DAVID BOWIE 6. I CAN’T GIVE EVERYTHING AWAY (2002 – 2016) PRESS RELEASE

DAVID BOWIE 6. I CAN’T GIVE EVERYTHING AWAY (2002 – 2016)

THE SIXTH IN A SERIES OF DAVID BOWIE BOX SETS - RELEASED 12th SEPTEMBER, 2025

13-CD, DIGITAL AND AUDIOPHILE 18-PIECE VINYL BOX SETS INCLUDING...

HEATHEN, REALITY, A REALITY TOUR, THE NEXT DAY, THE NEXT DAY EXTRA, ★ (BLACKSTAR), PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED 31-TRACK LIVE SET FROM THE MONTREUX JAZZ FESTIVAL AND RE:CALL 6 FEATURING 41 RARE NON-ALBUM TRACKS

NEW KILLER STAR (SESSIONS @ AOL LIVER VERSION, 23/09/03) AVAILABLE NOW AS A DIGITAL SINGLE

STAY TUNED FOR PRE-ORDER LINKS TO DAVID BOWIE 6. I CAN’T GIVE EVERYTHING AWAY (2002 – 2016)

09 JULY, 2025 London - Parlophone Records proudly announce DAVID BOWIE 6. I CAN’T GIVE EVERYTHING AWAY (2002 – 2016), the sixth in a series of box sets spanning Bowie’s career from 1969.

The new set is the latest instalment in the award-winning and critically acclaimed series that includes DAVID BOWIE 1. FIVE YEARS (1969 – 1973), DAVID BOWIE 2. WHO CAN I BE NOW? (1974 – 1976), DAVID BOWIE 3. A NEW CAREER IN A NEW TOWN (1977 – 1982), DAVID BOWIE 4. LOVING THE ALIEN (1983-1988) and DAVID BOWIE 5. BRILLIANT ADVENTURE (1992-2001) and will be released on 12th September.

DAVID BOWIE 6. I CAN’T GIVE EVERYTHING AWAY (2002 – 2016) is a twelve-CD, eighteen-piece vinyl and standard digital download/streaming box set named after the closing track on ★ (BLACKSTAR), Bowie’s final studio album. The box sets include newly remastered versions (except ★ and No Plan), with input from David’s co-producer Tony Visconti.

2002’s HEATHEN was the first album Bowie and Visconti had worked on together in twenty-two years. Recorded in a residential studio in upstate New York, it reminded Visconti of his time with David in Berlin in the 1970s, “There was no control room. The console was at one end of the studio and the band was placed at the other end. The acoustics were quite live and from my experience of making “Heroes” at Hansa Studios in Berlin, in the huge Grand Hall (known as Meistersaal recording hall), I wanted to make these acoustics work for us.” For the follow-up REALITY, released in 2003, Visconti recalls, “David said he wanted to write for his new touring band, who would also record the album”, giving the record a more “Thrusty” sound as Bowie put it at the time. That band then took to the road for A REALITY TOUR, one of the best-loved tours of David’s career, it is represented here for the first time in its re-sequenced order to better reflect the set lists of the Dublin shows. The vinyl version of the album is pressed in transparent blue, echoing its initial release.

After a decade away from the studio, the sessions for THE NEXT DAY happened in secret; Visconti says of that time, “We vowed not to tell a soul that David and we were making a new album – and that even included our domestic partners. His two-fold purpose was to write and create without pressure from the outside, plus he wanted its release to be a complete surprise. It all worked out great, except when he was spotted a few times walking to and from The Magic Shop studio in Noho, Manhattan, raising quizzical eyebrows. I was stopped once by a fan who recognised me and asked, “Is David Bowie making a new album?” I said, “Absolutely not!” Later, when we had rough mixes of our efforts, I was walking around Manhattan with a big smile on my face. No one could possibly know that I was listening to new Bowie songs on my earbuds.” Those sessions produced so many songs that those additional tracks along with two remixes were included on THE NEXT DAY EXTRA.

★ (BLACKSTAR), David’s final studio album, was released on 8th January, 2016. Bowie and Visconti went to Donny McCaslin’s jazz quartet playing live in New York after working with him on the track ‘Sue (Or In A Season Of Crime)’. Tony Visconti: “Donny’s quartet was no ordinary jazz band, they were super musicians at the same level as classical musicians in top symphony orchestras. David told me that this band, with Mark Guiliana – drums, Tim Lefebvre – bass, and Jason Lindner – keyboards, will be the band for the recording of ★.” Every one of the tracks for ★ (BLACKSTAR) were each recorded in one day; Visconti recalls, “The first song for the album began with “’Tis a Pity She Was a Whore,” on 7th January. With a couple of rehearsals with David singing in the isolation booth, we were ready to go. Take one was perfect. We told Donny the take was fabulous. He thanked us and asked, “What’s the next song?” I forgot that jazz musicians are one-take experts. This was not a normal thing for people who make Rock and Pop music. It usually takes many hours to get that great take. Just to play it safe we asked for another take and Donny complied.”

On Bowie’s birthday in 2017, the NO PLAN EP brought together the original songs written for Bowie's Off-Broadway play, LAZARUS, including the titular ‘Lazarus’, ‘No Plan’, ‘Killing A Little Time’, and ‘When I Met You’, all recorded during the sessions for ★ (BLACKSTAR).

Exclusive to each of the box sets are MONTREUX JAZZ FESTIVAL and RE:CALL 6. The former was recorded on the 18th of July 2002 at the prestigious Montreux Jazz Festival and among the 31 tracks features a full performance bar one song of one of Bowie’s most revered albums, LOW. RE:CALL 6 features 41 non-album / alternative versions / b-sides and soundtrack songs, including tracks never previously available on CD or vinyl over 3CDs and 4LPs.

The physical box sets accompanying book, 128 pages in the CD box and 84 in the vinyl set, feature previously unseen notes, drawings and handwritten lyrics from Bowie and photos by Sukita (who took the set’s cover shot), Jimmy King, Frank W. Ockenfels 3, Markus Klinko, Mark ‘Blammo’ Adams and more as well as memorabilia, technical notes about the albums from co-producer Tony Visconti and design notes from Jonathan Barnbrook.

The CD box set will include faithfully reproduced mini-vinyl versions of the original albums where applicable, and the CDs will be gold-coloured rather than the usual silver. The vinyl box set has the same content as the CD set and is pressed on audiophile quality 180g vinyl.

