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Changesbowie |
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Additionally, The Singles includes the original album version of Fame. I know I'd want the original version, included on the 1976 vinyl release of this classic. Instead, the 1990 CD reissue of Changesbowie gives you some gerbil-brained remix of Fame destined for a Julia Roberts movie soundtrack. With The Singles you get the original.
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Space Oddity John, I'm Only Dancing Changes Ziggy Stardust Suffragette City The Jean Genie |
Diamond Dogs |
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Bonus tracks:
"Heroes" |
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ChangestwoBowie |
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| Ten years is too much ground to cover in ten tracks. The sequencing feels confused and weird, with Starman, 1984 and Ashes To Ashes back to back. The selections range from 1971's Hunky Dory to 1980's Scary Monsters. With a repertoire as diverse as Bowie's this leads to a |
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collection is long out of print, as well it should be. Why bother?
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Aladdin Sane Oh! You Pretty Things Starman 1984 Ashes To Ashes |
Sound and Vision |
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Rare |
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Foremost is the live version of Panic In Detroit, runs about six minutes or so. Originally b-side of When You Rock And Roll With Me, recorded at the same show as the David Live album, Panic In Detroit kicks butt on anything from David Live. Its inclusion might even have justified the purchase of that 2 CD pastelification. However, this is not available on CD. Somebody should have their little red wagon spanked for that. Now that EMI has acquired the rights to Bowie's catalog, let's hope this grievous error is amended. Update: EMI at this time has no plans to reissue any of Bowie's live albums.
Another full-length find is the 6:08 "Heroes"/Helden, with verses alternating between English and German. Its only other appearance is on the Christiane F. album. The single version of Young Americans closes side one. Trims a couple minutes off the album version but compensates with a beefier mix. Should have been on The Singles but the album version was substituted instead. How many little red wagons does this person have left to spank anyway?
(Note: The single version of Young Americans now appears on the compilation The Best of 1974 - 1979.)
John, I'm Only Dancing (Again) (1975) rears its disco head for 3:26. This single version hasn't appeared on CD. The long disco-single version was appended to the rerelease of Young Americans.
You'll find the lyric sheet handy for Ragazzo Solo, Ragazza Sola, the Italian version of Space Oddity. If you haven't brushed up on your Italian lately, never mind the translation. It has nothing to do with the original lyrics. For the purportedly romantic Italian market the melody to Space Oddity was set to lyrics of a run of the mill love song. Maybe they should have just issued the English version there and called it Sukiyaki or, better yet, Rotellini Vespa Al Carbon. The lyric sheet also may come in handy when trying to deciper those slurred Bowie lyrics in English.
Velvet Goldmine now appears as a bonus track on the CD reissue of Ziggy Stardust as well as popping up on the EMI compilation Essential David Bowie: The Best of 1969 - 1974. Moon Of Alabama is another name for Brecht's Alabama Song, a bonus track on Scary Monsters. Look to find Crystal Japan there too. Amsterdam is another name for Port Of Amsterdam, a bonus track on Pin Ups.
It's Me Again: Elvsbwie recently passed along the international word that the live version of Panic In Detroit is the b-side of the live version of Rock n' Roll With Me in the US only. In the rest of the world it's regarded as the b-side of Bowie's live Knock On Wood. Much obliged for the telegram to the provinces!
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Ragazzo Solo Ragazza Sola 'Round And 'Round Amsterdam Holy Holy Panic In Detroit (live) Young Americans |
Velvet Goldmine |
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Golden Years /
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Product #2 |
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Sound And Vision |
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Nevertheless, this isn't necessarily the place to start. This isn't exactly a three-and-a-half CD set "best of". When Bowie's biggest hits do appear, they're often in live, rare or alternate versions: The impossible-to-find single version of Rebel Rebel. The 3:37 German language single of "Heroes", Helden. The original demo of Space Oddity, complete with humble spoken introduction.
Some glittering moments are finally stolen away from the bootleggers here. Thirteen rare, alternate or previously unreleased numbers adorn this 49 track retrospective including the demo medley 1984/Dodo. The bulk of the rarities are drawn from 1969 - 1971.
Here's an idea: if you've got a six disk changer, put in disks one, two and three of Sound And Vision. Add the two disks from The Singles. Round it out with either Black Tie White Noise, Outside or Earthling. Set the CD player on repeat. Then put on your mudflaps, trucker, 'cause you're in for one honkin' mother of a Bowiethon.
