david bowie

Just got the Dylan Jones book 'David Bowie: A Life' which is a brand new oral history with *180* people interviewed. Chris O Leary (of Pushing Ahead blog fame) said nice things about it so that's good enough for me.

So the new 5-yr box set, LOVING THE ALIEN, is out, with rejigged 'Never Let Me Down' album. The new production can't make this a masterpiece, but the new version of Glass Spiders is very nice.

happy birthday bowie. glad u escaped the fate of less white, less gentile ppl who also liked to fuck 15 year olds :)

this is going to be a shame

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TY8mXPQtvxU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wASIzajHs7o

teeelllllllllllll the truth

Nice, Outside era TV interview just come to light.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhVGZqpiZWY

That looks fantastic, thanks! LOL at the intro of the show with the morphing heads, had totally forgotten about that.
Bowie lighting a cigarette within a minute after sitting down :)

I attended the Utrecht gig where the opening clip was taken, one of the best Bowie shows that I've been to:

The Motel/Look Back in Anger/The Hearts Filthy Lesson/Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)/The Voyeur of Utter Destruction (As Beauty)/I Have Not Been to Oxford Town/Boys Keep Swinging/Outside/Andy Warhol/The Man Who Sold the World/A Small Plot of Land/Strangers When We Meet/Diamond Dogs/Hallo Spaceboy/Breaking Glass/We Prick You/Nite Flights (Scott Walker cover)/Teenage Wildlife/Under Pressure/Moonage Daydream

Visconti has mixed a new version of Space Oddity for the 50th anniversary, it's always been a bit wonky, the mix imho, so it's nice to hear a new interpretation -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptVbk7r4IcA&f=

God DAMMIT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptVbk7r4IcA

Magnificent.

Jesus ! It’s incredible. It might be the best remixing/remastering job I’ve ever heard...
It almost deserves its own thread !

There's a "2019 mix, single edit" version on Spotify that has a shitty volume drop at 1:01.

1:06 rather

Wow, is that an improvement.

Much of his material is timeless, but "Major Tom" in particular has always sounded stuck in 1970. More for the way it sounded than for its content.

The strings arrangements in particular are revelatory. With that new mix they create a whole new... universe !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDuxfo5AVTg

Wow, that’s beautiful. The original mix had that “newly stereo” quality of severe hard-panning that also is heard on Oddysee and Oracle. Centring things as is done on this mix glues everything together— superior treatment of the Mellotron, too. I heard the famous Stylophone on this song for the first time, having never before been able to identify it.

I want a remix of Oddysee and Oracle (sorry if I’m spelling it wrong)

Mono mix of Odessey is awesome btw

Is modern love a rewrite of young Americans?

It's in the same key, with similar tempo and harmonic movements, it's possible he conceived it as a rewrite.

Ascending chords as well. He got to the V chord in the verses a lot faster in 1974…seems to have slowed down on modern love and only gets to the IV

I'm so obsessed with 'Jump They Say', these days, even the ridiculous Robert Longo referencing video, the song is really heart-breaking in some undefinable way.

he said
JUMP

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqKz_L_yUtg

Damn you YouTube user 0tapir0

Lots of good Bowie talk over here too (incl. Tarfumes and Alfred getting me to finally check out the awes 2016 Parlophone[Rhino dist.] Young Americans) Christgau's Consumer Guide Grade List: A+

Bowie's global publishing catalog is now sold for $250 million:
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/david-bowie-estate-sells-music-143220254.html

Whole lotta lawyer talk. But perfectly happy for Iman, Duncan and Alexandria, honestly.

I love them both but I love Bowie's catalog twice as much as Bruce's, not the other way around, financially speaking.

Beautiful track from Toy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1WLw9bNBas

The rest of the album doesn't do much for me, but at least Bowie recognized that this was too good to keep on the shelf - it was a B-side for some Heathen singles (as well as a bonus track on the deluxe edition), and he released it again on Nothing Has Changed.

Gail Ann Dorsey did a lovely version of it this past Saturday on the Mike Garson-organized Bowie livestream tribute.