DAVID BOWIE 6. I CAN’T GIVE EVERYTHING AWAY (2002 – 2016)

LP Box Set:

84 page hardback book

Heathen (Remastered) (1LP)

Montreux Jazz Festival (4LP) (Previously unreleased)*

Reality (Remastered) (1LP)

A Reality Tour (Remastered & Re-sequenced) (3LP)

The Next Day (Remastered) (2LP)

The Next Day Extra (Remastered) (1LP)

★ (Blackstar) (1LP)

No Plan (1LP)

Re:Call 6 (Non-album singles, edits, single versions, b-sides and soundtrack music) (Remastered) (4LP)*

* Exclusive to I CAN’T GIVE EVERYTHING AWAY LP box

CD Box Set:

128 page hardback book

Heathen (Remastered) (1CD)

Montreux Jazz Festival (2CD) (Previously unreleased)*

Reality (Remastered) (1CD)

A Reality Tour (Remastered & Re-sequenced) (2CD)

The Next Day (Remastered) (1CD)

The Next Day Extra (Remastered) (1CD)

★ (Blackstar) (1CD)

No Plan (1CD)

Re:Call 6 (Non-album singles, edits, single versions, b-sides and soundtrack music) (Remastered) (3CD)*

*Exclusive to I CAN’T GIVE EVERYTHING AWAY CD box

DAVID BOWIE 6. I CAN’T GIVE EVERYTHING AWAY (2002 – 2016)

CD & DIGITAL TRACKLISTING

HEATHEN

1. Sunday

2. Cactus

3. Slip Away

4. Slow Burn

5. Afraid

6. Iʼve Been Waiting For You

7. I Would Be Your Slave

8. I Took A Trip On A Gemini Spaceship

9. 5:15 The Angels Have Gone

10. Everyone Says ʻHiʼ

11. A Better Future

12. Heathen (The Rays)

MONTREUX JAZZ FESTIVAL

CD1

1. Sunday

2. Life On Mars?

3. Ashes To Ashes

4. Cactus

5. Slip Away

6. China Girl

7. Starman

8. I Would Be Your Slave

9. Ive Been Waiting For You

10. Stay

11. Changes

12. Fashion

13. Fame

14. Im Afraid Of Americans

15. 5:15 The Angels Have Gone

CD2

1. ‟Heroes”

2. Heathen (The Rays)

3. Everyone Says ‟Hi”

4. Hallo Spaceboy

5. Let’s Dance

6. Ziggy Stardust

7. Warszawa

8. Speed Of Life

9. Breaking Glass10. What In The World

11. Sound And Vision

12. Art Decade

13. Always Crashing In The Same Car

14. Be My Wife

15. A New Career In A New Town

16. Subterraneans

REALITY

1. New Killer Star

2. Pablo Picasso

3. Never Get Old

4. The Loneliest Guy

5. Looking For Water

6. She’ll Drive The Big Car

7. Days

8. Fall Dog Bombs The Moon

9. Try Some, Buy Some

10. Reality

11. Bring Me The Disco King

A REALITY TOUR

CD1

1. Rebel Rebel

2. New Killer Star

3. Reality

4. Fame

5. Cactus

6. Sister Midnight

7. Afraid

8. All The Young Dudes

9. Be My Wife

10. China Girl

11. The Loneliest Guy

12. The Man Who Sold The World

13. Fantastic Voyage

14. Hallo Spaceboy

15. Sunday

16. Under Pressure

17. Life On Mars?

18. Battle For Britain (The Letter)

CD2

1. Fall Dog Bombs The Moon

2. Ashes To Ashes

3. The Motel

4. Loving The Alien

5. Breaking Glass

6. Never Get Old

7. Changes

8. I’m Afraid Of Americans

9. ‟Heroes”

10. Bring Me The Disco King

11. Slip Away

12. Heathen (The Rays)

13. Five Years

14. Hang On To Yourself

15. Ziggy Stardust

THE NEXT DAY

1. The Next Day

2. Dirty Boys

3. The Stars (Are Out Tonight)

4. Love Is Lost

5. Where Are We Now?

6. Valentine’s Day

7. If You Can See Me

8. I’d Rather Be High

9. Boss Of Me

10. Dancing Out In Space

11. How Does The Grass Grow?

12. (You Will) Set The World On Fire

13. You Feel So Lonely You Could Die

14. Heat

THE NEXT DAY EXTRA E.P.

1. Atomica

2. Love Is Lost (Hello Steve Reich Mix By James Murphy For The DFA)

3. Plan

4. The Informer

5. I’d Rather Be High (Venetian Mix)

6. Like A Rocket Man

7. Born In A UFO

8. I’ll Take You There

9. God Bless The Girl

10. So She

★ (BLACKSTAR)

1. ★

2. ’Tis A Pity She Was A Whore

3. Lazarus

4. Sue (Or In A Season Of Crime)

5. Girl Loves Me

6. Dollar Days

7. I Can’t Give Everything Away

NO PLAN E.P.

1. Lazarus

2. No Plan

3. Killing A Little Time

4. When I Met You

RE:CALL 6

CD1

1. Slow Burn (Single Edit)

2. Wood Jackson

3. When The Boys Come Marching Home

4. Safe

5. Sunday (Moby Remix)

6. A Better Future (Remix By Air)

7. Slip Away (SACD Mix)

8. Slow Burn (SACD Mix)

9. I’ve Been Waiting For You (SACD Mix)

10. 5:15 The Angels Have Gone (SACD Mix)

11. A Better Future (SACD Mix)

12. Safe (SACD Mix)

13. Everyone Says ‘Hi’ (Radio Edit)

CD2

1. Sunday (Tony Visconti Mix)

2. Everyone Says ‘Hi’ (Metro Remix Radio Edit)

3. Heathen (The Rays) (Live In Berlin, 22/09/02)

4. Hop Frog — Lou Reed Featuring David Bowie

5. Saviour — Kristeen Young Featuring David Bowie

6. Isn’t It Evening (The Revolutionary) — Earl Slick Featuring David Bowie

7. Bring Me The Disco King (Loner Mix) — David Bowie Featuring Maynard James Keenan And John Frusciante (Taken From The Underworld Motion Picture Soundtrack)

8. New Killer Star (Radio Edit)

9. Love Missile F1-11

10. Fly

11. Queen Of All The Tarts (Overture)

12. Never Get Old (Single Edit)

13. Waterloo Sunset

14. Rebel Rebel (2003 Re-Record) (Taken From The Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle Motion Picture Soundtrack)

15. New Killer Star (Sessions @ AOL Live Version, 23/09/03)

CD3

1. Days (Live)

2. 5:15 The Angels Have Gone (Live)

3. Rebel Never Gets Old (Radio Mix)

4. (She Can) Do That — David Bowie With BT (Taken From The Stealth Motion Picture Soundtrack)

5. Life On Mars? (Live At Fashion Rocks, 08/09/05)

6. Wake Up (Live At Fashion Rocks, 08/09/05) — David Bowie With Arcade Fire

7. Five Years (Live At Fashion Rocks, 08/09/05) — David Bowie With Arcade Fire

8. Arnold Layne (Live At The Royal Albert Hall, 29/05/06) — David Gilmour Featuring David Bowie

9. Love Is Lost (Hello Steve Reich Mix By James Murphy For The DFA Edit)

10. Sue (Or In A Season Of Crime) (2014 Version)

11. ’Tis A Pity She Was A Whore (2014 Version)

12. Lazarus (Radio Edit)

13. I Can’t Give Everything Away (Radio Edit)

DAVID BOWIE 6. I CAN’T GIVE EVERYTHING AWAY (2002 – 2016)