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Wild-Eyed Boy From Freecloud (1969, b-side) The Prettiest Star (1970, single version) London Bye Ta-Ta (1970, previously unreleased) Black Country Rock The Man Who Sold The World The Bewlay Brothers Changes Round And Round (1971, b-side) Moonage Daydream John, I'm Only Dancing Drive In Saturday Panic In Detroit Ziggy Stardust (live) White Light/White Heat (live) Rock 'N' Roll Suicide (live)
Sorrow Don't Bring Me Down 1984/Dodo (1973, previously unreleased) Big Brother Rebel Rebel (single version) Suffragette City (live) Watch That Man (live) Cracked Actor (live) Young Americans Fascination After Today (1975, previously unreleased) It's Hard To Be A Saint In The City (1975, previously unreleased) TVC15 Wild Is The Wind
Be My Wife Speed Of Life Helden (German version of "Heroes", '89 remix) Joe The Lion Sons Of The Silent Age Station To Station (live) Warszawa (live) Breaking Glass (live) Red Sails Look Back In Anger Boys Keep Swinging Up Hill Backwards Kingdom Come Ashes To Ashes
Changes The Supermen (these 3 tracks live 10/1/72, previously unreleased) Ashes To Ashes (single version, audio and video) |
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Note: Disc 4 is no longer included in this compilation. Annoying, sure, but I wouldn't sweat it. The whole thing's out of print anyway.
So you look at this 2 CD set, and you compare it to the single disk compilation, ChangesoneBowie. Get The Singles. Ain't no fat on this one, little mister. Sure, a track here or there should have been replaced by a different track but who's complaining? It's also the only place you'll get one of Bowie's very best cuts on a Bowie CD, namely the original full-length soundtrack version
If you only get one Bowie album, THIS IS IT. An excellent sampler with near-perfect track listing covering every phase of his career. Because Bowie's music is so diverse, you'll be able to pick out which albums best fit your taste.
The Singles 1969 - 1993
of Cat People. The duet with Mick Jagger on Dancing In The Streets is another exclusive. Perhaps you're looking at the 3 CD box, Sound and Vision. Again, go for The Singles first. It's more concise and the track selection is immaculate.
Peace On Earth/Little Drummer Boy
Medley on bonus CD for early purchasers of The Singles. 1977 Christmas duet with Bing Crosby. A spin through the old 45 bins may also turn this up on an RCA 7", backed with Fantastic Voyage from Lodger. Bowie plays it straight, so to speak, with a sincere, unaffected performance that makes this track one of the most asked about Bowie songs on this web site.
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The original 45 included only the musical performance, while the bonus CD (now out of print) included the scripted dialogue between Der Bowie and Der Bingle, leading into the performance. This remains Bowie's only Christmas recording. |
Update: Now also available on multimedia CD single for the holiday season, playable as either a music CD or as a CD ROM with a video of the original performance. It's also available on Rhino's New Wave Xmas, the latest in a series of "Just Can't Get Enough" new wave compilations. Other Christmas recordings here include Squeeze, XTC and the Pretenders.
(US Version)
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Disc 1
Space Oddity |
Disc 2
"Heroes" |
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Rarestonebowie |
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Still, Bowie collectors will lap this one up. Be My Wife and Sound And Vision are two joys from the 1978 tour. These two tracks would have provided quite a boost to the live album from that tour, Stage. Queen Bitch just screams from the 1976 Thin White Duke tour, redefining itself.
It's a laugh to hear Bowie doing a sweaty medley of the Flares' 1961 hit Footstompin' combined with Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate in a 1974 plastic soul delivery on the Dick Cavett Show. Bowie fans curious to hear the original of Footstompin' will undoubtedly savor the root-hog-or-die oldies soundtrack to the John Waters movie Hairspray.
The first official release of material from the the now-legendary "1980 Floor Show" from the Midnight Special pops up here with a good round of Time. It's nice to hear Bowie doing his own All The Young Dudes, but this studio version is just a little bit lacking in spirit. It also now appears in a more substantial collection which includes more than twice as much music for your money (scroll down to the next listing).
Compare the mediocre Ziggy-era version of Cream's I Feel Free here to the excellent version that was released twenty years later on Black Tie White Noise. Mick Ronson extends this outing to over five minutes with your 1972 guitar solo, which is okay if you like Mick Ronson or guitar solos. The Ziggy Stardust included here is duplicated from the Santa Monica '72 CD. Sound quality varies.
