David Bowie's 10 best duets, ranked
20 March 2025, 10:45
David Bowie was one of the all-time great collaborators.
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David Bowie was one of pop music's great auteurs.
A comedian, chameleon, Corinthian, and caricature, he put his own Bowie stamp on every single song he appeared on, no matter how different his gaggle of partners was at that particular time.
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From The Konrads and King Bees to the Spiders from Mars to Brian Eno to Tin Machine, all his songs sounded different, but they all sounded like David Bowie.
He was a self-created phenomenon, but also one who also chose his collaborators with great skill and care.
It's hard to understate the impact of players like Mick Ronson, Earl Slick and Gail Ann Dorsey – or producers like Tony Visconti and Nile Rodgers – to Bowie's songs.
And when he chose to share the microphone with another artist, the results were often pretty stunning, too.
In putting together a list of just ten of David Bowie's best duets, we've stuck to songs where both DB and the other artist get involved in the vocals, and also those where Bowie's name is right up there in the credits.
So we've skipped excellent hook-ups like 'Cat People (Putting Out Fire)' (produced and co-written by Giorgio Moroder) and 'This Is Not America' (co-written and produced by Pat Metheny, who also played guitar but didn't sing on the track).
Placebo - Without You I'm Nothing (Feat. David Bowie) (Official Music Video)
And we've also not included anything from Lou Reed's Transformer (produced by Bowie and with his backing vocals all over it), or Iggy Pop's Bowie-heavy albums The Idiot and Lust for Life, which are their own special sort of collaboration.
Instead, we've just rounded up ten of the very best out-and-out David Bowie duets, and even with that strict critera we've had to leave off some classics.
We're especially sad to have left off versions of 'Without You I'm Nothing' with Brian Molko, 'Quicksand' with Robert Smith, 'I'm Waiting For The Man' with Lou Reed or 'I Got You Babe' with Marianne Faithfull, but what we've got left is something pretty special.
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Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy, with Bing Crosby
Bing Crosby, David Bowie - Peace On Earth / Little Drummer Boy
A proper generation-straddling moment in music.
David Bowie understood the history of pop, of which Bing Crosby was a key early figure, but it was still an odd time for him to join forces with the croonoer.
'Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy' was recorded in 1977, the same year Bowie released the groundbreaking Low, "Heroes" (and the two Iggy albums The Idiot and Lust For Life).
Yet on September 11, 1977, he still found the time to swing by ATV Elstree Studios to pop up on Bing Crosby's Merrie Olde Christmas.
'The Little Drummer Boy' itself dated back to 1941, but this medley included a counterpoint melody rush-written by Ian Fraser, Larry Grossman and scriptwriter Buz Kohan for Bowie, who wasn't keen on the old carol.
Bowie flitted back and forth over his memories of Bing ("fantastic", he said in 1978, "like a little old orange sitting on a stool", he said in 1999), but after some admittedly cringey back and forth, the duet itself was a lovely meeting of very different people to make something beautiful and enduring.
It was one of Bing's last ever recorded moments as he died of a heart attack on October 14, The show aired after, and the song got a belated release as a single in 1982, using the sound salvaged from a boom mic afte the master recordings were deleted.
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Sitting Next To You, with Marc Bolan
Marc Bolan and David Bowie Marc Show 1977
Another Bowie duet from 1977, and another that would only air after Bowie's duet partner's sad death.
David Bowie appeared on the sixth and last episode of Marc Bolan's Granada TV series Marc. The hook-up was taped on September 7, just ten days before Bolan died in a car crash on September 16. It aired four days later on September 20.
BOWIE & BOLAN ~ SITTING NEXT TO YOU ~ DEMO 77
"I was getting seriously worried about whether I should appear on TV because everyone I was going on with was kicking it the following week," said Bowie, with typical dark humour.
After Bowie played "Heroes", Bolan joined him for a run through a song that has been called 'Sleeping Next To You', 'Standing Next To You' or 'Sitting Next To You', depending on which bootleg label you're reading.
David Bowie and Marc Bolan - Madman (Demo) 1977
The performance saw Bolan trip over a mic cable and take a tumble, which both men were able to laugh off. A rough early demo later emerged which was a it more complete, but only slightly
In 1977, Bowie and Bolan had hooked up too co-write and record a demo of a new song called 'Madman'. Tragically, Bolan would die before they could finish it off properly, though the song was covered and became a minor indie hit for the Cuddly Toys.