LP TRACKLISTING

HEATHEN

Side 1

1. Sunday

2. Cactus

3. Slip Away

4. Slow Burn

5. Afraid

6. I’ve Been Waiting For You

Side 2

1. I Would Be Your Slave

2. I Took A Trip On A Gemini Spaceship

3. 5:15 The Angels Have Gone

4. Everyone Says ʻHiʼ

5. A Better Future

6. Heathen (The Rays)

MONTREUX JAZZ FESTIVAL

Side 1

1. Sunday

2. Life On Mars?

3. Ashes To Ashes

4. Cactus

Side 2

1. Slip Away

2. China Girl

3. Starman

4. I Would Be Your Slave

Side 3

1. I’ve Been Waiting For You

2. Stay

3. Changes

4. Fashion

Side 4

1. Fame

2. I’m Afraid Of Americans

3. 5:15 The Angels Have Gone

4. ‟Heroes”

Side 5

1. Heathen (The Rays)

2. Everyone Says ‟Hi”

3. Hallo Spaceboy

Side 6

1. Letʼs Dance

2. Ziggy Stardust

3. Warszawa

Side 7

1. Speed Of Life

2. Breaking Glass

3. What In The World

4. Sound And Vision

5. Art Decade

Side 8

1. Always Crashing In The Same Car

2. Be My Wife

3. A New Career In A New Town

4. Subterraneans

REALITY

Side 1

1. New Killer Star

2. Pablo Picasso

3. Never Get Old

4. The Loneliest Guy

5. Looking For Water

6. She’ll Drive The Big Car

Side 2

1. Days

2. Fall Dog Bombs The Moon

3. Try Some, Buy Some

4. Reality

5. Bring Me The Disco King

A REALITY TOUR

Side 1

1. Rebel Rebel

2. New Killer Star

3. Reality

4. Fame

5. Cactus

6. Sister Midnight

Side 2

1. Afraid

2. All The Young Dudes

3. Be My Wife

4. China Girl

5. The Loneliest Guy

6. The Man Who Sold The World

7. Fantastic Voyage

Side 3

1. Hallo Spaceboy

2. Sunday

3. Under Pressure

4. Life On Mars?

5. Battle For Britain (The Letter)

Side 4

1. Fall Dog Bombs The Moon

2. Ashes To Ashes

3. The Motel

4. Loving The Alien

5. Breaking Glass

6. Never Get Old

Side 5

1. Changes

2. I’m Afraid Of Americans

3. ‟Heroes”

4. Bring Me The Disco King

Side 6

1. Slip Away

2. Heathen (The Rays)

3. Five Years

4. Hang On To Yourself

5. Ziggy Stardust

THE NEXT DAY

Side 1

1. The Next Day

2. Dirty Boys

3. The Stars (Are Out Tonight)

4. Love Is Lost

Side 2

1. Where Are We Now?

2. Valentine’s Day

3. If You Can See Me

4. I’d Rather Be High

Side 3

1. Boss Of Me

2. Dancing Out In Space

3. How Does The Grass Grow?

4. (You Will) Set The World On Fire

Side 4

1. You Feel So Lonely You Could Die

2. Heat

3. So She

4. Plan

5. I’ll Take You There

THE NEXT DAY EXTRA E.P.

Side 1

1. Atomica

2. Love Is Lost (Hello Steve Reich Mix By James Murphy For The DFA)

3. The Informer

Side 2

1. I’d Rather Be High (Venetian Mix)

2. Like A Rocket Man

3. Born In A UFO

4. God Bless The Girl

★ BLACKSTAR

Side 1

1. ★

2. ’Tis A Pity She Was A Whore

3. Lazarus

Side 2

1. Sue (Or In A Season Of Crime)

2. Girl Loves Me

3. Dollar Days

4. I Can’t Give Everything Away

NO PLAN E.P.

Side 1

1. Lazarus

2. No Plan

3. Killing A Little Time

4. When I Met You

Side 2

Etching

RE:CALL 6

Side 1

1. Slow Burn (Single Edit)

2. Wood Jackson

3. When The Boys Come Marching Home

4. Safe

5. Sunday (Moby Remix)

Side 2

1. A Better Future (Remix By Air)

2. Slip Away (SACDMix)

3. Slow Burn (SACD Mix)

4. I’ve Been Waiting For You (SACD Mix)

5. 5:15 The Angels Have Gone (SACD Mix)

Side 3

1. A Better Future (SACD Mix)

2. Safe (SACD Mix)

3. Everyone Says ‘Hi’ (Radio Edit)

4. Sunday (Tony Visconti Mix)

5. Everyone Says ‘Hi’ (Metro Remix Radio Edit)

Side 4

1. Heathen (The Rays) (Live In Berlin, 22/09/02)

2. Hop Frog — Lou Reed Featuring David Bowie

3. Saviour — Kristeen Young Featuring David Bowie

4. Isn’t It Evening (The Revolutionary) — Earl Slick Featuring David Bowie

5. Bring Me The Disco King (Loner Mix) — David Bowie Featuring Maynard James Keenan And John Frusciante (Taken From The Underworld Motion Picture Soundtrack)

Side 5

1. New Killer Star (Radio Edit)

2. Love Missile F1-11

3. Fly

4. Queen Of All The Tarts (Overture)

5. Never Get Old (Single Edit)

6. Waterloo Sunset

Side 6

1. Rebel Rebel (2003 Re-Record) (Taken From The Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle Motion Picture Soundtrack)

2. New Killer Star (Sessions @ AOL Live Version, 23/09/03)

3. Days (Live)

4. 5:15 The Angels Have Gone (Live)

5. Rebel Never Gets Old (Radio Mix)

6. (She Can) Do That — David Bowie With BT (Taken From The Stealth Motion Picture Soundtrack)

Side 7

1. Life On Mars? (Live At Fashion Rocks, 08/09/05)

2. Wake Up (Live At Fashion Rocks, 08/09/05) — David Bowie With Arcade Fire

3. Five Years (Live At Fashion Rocks, 08/09/05) — David Bowie With Arcade Fire

4. Arnold Layne (Live At The Royal Albert Hall, 29/05/06) — David Gilmour Featuring David Bowie

5. Love Is Lost (Hello Steve Reich Mix By James Murphy For The DFA Edit)

Side 8

1. Sue (Or In A Season Of Crime) (2014 Version)

2. ’Tis A Pity She Was A Whore (2014 Version)

3. Lazarus (Radio Edit)

4. I Can’t Give Everything Away (Radio Edit)

DAVID BOWIE 6. I CAN’T GIVE EVERYTHING AWAY (2002 – 2016)

THE SIXTH IN A SERIES OF DAVID BOWIE BOX SETS

RELEASED 12th SEPTEMBER, 2025

Stay tuned for pre-order links.

Box cover image (c) Sukita - The David Bowie Archvie

#BowieICGEAbox

V&A ANNOUNCES NEW DAVID BOWIE CENTRE DETAILS

“I had to cram so many things, To store everything in there…”

As you know, the David Bowie Centre will be opening at V&A East Storehouse ( @vam_east ) on 13 September 2025.

Admission will be free, but a timed ticket will be required. Tickets available soon, sign up here for details and updates:

We’ll be focusing on some of the exciting content in the lead up to opening day.