Update: Apparently both this CD and Santa Monica '72 have been pulled off the market and replaced with a single disk containing all the songs on this collection plus another five or six from the live Santa Monica '72. Added live tracks include Suffragette City, Rock and Roll Suicide and David's cover of the Velvet Underground's I'm Waiting For The Man among others. It's definitely a better value for the money, and still a must-have for the two delightful live cuts from the 1978 tour. Don't look for it to have the CD cover you see here though, the artwork has changed. If you see it in the bins, grab it while you can.
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Pin Ups Radio Spot
(secret bonus track) All The Young Dudes (1973, studio version) Queen Bitch (1976, live at Long Island, NY) Sound And Vision (1978, live at Earl's Court, London) Time (1973, live from 'The 1980 Floor Show') Be My Wife (1978, live at Earl's Court, London) Footstompin'/ /Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate (1974, live from Dick Cavett US TV Show) Ziggy Stardust (same recording as Santa Monica '72) My Death (1972, live at Carnegie Hall, NYC) I Feel Free (1972, live at Kingston Polytechnic) |
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Essential David Bowie: Best of 1969 - 1974 |
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This collection is tailor-made for those who believe that Bowie was never the same once he abandoned glam rock. In that regard these twenty tracks do a mighty fine job of representing much of Bowie's best in the early seventies.
Rather than a strict chronological listing, EMI's first Bowie compilation presents one era as a whole. The sequencing f-l-o-o-o-w-w-w-s better than any other Bowie collection, and isn't it refreshing to have a best of that doesn't open with Space Oddity for a change? (Okay, so it's the second song.) Opening with the stomp Jean Genie, it rolls into the full-length album version of Space Oddity and follows up with Starman, one of the singles from the legendary Ziggy Stardust album.
This points up one of the best things about this collection - songs are grouped thematically, bringing a sort of narrative to Bowie's first period of skyrocketing success. Ferinstance, John, I'm Only Dancing is followed by the full-length album version of Rebel Rebel, both songs touching on the subject of, well, you know.
Two well-deserving songs that have gotten short- changed in previous compilations appear back to back here, Aladdin Sane and The Man Who Sold The World. The twenty classics wind down on a question of life and death, with The Man Who Sold The World as a fitting warm up to Rock 'N Roll Suicide and then the closer, All The Young Dudes. Don't wanna stay alive when you're twenty five? Consider what Bowie's done by the time he's fifty one.
A few must-haves from this period were left off, specifically 1984 and Panic In Detroit. Ziggy fans undoubtedly will be aghast that Moonage Daydream is absent. And for my own personal taste, Time and Quicksand would be absolute requirements as well.
Problem is, if EMI were to add those tracks, what would they take off? This best of already runs to over 77 minutes on a single disk. Once you get to rearranging things, before you know it you've included half or more of Aladdin Sane, Diamond Dogs, Ziggy Stardust and Hunky Dory.
I know this sounds like it's coming from a Bowie fan, but there's no way you can distill the best of this six year period into only twenty tracks. Of the seven albums spanning this era, four albums had to be reduced to a total of five songs here. This means that about half of this compilation is drawn from Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane, with three more tracks being culled from Hunky Dory.
About the collectibles: Velvet Goldmine is a good song that fits the mood of the era perfectly. It probably appears here as a collectible bait track, or perhaps its inclusion is due to the film of the same name getting attention. It also appears as a bonus track on the CD reissue of Ziggy Stardust.
John, I'm Only Dancing is the same version found on the box set Sound And Vision and is the best of all versions of this song. Another best of all possible versions is The Prettiest Star, a beautiful and gentle 1970 rendition of the song that was later rerecorded for the Aladdin Sane album. It appears in mono on the Sound And Vision box.
