40 years ago today (14 April 1983), David Bowie released his fifteenth studio album “Let’s Dance”. Co-produced by Chic's Nile Rodgers, it features some of Bowie’s biggest hits including "Let's Dance" "China Girl" and "Modern Love".
Let's Dance was released to massive commercial success, reaching number one in numerous countries, and turned Bowie into a major superstar; it remains Bowie's best-selling album. The record's four singles, including the title track, were all commercially successful. The album received mixed reviews from critics whose opinions on the artistic content varied. "Let's Dance" and "China Girl" were supported by music videos that received heavy airplay on MTV. It was supported by the successful Serious Moonlight Tour throughout 1983.
On the album's influence, Billboard's Joe Lynch argued that Let's Dance provided "the template" for alternative dance music "for the next 30 years". In 1989, the album was ranked number 83 on Rolling Stone's list of the "100 Best Albums of the Eighties". In 2013, NME ranked Let's Dance at number 296 in its list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. In 2018, Pitchfork ranked the album at number 127 in their list of "The 200 Best Albums of the 1980s"; Jeremy D. Larson wrote that Let's Dance "sounds anything but dated" and felt it "became a Trojan horse for the world to discover all the many Bowies hiding underneath the blond bouffant and designer suits."