Meanwhile, watch how excited The Last Dinner Party were to be given exclusive access to some of the items from the archive here.

Keep reading for the full press release.

#DavidBowieCentre #DavidBowieArchive

+ - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - +

FRIDAY 4 JULY 2025

From guest-curated displays to unrealised projects, the V&A announces new details on the David Bowie Centre – opening at V&A East Storehouse on 13 September 2025

• A new home for David Bowie’s archive – V&A East Storehouse’s David Bowie Centre – gets visitors closer to Bowie’s creative process and legacy than ever before

• Nine displays include unrealised projects and newly uncovered revelations, plus, visitors can book one-on-one time with items from the archive

• Award-winning musician, producer, songwriter and David Bowie collaborator Nile Rodgers and Brit Award-winning indie rock band The Last Dinner Party guest curate a display

• Access to the David Bowie Centre is free and ticketed, with tickets released here https://www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/david-bowie-centre later in the year

• The David Bowie archive was acquired by the V&A through the generosity of the David Bowie Estate, the Blavatnik Family Foundation, and Warner Music Group

Today, the V&A announces its David Bowie Centre, opening 13 September 2025 at V&A East Storehouse, will feature an exclusive guest-curated display by Multiple award-winning musician, producer, songwriter and David Bowie-collaborator, Nile Rodgers, and Brit Award-winning indie rock band, The Last Dinner Party. These intimate selections from Bowie's archive offer new perspectives on one of the most iconic creatives of all time and sit alongside a series of other mini curated displays and installations exploring Bowie’s creative legacy and lasting influence.

Visitors to the David Bowie Centre, the new free-to-access working store and permanent home for David Bowie’s archive, can also book one-on-one time with their own selections from the 90,000+ items in his archive. The David Bowie archive was acquired by the V&A through the generosity of the David Bowie Estate, the Blavatnik Family Foundation and Warner Music Group. It joins over 1,000 archives from creative luminaries including Vivien Leigh, the House of Worth, and The Glastonbury Festival Archive.

Nile Rodgers, who produced Bowie's hugely successful single and 1983 album, Let's Dance, as well as 1993's Black Tie White Noise, has written, produced, and performed on records that have sold more than 750 million albums and 100 million singles worldwide. He has curated items reflecting what he calls his and Bowie’s shared ‘love of the music that had both made and saved our lives.’ His selections include:

• A bespoke Peter Hall suit worn by Bowie during the Serious Moonlight tour for the Let’s Dance album

• Chuck Pulin photographs of Bowie, Rodgers and guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan recording Let's Dance in New York

• Personal correspondence between Bowie and Rodgers about the 1993 Black Tie White Noise album

• Peter Gabriel images of the recording sessions with backing vocalists Fonzi Thorton, Tawatha Agee, Curtis King Jr, Denis Collins, Brenda White-King, Maryl Epps, Frank Simms, George Simms, David Spinner, Lamya Al-Mughiery and Connie Petruk recording Black Tie White Noise.

Nile Rodgers, said:

“My creative life with David Bowie provided the greatest success of his incredible career, but our friendship was just as rewarding. Our bond was built on a love of the music that had both made and saved our lives.”

The Last Dinner Party is a Brit award-winning band, whose electrifying performance style draws inspiration from their shared love for Bowie. They have selected objects mostly from the 1970s that illustrate how Bowie continues to inspire generations of artists to ‘stand up for themselves and their music’ and ‘steal and reinterpret’ to create something unique. Their selection includes:

• Mick Rock photos showing Bowie in intimate recording studio moments

• Bowie’s elaborate handwritten lyrics for ‘Win’ from the 1974 album Young Americans

• Writings and set lists for the Station to Station tour, aka Isolar - 1976 Tour

• Bowie's Electronic Music Studios (EMS) synthesiser user manual. The ‘suitcase synth’ was used on the albums Low, Heroes and Lodger, the so-called ‘Berlin’ trilogy.

The Last Dinner Party on Bowie’s influences and their new discoveries

Georgia Davies, Lizzie Mayland, Abigail Morris, Aurora Nishevci and Emily Roberts of The Last Dinner Party, said:

“David Bowie continues to inspire generations of artists like us to stand up for ourselves. Bowie is a constant source of inspiration to us. When we first started developing ideas for TLDP, we took a similar approach to Bowie developing his Station to Station album – we had a notebook and would write words we wanted to associate with the band. It was such a thrill to explore Bowie’s archive, and see first-hand the process that went into his world-building and how he created a sense of community and belonging for those that felt like outcasts or alienated – something that’s really important to us in our work too.”

Curated displays

The V&A East curatorial team consulted with 18–25-year-olds from the four Olympic Boroughs of Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest through London Legacy Development Corporation and Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park’s Elevate Youth Voice. The resulting displays delve into various elements of Bowie’s archive and creative legacy, encompassing everything from private photographs to handwritten lyrics, self-portraits, his own artist’s palette, sketches, costumes, and designs.

Nine rotating displays reveal aspects of Bowie's extraordinary creative capacity, including ideas for projects that were never realised. Highlights include an idea to adapt George Orwell's 1984 and unrealised Young Americans and Diamond Dogs films.

Other displays explore Bowie’s creation of his iconic personas including Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane and look at his embrace of technology, futurism and science fiction, plus his legendary 1987 Glass Spider tour and concert at the Berlin Wall. Others spotlight Bowie’s creative collaborators including Gail Ann Dorsey, and the creation of the 1975 Young Americans album, alongside his wide-spread creative influence and legacy.

Madeleine Haddon, Curator, V&A East said:

“Bowie embodied a truly multidisciplinary practice—musician, actor, writer, performer, and cultural icon—reflecting the way many young creatives today move fluidly across disciplines and reject singular definitions of identity or artistry. His fearless engagement with self-expression and performance has defined contemporary culture and resonates strongly with the values of authenticity, experimentation and freedom that we celebrate across the collections at V&A East Storehouse. This archive offers an extraordinary lens through which to examine broader questions of creativity, cultural change, and the social and historical moments during which Bowie lived and worked. In the Centre, we want you to get closer to Bowie, and his creative process than ever before. For Bowie fans and those coming to him for the first time, we hope the Centre can inspire the next generation of creatives.”

For more information on The David Bowie Centre and to sign-up for updates, please visit: vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/david-bowie-centre

What to expect in the David Bowie Centre

As well as a new visitor experience, first and foremost, the David Bowie Centre is a working archive and store for Bowie’s paper-based archive with reading and study rooms. The Centre is brought to life with a series of small, curated areas including a new film showcasing a selection of performances from across Bowie’s career, and an interactive installation tracing the wide-spread impact of Bowie on popular culture from the sit-com Friends to Issey Miyake fashion and musicians from Lady Gaga, Charli XCX, Janelle Monae, and Kendrick Lamar. A series of rotating mini displays exploring different themes and elements of the archive shows approximately 200 items at one time.

A central space for facilitated object handling and exploring facsimile topic boxes also includes overhead rails of hanging Tyvek bags storing some of Bowie’s most iconic fashion and costume. These range from Freddie Burretti’s Ziggy Stardust looks to Agnes b’s Heathen ensembles, and Bowie’s 1992 Thierry Mugler wedding suit. These costumes can be ordered for closer looking as part of one-on-one appointments by using the V&A’s Order an Object service.