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Tonight, with Tina Turner
Tina Turner - Tonight (with David Bowie) [Live]
David Bowie had a rough time of it in the late 1980s. His back-to-back duo of Tonight and Never Let Me Down are widely considered to be his worst albums, but even at his most artistically drained, DB still had more in the tank than many,
Never Let Me Down had 'Time Will Crawl', and Tonight had 'Loving The Alien', 'Blue Jean' and also the title track. 'Tonight' was originally recorded and released by Iggy Pop on his Bowie-produced Lust For Life album seven years earlier.
The new version did a lot more than swap out Iggy for special guest star Tina Turner. Gone was the spoken word intro about heroin, and the gritty production of Iggy, Bowie and Colin Thurston.
Instead, Bowie hooked up with Derek Bramble and 1980s man of the moment Hugh Padgam and also sampled Aretha Franklin's 'Spanish Harlem' for this reggae-tinged rework.
It's a saucy, sultry duet, and the sexiness got jammed up an order of magnitude when the two performed it live together on stage, draped over each other.
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Dancing in the Stree, with Mick Jagger
David Bowie & Mick Jagger - Dancing In The Street (Official Video)
It's much mocked, sure. Sticking the video on with no sound or with the Bottom theme on is admittedly very funny. And no, it's not the stone cold classic that is the Martha Reeves and the Vandellas version.
But David Bowie and Mick Jagger's take on 'Dancing in the Street' is an absolute riot.
While both men weren't quite at their critical peak, they were commercially still very much at the top of their games, and both were confident enough to park their egos at the door and just enjoy themselves.
The original plan was for the pair to perform the song across both venues at Live Aid, with Bowie in London and Mick in Philadelphia.
Technical issues meant that wasn't possible, so they got together in the studio (and on the video set) for the cause instead. Principal recording and mixing was done in just four hours, and the full song and video completed in 13 hours.
It went to number 7 in the US, topped the UK chart, and raised plenty of money for Live Aid, too.
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Arnold Layne, with David Gilmour
David Gilmour - Arnold Layne feat. David Bowie (Remember That Night)
David Bowie and Pink Floyd sometimes seemed to live in parallel but rarely crossing over universes. Both started their careers in the psychedelic 1960s but only really took flight the following decade.
Bowie was a fan of early, Syd Barrett-era Floyd and covered 'See Emily Play' on his 1973 album Pin Ups.
Decades later, he hooked up with David Gilmour to jointly cover Pink Floyd's first single, the Syd-penned 'Arnold Layne', a song about a man with a penchant for nicking women's underwear from washing lines.
It was in 2006 when Gilmour added the song to his live setlist. One night he had Richard Wright sing it. And on May 29, he had David Bowie do the honours. Both were released as a single, which charted at number 19.
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Can You Hear Me, with Cher
David Bowie and Cher | Can You Hear Me | Live on the Cher Show | 18 September 1975
Bowie's voice worked pretty well with a female counterpoint: as well as Tina Turner, there was his backing vocals on Lulu's cover of his 'The Man Who Sold The World', his regular duets with live partner Gail Ann Dorsey, his late-era duets with Scarlett Johansson and his one-off with Annie Lennox (more on that imminently) .
In 1973 he covered Sonny and Cher's 'I Got You Babe' with Marianne Faithfull, and a couple of years later he hooked up with Cher herself on The Cher Show to perform some songs from his Young Americans album.
As well as a solo 'Fame' and medley of songs from the album, Bowie and Cher gave a fabulous rendition of 'Can You Hear Me', a song that had actually grown out of Diamond Dogs outtake 'Take It In Right' and was first intended for (and recorded, but since lost) for the aborted Bowie/Lulu album project.
"I was probably this crazed anorexic figure walking in," he said of how Cher must have seen him. "I'm sure she didn’t know what to make of me."
He didn't exactly look healthy, sure, but both he and Cher pulled it out the bag with their collaboration all the same.
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Hallo Spaceboy (Remix), with the Pet Shop Boys
David Bowie Feat. Pet Shop Boys - Hello Spaceboy Top Of Pops 1996 (Remastered Video)
After a dodgy few years in the mid-to-late 1980s, David Bowie blew away the cobwebs with Tin Machine.
