Tin Machine

Tin Machine never won any major music awards. The band was critically divisive and commercially underperformed, with an estimated 200,000 copies of their debut album sold by the time they disbanded. By contrast, Bowie's previous solo album Never Let Me Down sold over 500,000 in the US alone in 1987. EMI was losing money on the project. Still, the band achieved something intangible: they revived Bowie's creative drive. He repeatedly said Tin Machine saved his career, and the two million albums they eventually sold worldwide stand as a testament to a cult following that grew in hindsight.