The David Bowie Centre is part of V&A East Storehouse at East Bank in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Access to the David Bowie Centre is free and ticketed, with tickets released closer to opening.

About the David Bowie archive

The David Bowie archive encompasses 90,000+ items tracing Bowie’s creative processes as an innovator, cultural icon, and advocate for self-expression and reinvention. Items range from 414 costumes and accessories to a series of set models, nearly 150 musical instruments, amps, and other sound equipment, 187 awards, as well as life masks, framed art, merchandise including tour t-shirts, posters, Bowie’s own desk, props and scenery for concerts, film and theatre. Paper-based material includes notebooks, diaries, lyrics, scripts, correspondence, project files, writings, unrealised projects, cover artwork, designs, concept drawings, fan mail and art. Most of the paper-based material is made up of photographic prints, negatives and transparencies, numbering over 70,000 items.

Highlights include stage costumes such as Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane ensembles designed by Freddie Burretti and Kansai Yamamoto (1970s), lyrics for songs including Fame (1975), Heroes (1977) and Ashes to Ashes (1980), as well as examples of the ‘cut up’ method of writing introduced to Bowie by the writer William Burroughs.

Cataloguing the David Bowie archive is ongoing and one of the largest V&A cataloguing projects to-date. The V&A aims to complete the cataloguing process by the end of 2026.

One-to-one bookings

Bookings to see 3D items from the David Bowie archive, including costumes, musical instruments, models, props and scenery, can be made through the V&A’s new sevenday-a-week Order an Object service. Visitors can book up to five items per visit at a time that suits them. Bookings require at least two weeks’ notice and Bowie items will begin to go live for advance booking from September.

Once the Centre opens, paper-based items including sketches, designs, writings, lyrics, press cuttings, and photographic prints, negatives and transparencies can be consulted through scheduling advance appointments with the Archives team.

Design approach

The David Bowie Centre is designed by London and Paris-based design company, IDK, and celebrates the unique environment of V&A East Storehouse and the extraordinary character of David Bowie himself. Balancing storage with stagecraft, the Centre is a dynamic space to explore Bowie’s life, work and legacy offering a deeply personal insight into Bowie’s world.

Built using V&A East Storehouse’s existing utilitarian ‘kit of parts’ system, the Centre features a mix of permanent and rotating displays, a dedicated study room, and an object handling space. Open and inclusive, IDK’s design approach is inspired by Bowie’s own creative method of cutting up and rearranging ideas — bringing together different elements to form something new, surprising, and alive.

Supporters

V&A East Storehouse opened on 31 May 2025. It is supported by Garfield Weston Foundation, The Foyle Foundation, Frédéric Jousset, David and Molly Lowell Borthwick, the Wolfson Foundation, The Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation, Clore Duffield Foundation and many other generous supporters.

Opening on 13 September 2025, V&A East Storehouse’s free to access David Bowie Centre will be the new home of David Bowie’s Archive, made possible thanks to the David Bowie Estate and a generous donation from the Blavatnik Family Foundation and Warner Music Group.

About V&A East Storehouse

• V&A East Storehouse immerses visitors in over half a million works spanning every creative discipline from fashion to theatre, streetwear to sculpture, design icons to pop pioneers. A busy and dynamic working museum store with an extensive self-guided experience, visitors can now go behind the scenes and get up-close to their national collections on a scale and in ways not possible before.

• Diller Scofidio + Renfro are lead architects for V&A East Storehouse, with support from local architects, Austin-Smith:Lord. IDK are the designers of The David Bowie Centre. Fieldwork Facility are the wayfinding and interpretation designers. We Not I are the external signage designers.

• V&A East Storehouse is open 10:00-18:00, seven-days-a-week, with late night openings every Thursday and Saturday to 22:00. Late nights include access to the V&A’s revolutionary new Order an Object service, curated self-guided experience and displays, special events, and café, e5 Storehouse.

• Visitors can order objects stored at V&A East Storehouse at a time that suits them via the V&A’s Order an Object page.

• V&A East Storehouse is the first of V&A East’s two new cultural destinations to open in east London. The second, V&A East Museum, is scheduled to open in spring 2026, and celebrates making and creativity’s power to bring change.

About East Bank

• East Bank is the UK’s newest cultural quarter at the heart of Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. The place where everything happens – entertainment, inspiration and discovery – and open to everyone who visits, lives and works in East London.

• East Bank represents the biggest ever cultural investment by the Mayor of London, with support from HM Government and the four Olympic boroughs.

• East Bank is made up of BBC Music Studios; London College of Fashion, UAL; Sadler’s Wells East; UCL (University College London); V&A East Museum & Storehouse.

• London College of Fashion, UAL, and UCL East (University College London) opened the doors of their new campuses in Autumn 2023 and Sadler’s Wells East opened in February 2025. V&A East Storehouse opened on 31 May 2025, V&A East Museum is scheduled to open in spring 2026, and BBC Music Studios in late 2026/early 2027.

• A powerhouse for innovation, creativity and learning in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, East Bank is rooted in the diverse communities of East London and is a reflection of the creative spirit and the legacy of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

About the Blavatnik Family Foundation

Led by Sir Leonard Blavatnik, founder of Access Industries, the Blavatnik Family Foundation promotes innovation, discovery, and creativity to benefit the whole of society. Through the Foundation, the Blavatnik family has contributed over $1.3 billion globally to advance science, education, arts and culture, and social justice.

www.blavatnikfoundation.org

About Warner Music Group

Warner Music Group (WMG) brings together artists, songwriters, entrepreneurs, and technology that are moving entertainment culture across the globe. Operating in more than 70 countries through a network of affiliates and licensees, WMG’s Recorded Music division includes renowned labels such as Atlantic, Elektra, Nonesuch, Parlophone, Reprise, Rhino, Sire, Warner Records, Warner Classics. WMG’s music publishing arm, Warner Chappell Music, has a catalog of over one million copyrights spanning every musical genre, from the standards of the Great American Songbook to the biggest hits of the 21st century. Warner Music Group is also home to ADA, which supports the independent community, as well as artist services division WMX. Follow WMG on Instagram, X, TikTok, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

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BOWIE TRIUMPHS AT THE BBC RADIO THEATRE 25 YEARS AGO TODAY

“Came to London Town...”

On 25th September 2000, the BBC showed an hour of David Bowie’s exclusive appearance at the BBC Radio Theatre in London, which was recorded three months earlier on 27th June 2000.

The full 22-song set was originally performed in front of an intimate gathering of celebrities and BowieNetters and featured the band that played Glastonbury just two days earlier and who also started recording the TOY album shortly afterwards.

However, just the following 11 songs from the show were broadcast by the BBC:

01 - Wild Is The Wind

02 - Ashes to Ashes

03 - This Is Not America

04 - Absolute Beginners

05 - Little Wonder

06 - The Man Who Sold The World

07 - Fame

08 - Stay

09 - Hallo Spaceboy

10 - Cracked Actor

11 - I’m Afraid Of Americans

The BBC rebroadcast the show last week and it’s still available for another three weeks or so to those of you who can access the BBC iPlayer.