Found a snippet!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_OAe_ziiJk

Also on Toy it sounds a little different especially in the echo on Bowie's voice, so I guess they remixed it (or simply had different mixes at their disposal):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJWBstZDisI

can I just say I hate the sleeve

LOL, yes. It looks like a David Lynch parody.

They should have put the Phillip Jeffries teapot on the cover

That would've better and awesome.

*been better

I just heard the "Let's Dance" Demo for the first time and I love it.
I like the "original" a lot but this stripped down version is more... funky.
Such a monstruous groove and the guitar parts and bass/drums are fantastic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFAgk61HiyI

That's great

You can hear what the original Bowie 12-string acoustic demo might've sounded like in that live BBC performance from 1999-2000.

I think I'd pick up Toy is there was just a 1xCD option of the album itself, I don't know that I need all the other versions (unless someone can convince me it's worth the whole set).

"Let's Dance" Demo

I seem to recall Nile saying in his book that the true original demo, or at least the song as David played it for him, was barely a song, and he had to be pressured into trusting Bowie's instincts and taking the gig.

I notice this a lot when demos are released officially, that they're already often pretty slick and far along in the process and probably a far cry from their origins. (That "demo" version of "Let's Dance," for example, is already slicker than most completed albums.) Exceptions include the riff tapes on those Metallica sets, and also the fascinating disc Peter Gabriel included with the "So" reissue.

from Christgau's Consumer Guide Grade List: A+
Lots of good Bowie discussion there-- 2026 remaster I refer to is Rhino/Parlophone Young Americans, which Alfred and Tarfumes got me to listen to, finally:
Thanks. Seems like this 2016 version might possibly have been an influence on the new Bowie trib Modern Love, which also has me imagining a 90s Red Hot + Bowie, with cosmopolitan R&B voices x synths gliding through each other--and, right after hearing this remastered original, was esp. struck by the way Khruangbin's cover of "Right" stands on its own (unlike several fairly meh tracks before it).
Contributors seek to bring out the Bo's soul, funk, jazz and gospel traits---this last in the nay-saying, yet "Get me to the church on time" of the title track so gospel not gospel?!
Mostly they go for less-obvious, and often less-well sung originals, a or the major exception on both counts being We Are KING's "Space Oddity," with fun production, but the cool voices keep a lid on excitement, as his herky-jerky fervency def didn't.
Modern jazz development of "Heroes" (centered around also cool but affecting singing of Michael Taveres) is the damndest thing/honors the original (this would be yer Hal Willner 90s track)(Not jazz but also w appropriate and decided difference from orig.:Léa Sen's "Golden Years."
Since I'm in this deep, Ill say that my favorite playlist from this, because cohesively eerie and intense and mobile, is:
2.Sound and Vision – Helado Negro 03:21
7.Right – Khruangbin 05:08
10.Move On – L’Rain 04:00
14.Golden Years – Léa Sen 02:56
15.Fantastic Voyage – Meshell Ndegeocello 03:58
17.Heroes – Matthew Tavares 08:41
Also like these, which can work interspersed with those:
8.Silly Boy Blue – Nia Andrews 02:37
9.Chant of the Ever Circling Skeletal Family – Foxtrott 03:11
11.Modern Love – Jonah Mutono 03:19
12.Where Are We Now – Bullion 03:31
13.Tonght – Eddie Chacon, John Carroll Kirby 03:35
https://bbemusic.bandcamp.com/album/modern-love
Also RIYL Moses Boyd's jazzoid Dark Matter, which suggest some shadings of early Massive Attack and Soul II Soul and maybe Bowie-Eno

Er, 2016, though looking fwd to 2026 edition.

i checked into serius’ 24-7 bowie charnel and immed discovered his cover of “growin up” by the boss from pindowns and that is not my jam.

pindowns
I see what you did there.

I am not subtle tis true. I’ll add the all Bowie is fine. I’d wondered before about “Jean Genie“ about what social type he’s describing, and he said in an interview snip they ran that it was all about his experience in his first time in Detroit, and the character was “an Iggy pop type character.” And I was embarrassed but satisfied because duh, now that I know it’s obvious.