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Essential David Bowie: Best Of 1969 - 1974 |
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The Jean Genie Space Oddity Starman Ziggy Stardust John, I'm Only Dancing (Saxophone Version) (Single - 1972) Rebel Rebel Let's Spend The Night Together Suffragette City Oh! You Pretty Things Velvet Goldmine (B-side) Drive-In Saturday Diamond Dogs Changes Sorrow The Prettiest Star (Previously Unreleased Bolan Stereo Version) Life On Mars? Aladdin Sane The Man Who Sold The World Rock 'N Roll Suicide All The Young Dudes (Previously Unreleased Studio Version) |
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The Best of
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The songs on this collection might have been remixed, they've never sounded crisper or clearer. What is that, a conga thingy on Young Americans? Or is that a tabla? It's one of those five letter instruments. Anyway, I've heard that song thousands of times and this mix gave it new life. (Speaking of five letter instruments, when was the last time Bowie used a banjo?)
Bowie completists will find the great single mix of Young Americans, which you may even prefer over the album version. You also get single edits of "Heroes" and Golden Years. The edit of TVC15 sounds like it might be the one from the Christiane F. Soundtrack. I'll have to crawl into the laboratory one night and sit down with both versions side by side and compare (not that I really do these things). It does have that resurgence at the end which sounds like the studio pots being manually turned up, but the nice thing here is that it's not so pronounced, so it might have been toned down a bit.
Grouch Mode On: Why might this not be a fair representation of Bowie's latter seventies? Simply put, musta been assembled by marketers rather than...well, people. Not one instrumental from Bowie's Berlin period survives the cut here. It's almost like somebody flat out said, "ewww! you can't dance to this!" This is why the disco novelty John I'm Only Dancing (Again) survives and Art Decade, Warzsawa, Moss Garden and V-2 Schneider do not. This collection does not give you the feel of what Bowie's exciting late seventies material was about.
My guess is that the marketing dweebs (I can say that, I majored in marketing) plunked the Springsteen cover It's Hard To Be A Saint In The City on here to sell a few copies to Springsteen completists. But for every calculated choice included, another great song is then excluded. In general I get the feeling that the approach here was to make the whole CD seem relatively danceable, with a couple big ballads thrown in for good measure.
Grouch Mode Off: My grumbulations aside, you'll be most likely to latch onto this one if you're looking for the hit singles and a little more depth on each album. At the same time, you're more of a radio listener than one who revels in Bowie's experiments, discoveries and changes.
If the moving instrumental from Low, Warszawa, had been included, your reaction would most likely be, "ewww! you can't dance to this!" It's not that this mindset makes you a bad dog per se, but had you fallen victim to an accident of birth thirty years before your time, you could have been born a Chubby Checker fan. Me, I prefer upper limbo.
P.S. Hey, spank this shiny bauble into your PC's CD-ROM and check out the bitchen advertisement for Bowienet! Sound bites and gnawings from throughout Bowie's career too. Very well done.
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The Best of 1974 - 1979 |
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Sound And Vision Golden Years (single edit) Fame Young Americans (single version) John, I'm Only Dancing (Again) Can You Hear Me? Wild Is The Wind Knock On Wood TVC15 (single version) 1984 It's Hard To Be A Saint In The City Look Back In Anger The Secret Life Of Arabia DJ Beauty And The Beast Breaking Glass Boys Keep Swinging "Heroes" (single edit) |
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All Saints -
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All songs here have been previously released, but for those Bowie fans not quick enough on the trigger to grab the Ryko editions of Low, "Heroes" and Scary Monsters, four of their bonus tracks are included on this one disk. Well okay, Some Are on this disk is taken from the Low Symphony by Philip Glass instead of Bowie's original, but who's to complain?
The best of Bowie in the latter seventies is made up of both his pop gems like Golden Years, "Heroes", Fame and Look Back In Anger, and Bowie's instrumentals. Don't even try to decide between them; you need both food groups in your diet.
If you already own and love Bowie's Berlin era albums featured here, you'll want this for the tracks not available elsewhere. Abdulmajid was one of my roomie's (and mine) favorite Bowie tracks when the Ryko editions were first released.
Only beef might be that the cover is decidedly uncommercial. A cross between an overexposed mug shot and unflattering medical photography, with the Addams Family's Cousin It in the gatefold. What is this, music or specimens? For some reason I'd expect music like this to have discreetly edgy artwork that was organic rather than medical, like this image of duck feathers under the microscope.
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All Saints - Collected Instrumentals |
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A New Career In A New Town V-2 Schneider Abdulmajid Weeping Wall All Saints Art Decade Crystal Japan Brilliant Adventure Sense Of Doubt Moss Garden Neukoln The Mysteries Ian Fish UK Heir Subterraneans Warszawa Some Are (The Low Symphony) |
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