Two songs not shown at the time, The London Boys and I Dig Everything, are available on the official David Bowie YouTube channel.

The audio of twenty tracks from the show is available as the expanded version of BBC Radio Theatre, London, June 27, 2000 included in the Brilliant Adventure box.

#BowieAtTheBeeb #BowieBBCRadioTheatre #Bowie2000

GLASTONBURY 2000 25 YEARS AGO TONIGHT

“One magical moment…”

“Not only the greatest Glastonbury headline performance but the best headline slot at any festival ever” - NME

Bowie first played Glastonbury in June 1971 to a small but appreciative crowd, giving him the confidence to return twenty-nine years later to a somewhat larger and a considerably more appreciative audience. That return to Glastonbury was twenty-five years ago this evening.

Today’s lyric quotation from Station To Station was a sentiment clearly shared by Glastonbury co-organiser, Emily Eavis, who commented in 2018: “I often get asked what the best set I've seen here at Glastonbury is, and Bowie's 2000 performance is always one which I think of first. It was spellbinding; he had an absolutely enormous crowd transfixed. I think Bowie had a very deep relationship with Worthy Farm and he told some wonderful stories about his first time at the Festival in 1971, when he stayed at the farmhouse and performed at 6am as the sun was rising. And he just played the perfect headline set. It really was a very special and emotional show”.

Emily’s father Michael, the founder of the festival who first met David at Glastonbury in 1971 said “He’s one of the three greatest of all-time: Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley and David Bowie.”

Those of you who subscribe to our David Bowie Mailing List will have already seen this email with a link to preorder a repress of the Bowie Glastonbury 2000 triple vinyl set in simplified packaging, due on 1st August.

Go here for a few of BlamSnap’s images taken at rehearsals, backstage and during the show itself:

📸 @BlamSnap 2000/2025

#BowieGlasto2000 #Bowie2000

DANCING IN THE STREET - 40th ANNIVERSARY WHITE VINYL 12” - JAGGER SPEAKS

“When people stared in Jagger’s eyes and scored, Like the video films we saw...”

The headline says it all but keep reading for the press release and a few words from Sir Michael Philip Jagger himself, along with a link to the upgraded 4k video.

#BowieLiveAid #BowieJaggerDancing #BowieJaggerDITS

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DAVID BOWIE & MICK JAGGER - DANCING IN THE STREET

40th ANNIVERSARY - LIMITED EDITION REMASTERED WHITE VINYL 12”

AVAILABLE 29th AUGUST 2025 ON PARLOPHONE HERE

WATCH THE UPGRADED 4K VIDEO NOW HERE

‘’We had such a laugh doing Dancing in the Street with both the song recorded in the studio and the video done in one day. Remarkable how we pulled it off really. The video is hilarious to watch now. We enjoyed camping it up and trying to impersonate each other’s moves, making it up as we went along. It was the only time David and myself collaborated on anything, which is a real shame.” Mick Jagger, June 2025

LONDON, 10TH JUNE 2025 - 40 years ago today, Live Aid, the benefit concert organised by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure to raise further funds for relief of the famine in Ethiopia, was announced with a press conference on the pitch at Wembley Stadium. The show was held simultaneously on Saturday, 13th July 1985, at Wembley and John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia. One of the day's highlights was the surprise duet of the Motown classic, 'Dancing In The Street', between David Bowie and Mick Jagger.

The video for the track, which, like the song, had only been recorded and filmed in thirteen hours, only fourteen days earlier, was shown at 7 pm in the UK (2 pm in Philadelphia), just before Bowie took to the stage at Wembley Stadium. The single version of the song was released on 27th August, with all the proceeds benefiting famine relief. It topped the UK Singles Chart for four weeks and reached No. 7 in the United States on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the track, a limited edition white vinyl 12" will be released on 29th August, 2 days after its anniversary, bringing together all of the song's mixes for the first time. 30% of the retail price from the sale of this single will be donated by David Bowie, Mick Jagger and Parlophone Records to The Band Aid Charitable Trust (Charity Number 292199).

The original plan for Live Aid was to perform the track together live, with Bowie at Wembley Stadium and Jagger at John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia. It soon became apparent that the satellite link-up between the two countries would mean a half-second delay, rendering the plan impossible. Instead, the pair convened at Westside Studios in London on 29th June, where Bowie was working with producers Clive Langer & Alan Winstanley. The duo went directly from the studio to Spillers Millennium Mills in the East End to shoot the video with director David Mallet, who had previously worked with Bowie on the groundbreaking Ashes To Ashes video. The video has been upgraded to high resolution to celebrate the anniversary using the original film negative.

Speaking about the song and video at the time, Bowie said “We thought about it on a Thursday night and we just went through a bunch of old songs and thought that ‘Dancing’ was one we both knew very well and then we went into the studio between 7 and 11 on Saturday night and then we went over to the Docklands and shot the video for the rest of the night so we did the whole thing in ten hours, it was great.” He also talked about the spirit of Live Aid, saying, “Everybody out there who sent money in, you’re the real heroes because it’s easy for me to go up there and sing some songs, but it’s much harder for you to give money and not be recognised. Good on ya!”

DAVID BOWIE DAVID BOWIE & MICK JAGGER

DANCING IN THE STREET 40th ANNIVERSARY WHITE VINYL TRACKLISTING

SIDE ONE

Dancing In The Street (Clearmountain Mix) (3.11)

Dancing In The Street (Instrumental) (3.17)

Dancing In The Street (Steve Thompson Mix) (4.42)

SIDE TWO

Dancing In The Street (Edit) (3.24)

Dancing In The Street (Dub) (4.43)

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R.I.P. SIMON HOUSE

“I hear the sound of mandolins...”

It's turning out to be a very sad Sunday, with the news now that Simon House has died at the age of 77.

Simon had a long and illustrious career starting out as violinist and keyboard player with High Tide alongside Bowie’s fellow Turquoise member, Tony Hill. It’s possible that this is when Simon and David first met as they were on the same bill when David was a member of Hype. Bowie certainly had wonderful things to say about High Tide later.

Following a few years with Hawkwind, Simon joined the ISOLAR 2 band for The 1978 World Tour. He also contributed to the Lodger album, which has its 46th anniversary today.

Today’s lyric quotation is a reference to the fact that he also played mandolin alongside violin on Lodger.

Simon’s live work can be heard on the various official live releases from the 1978 tour, such as Stage, Welcome To The Blackout and Live in Berlin.

Our thoughts are with Simon’s friends and family.

#RIPSimonHouse #Bowie1978 #BowieStage

R.I.P. ALAN YENTOB

Sad to learn of the passing of Alan Yentob, the long-serving BBC arts broadcaster and documentary-maker, who has died aged 78.

Bowie fans became aware of Yentob's fifty-minute BBC 1 Cracked Actor documentary, when it first aired fifty years ago in January 1975.

Yentob interviewed Bowie again for a follow up documentary in 1997: An Earthling at 50.

Our thoughts are with his friends and family.

