theatrical Ziggy Stardust tour, which took in the UK, the US and Japan, with approaching 200 shows over 18 gruelling months from January 1972.

At the tour's climax in July 1973 at London's Hammersmith Odeon Bowie announced that "this is the last show we'll ever do" to the astonishment of devoted fans.

While Stardust was no more, Bowie's limitless capacity for genre-hopping and self-reinvention was just beginning, and his appetite for touring in each of his many guises continued unabated - with periodic pauses - until nearly the turn of the millennium.

The Heathen tour of 2002 was comparatively modest in scale by Bowie's standards, but still included four transatlantic trips, while the A Reality tour from 2003 to 2004 was his biggest since Ziggy Stardust.

It would also prove to be his last.

David Bowie in numbers

In a career spanning 51 years

£135m

estimated net worth*

  • 140 million albums sold since his first release in 1967

  • 111 singles - averaging more than two a year during his career

  • 51 music videos, along with a number of film roles including The Man Who Fell to Earth and Labyrinth

  • 25 studio albums, including Blackstar, which was released two days before his death

*Source: Sunday Times Rich List
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Studio albums

David Bowie was a prolific writer, producing 25 studio albums (two more if you include albums as part of the band Tin Machine) and dozens of other compilations, live albums, video albums and EPs.

His biggest selling album in the UK was his 1972 release The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars, according to the Official Charts UK.

Bowie's image appears on every single one of his album covers - except the UK release of The Buddha Of Suburbia and his final album, Blackstar.

Blackstar reached number one on 15 January, days after his death.

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