After being re-energised by Reeves Gabrels and the Sales Brothers, he got back to making some remarkable solo music.
The Buddha of Suburbia and Black Tie/White Noise were good records, but 1995's 1. Outside was a great record.
One of its standouts was the noisefest 'Hallo Spaceboy', which was given a super pop sheen by the Pet Shop Boys for its single release.
Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe took a leaf out of Bowie/Burroughs book and did their own bit of cut-ups, borrowing some lyrics from 'Space Oddity', turning the song into the third part of the Major Tom trilogy in the process.
"There was this long silence, and then he said, 'I think I'd better come over'," Tennant remembered on when telling Bowie of his idea. It worked, though.
After they reworked the track in the studio, the Pets and Bowie performed it together at the Brits and on TOTP.
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Young Americans, with Luther Vandross
David Bowie- Young Americans
Plenty of the artists on this list were pretty major names when they sauntered up to the mic with Bowie. A few were arguably bigger stars than the man himself.
While he was a burning young talent, Luther Vandross was still half a decade away from releasing something under his own name when he joined David Bowie's band for Young Americans.
He had already worked as a backing vocalist for the likes of Roberta Flack when he supplied backing vocals to Bowie's blue-eyed soul album.
Vandross even lent Bowie his song 'Funky Music (Is a Part of Me)', which David reworked into the stunning 'Fascination'. Vandross got a well-earned co-writing credit on that one.
On the title track itself, not only did Luther sing backup with Ava Cherry and Robin Clark, but it was him who actually came up with the backing vocals arrangement that really do take the song to the next level.
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Fame, with John Lennon
Fame (2016 Remaster)
John Lennon had a quiet time of it the second half of the 1970s. His only album release was the contractual obligation covers collection Rock 'n' Roll.
Just before he took a backseat from pop to focus on parenting, he popped up for one of those once-in-a-lifetime collaborations, co-writing 'Fame' with David Bowie and Carlos Alamar.
Bowie had been inspired by his disintegrating relationship with manager Tony Defries. Lennon, of course, had more experience of the ups and downs of fame than most people one earth by that point.
As for how they got together, they crossed paths in New York City in late 1974 when Bowie was staying in the city and Lennon was having his infamous "Lost Weekend".
hIt was soon after Lennon reunited with Yoko Ono that Lennon and Bowie and a jam and one-day recording session at Electric Lady studios in January 1975, which also included a pretty limp version of The Beatles' 'Across The Universe'.
They recycled a Carols Alomar riff originally destined for a cover of The Flares' 'Footstompin'', Lennon ad-libbed "AIM" over the sting, Bowie turned it 'Fame' and they were pretty much there.
"We took some Stevie Wonder middle eight and did it backwards, you know, and we made a record out of it!" Lennon later said.
The song reached number 17 in the UK singles chart and also became Bowie's first ever US number one.
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Under Pressure, with Queen
Queen - Under Pressure (Official Video)
It couldn't be anything else, could it?
Not just David Bowie's greatest duet, but maybe the greatest duet of all time. We spoke earlier about Bowie and Mick Jagger parking their egos before making 'Dancing in the Street', but on 'Under Pressure' the opposite was true.
Here, all the egos were very much present, correct and turned up to 11, but somehow that back-and-forth battle between Bowie and Queen (and especially frontman Freddie Mercury) pushed both parties to deliver their very best.
It was in July 1981 that Queen were at Mountain Studios in Montreux, Switzerland, working on a song for Hot Space . Bowie was at the same studio working on 'Cat People (Putting Out Fire)'.
They jammed a bit on some covers before someone had the idea to write something new together.
Queen & Annie Lennox & David Bowie - Under Pressure - HD
The finished song was credited to both Bowie and Queen, and there's been much wittering in the years since about who wrote what, but Roger Taylor wrote the song 'Feel Like' that it grew out of, John Deacon wrote the classic bass riff, Bowie wrote the lyrics and Freddie definitely provided enough star power.
"We'd never actually collaborated with anybody before, so certain egos were slightly bruised along the way," admitted Taylor years later.
Bowie took control somewhat, but Queen had a B-side going spare so they got top billing.
The song went to number 29 in the US and number one in the UK. Both artists kept it in their live set in the years after Freddie's passing, and they joined forces to perform it together – with special guest Annie Lennox – at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert in 1992.