#RIPAlanYentob #BowieCrackedActor

SPACE ODDITY AT THE IVORS 55 YEARS AGO TODAY

“You’ve really made the grade...”

On May 10th, 1970, David Bowie performed Space Oddity to an audience at The Talk of The Town in London and broadcast live around the globe.

The event was the Ivor Novello Awards and Bowie received the Special Merit Award for Originality.

Perhaps he was just very happy to be there, but it did seem at times like our man was rather amused by the whole affair.

And we’re not suggesting for one second that it was the musical contribution of the Les Reed Orchestra that may have tickled Bowie...no, he was clearly just overwhelmed by the occasion, probably.

Watch the performance, complete with special trousers, here.

#BowieSpaceOddity #BowieIvorNovelloAwards

LEGACY AND ★ IN TOP TEN OFFICAL UK VINYL CHART OF LAST DECADE

“I’m not a popstar...”

The UK’s Official Charts Company have today announced just how much UK Bowie fans enjoy a slab of vinyl.

Both Legacy and Blackstar have made the list comprising 10 years of the Official Vinyl Chart: Official biggest vinyl new releases of the past decade 2015-2025:

Our man has fared well alongside the youngsters of today, and it’s all thanks to you.

Here’s the full top ten...

#01 - MIDNIGHTS - TAYLOR SWIFT

#02 - THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT - TAYLOR SWIFT

#03 - HARRY’S HOUSE - HARRY STYLES

#04 - 1989 (TAYLOR'S VERSION) - TAYLOR SWIFT

#05 - LEGACY - DAVID BOWIE

#06 - FINE LINE - HARRY STYLES

#07 - DIVIDE - ED SHEERAN

#08 - BLACKSTAR - DAVID BOWIE

#09 - WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP WHERE DO WE GO - BILLIE EILISH

#10 - CURRENTS - TAME IMPALA

© Official Charts Company 2025

Blackstar was also THE bestselling vinyl album of 2016 in the UK.

FOOTNOTE: to date, the #1 album Blackstar has spent 38 weeks on the official UK Album Chart, while the top five Legacy compilation boasts a staggering 437 weeks on the same.

#BowieVinyl #BowieBlackstar #BowieLegacy #BowieOCC

CHANGESBOWIE AT #1 IN UK 35 YEARS AGO TODAY

“Ch, ch, ch, ch, changes...”

Best of collections are a valuable entry point for casual listeners wanting to dip a toe into the work of artists they’re curious about.

In the UK alone, there were three important Bowie best of releases before the 1990 RYKO/EMI CHANGESBOWIE.

CHANGESONEBOWIE was released by RCA in 1976. The Best of Bowie was issued by K-Tel in 1980, with CHANGESTWOBOWIE following soon after on RCA in 1981.

The CHANGESBOWIE best of compilation LP hit the top spot in the UK 35 years ago today, promoted by Bowie’s SOUND + VISION World Tour which kicked off in Quebec, Canada, on 4th March, 1990.

Released on Monday 12th March 1990 by EMI in the UK (with three extra tracks on the 21 track LP & cassette), the 18-track US version was issued by RYKO on Friday 16th March 1990.

CHANGESBOWIE collected together songs chronologically that had previously appeared on both CHANGESONEBOWIE (11 tracks) and CHANGESTWOBOWIE (4 tracks) with other hits released after CHANGESTWOBOWIE and a couple of live favourites thrown in for good measure.

The album was released in several formats, including CD, Double Vinyl LP, and cassette, with RYKO releasing limited editions on Clear vinyl and a CD and cassette bundle with a free CD rack! Ryko’s gold numbered Au20 CD wasn’t made available till 1996 and EMI’s Minidisc version arrived in 1998.

It could be argued that the compilation was UK-centric as it included 16 UK Top 20 hits, of which 10 were Top 5, while also containing 6 US Top 20 hits of which 2 made the Top 5.

Either way, the album's sales were very healthy, attaining Platinum status in the US where 1,000,000 copies were shipped, and Platinum in the UK and France where 300,000 were shipped in each country. CHANGESBOWIE was also Gold status in many other countries.

#CHANGESBOWIE #BowieFame90 #BowieSOUNDandVISION

FAME 90 RELEASED 35 YEARS AGO TODAY

“Fame. What’s your name?”

Fame 90 was released as a single in the UK on 26th March 1990, on the very day that David Bowie’s SOUND + VISION World Tour continued its globe trot with a 3-day stint at the London Arena.

CHANGESBOWIE, the best of compilation LP from which the track came, was at #2 on the official UK album chart that day, reaching the top spot later that week.

Fame 90 was released on the following formats in the UK: • 7" • Cassette • 7" Limited Edition Changes Envelope Pack with three prints • 12" • 12" Shrink Wrap Pack • CD • 7" picture disc.

Despite the formats and different mixes, not to mention a brand-new video, the single only just scraped into the Top 30.

Watch the Fame 90 (Official Video) over on the David Bowie YouTube channel:

#BowieFame90 #BowieSOUNDandVISION

DAVID AND TINA’S LIVE 'TONIGHT' DUET IS 40 TODAY - SONG STORY By Jason Draper

‘Tonight’: How Iggy Pop’s Meditation On Mortality Became David Bowie’s Swansong For Doomed Lovers

Originally recorded for Iggy Pop’s Lust for Life album, ‘Tonight’ would unite David Bowie and Tina Turner on record in the mid-1980s.

By Jason Draper

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When David Bowie and Iggy Pop made their second trip together to Berlin, in April 1977, they sought to continue the rehabilitative lifestyle they’d embarked upon the previous year, while also building on the creative partnership that had seen Bowie help the former Stooges frontman establish himself as a solo artist. Just as the recording of Pop’s debut album, The Idiot, was followed swiftly by sessions for Bowie’s Low, at the famed Château d’Hérouville facilities, in a village in the north of France, Pop’s follow-up record, Lust for Life, provided a warm-up of sorts for Bowie’s “Heroes”, recorded in the fresh surroundings of Hansa Tonstudio, in West Berlin.

Worked up during Pop’s first solo tour, and completed during the Lust for Life sessions, was a song called ‘Tonight’, in which Pop reflected on one of the more desperate passages in a life lived on the edge following the implosion of his first band. One of many Pop co-writes that Bowie would return to later in his career, the song would be given a very different interpretation by Bowie when he re-recorded it as a duet with Tina Turner. That version, which would lend its name to Bowie’s 1984 album, would be received by Rolling Stone magazine as “one of the most vibrantly beautiful tracks he’s ever recorded”. But before that, ‘Tonight’ took listeners on a trip into Pop’s darker past, on an album which Bowie described as being “far more like the old Iggy than anything he’s done for a long time”.

Iggy Pop’s version: “This is a song about my girlfriend, who’s dead”

Recorded in the summer of 1976, Pop’s debut album, The Idiot, was finally released the following March, a little under three weeks into a tour Pop had launched to promote the record. For Pop’s solo shows, Bowie, who’d been instrumental in revitalising his friend’s career, first as producer of The Stooges’ third album, 1973’s Raw Power, and now as creative lead on The Idiot, cheerfully settled into the role of sideman, providing keyboard and backing vocals as part of a group that also included Low guitarist Ricky Gardiner and the straight-up rock’n’roll rhythm section of sibling duo Tony (bass) and Hunt (drums) Sales.

