Taste Oddity

I just picked up a used copy of Essential David Bowie: Best of 1969-1974 at the local library sale. I've heard 'em all before, of course, and I sure have enjoyed some of those old Bowie songs over the years. "Space Oddity" is a genuine pop-rock classic, "Suffragette City" is enjoyably leering, "Changes" and "The Man Who Sold the World" are compellingly hooky, even if Richard Barone and Nirvana both did better with the latter. But what about the rest of it? This is his best? It's a snooze. Could he be right up there with the Doors and the Dead among the all-time most overrated artists of the rock era?