Looking healthier than he had in years, Pop confidently mixed Stooges classics with highlights from The Idiot, and even previewed ‘Tonight’ during some of the tour’s early shows. “This is a song about my girlfriend, who’s dead!” he told a hometown Detroit crowd on 25 March, before the wailing vocals of Bowie and the Sales brothers set the scene for Pop’s startling declaration: “I saw my baby/She was turning blue/I knew that soon, her young life was through/And so I got on my knees/Down by her bed/And these are the words/To her I said…”

As the Sales clattered into action and Bowie added elegiac keyboard lines on top, Pop moved from despairing bellow to his newly developed croon, seeking to console his doomed lover – and possibly also himself – with the assertion that “everything will be alright tonight”.

Having been honed on the road, ‘Tonight’ was quickly captured on tape in Hansa, where Bowie, Pop and their crew settled after finishing the tour in April. Again, Bowie was content to play support, reprising his role as backing vocalist during the wordless intro, and harmonising with Pop’s alternately anguished and imploring vocals on a recording that finds a meeting point between the loose-limbed rock instincts of Pop’s rhythm section and the considered New Wave of Bowie’s Low and “Heroes” aesthetic. For his part, Pop pulled round-the-clock shifts in order to outpace his creative partner and reach this balance. “During that album, the band and Bowie’d leave the studios to go to sleep, but not me,” he admitted. “I was working to be one jump ahead of them for the next day… See, Bowie’s a hell of a fast guy. Quick, quick. Very quick thinker, very quick action, very active person, very sharp. I realised that I had to be quicker than him, otherwise whose album was it gonna be?”

David Bowie’s version: “I really wanted to work with Iggy again”

From its stark description of a fatal overdose to its resigned acceptance of the dangers of drug use, there was no mistaking that ‘Tonight’ was the work of Iggy Pop. “It’s out of that specific area that I’m not at home in,” Bowie would tell NME, shortly after recording his own version of the song. “I can’t say that it’s Iggy’s world, but it’s far more of Iggy’s observation than mine.” And yet, seven years on from the Lust for Life sessions, Bowie had sought to bridge those two worlds when he recorded the follow-up to his gargantuan Let’s Dance album.

“What I suppose I really wanted to do was to work with Iggy again,” he explained, while also acknowledging that, without having too much new material to hand, he appreciated taking “a chance, like Pin Ups did a few years ago, to do some covers that I always wanted to do”. Indeed, five of Tonight’s nine songs would be covers, and, of those, three would be Pop co-writes, with Pop also receiving a credit on two of the album’s original numbers, ‘Tumble and Twirl’ and ‘Dancing with the Big Boys’.

A new approach: “I guess we changed the whole sentiment around”

Years later, Pop would call Bowie “a benefactor” who “went a bit out of his way to bestow some good karma on me”, and Bowie’s decision to include so many Pop co-writes on Tonight has been seen as an attempt to shore up some funding for Pop at a time when his career had hit a low point. Travelling companions once again, Bowie and Pop had spent time together in Bali and Java ahead of sessions for what would become Tonight, and Pop was only too happy to see what happened when they decamped to Le Studio, in Morin-Heights, Quebec, to begin work on the album. Fired up by the return of his old creative foil, Bowie recorded a reggae-fied version of ‘Tonight’, complete with marimba solo by Guy St. Onge, in a nod to the gamelan music that had captivated him while travelling through Indonesia.

In a collaborative mood, Bowie also extended an invitation to Tina Turner, whose presence would make for another radical alteration to this new version of ‘Tonight’. Now framed as a duet between lovers, the song could be heard as a cautious plea for reconciliation as much as it was a reckoning with mortality – an interpretation encouraged by Bowie’s decision to remove Pop’s opening pronouncement from his version. “That was such an idiosyncratic thing of [Iggy’s] that it seemed not part of my vocabulary,” Bowie told NME. Adding that he didn’t want to “inflict” the original overdose narrative on Turner, he noted, “I guess we changed the whole sentiment around. It still has that same barren feeling, though.”

Issued as a single on 26 November 1984, two months on from the release of its parent album, ‘Tonight’ was singled out for particular praise by Rolling Stone’s Kurt Loder, who, in his review of the album, called the song “an inspired and blessedly spare reworking of an old Iggy-and-Ziggy collaboration” on which Turner provided “grit and sinew” as a counterpart to one of the “sweetest and most human” vocals of Bowie’s career.

The live duet: “Says everything about our feelings together”

Bowie had been thrilled to have Turner guest on his album. “As iconic as he is, he wanted this to be an amazing experience for her,” Carlos Alomar, who’d played guitar on both the Lust for Life and Tonight versions of the songs, later told Uncut magazine. Joining Bowie and Turner for dinner after the recording, Alomar and his wife, Robin Clark, would note that Bowie “wanted all things covered. ‘Let there be no stone unturned to make this woman feel at home.’”

Bowie had long been a fan of Turner: the powerhouse performer on vintage soul hits such as ‘River Deep – Mountain High’ and ‘Proud Mary’ was, he’d told Capitol Records execs, his “favourite singer”, an appraisal that all but led a stampede of label heads to see her perform at New York City’s Ritz club in early 1983. Turner would forever consider Bowie’s support to have been “very special and significant”, and the reason that she got a record deal at a make-or-break stage in her career. She would acknowledge her return respect by recording one of Bowie’s Diamond Dogs songs, ‘1984’, for Private Dancer.

It was ‘Tonight’, however, which “says everything about our feelings for each other”, Turner later wrote in her memoir My Love Story. At an arena-filling peak of her own in 1985, Turner invited Bowie on stage to perform the song with her during her two-night residency at Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre, across 23 and 24 March, as she rode the unstoppable wave of Private Dancer’s success. Released on the Tina Live: Private Dancer Tour video, the 23 March performance, which was followed by a jubilant run through Bowie’s ‘Let’s Dance’, made clear the close bond that had formed between the two stars – not least when Bowie, looking, in his white tuxedo, every inch the elegant suitor to Turner’s leather-clad rock siren, leaned in mid-song to whisper something that made Turner howl with laughter. “They got on really well; they were very comfortable with each other,” Paul Cox, Turner’s photographer on the tour, told this writer for the liner notes to the 40th-anniversary deluxe-edition reissue of Private Dancer. “Her energy was such that all those people looked at her and went, ‘I want to be a part of that.’ She always pulled people along.”

For Turner, the feeling was mutual. “He’s got so much knowledge,” she would say of Bowie. “He really is like the man who fell to Earth, for me. You can’t put your finger on David… I’ll be ever thankful to him.”

Buy the ‘Private Dancer’ 40th-anniversary deluxe-edition reissue.

YOUNG AMERICANS AT 50 A TRACK-BY-TRACK GUIDE

“Never been known to fail...”

David Bowie’s ninth studio album, the Bowie/Visconti/Maslin produced Young Americans, was released fifty years ago on this day in 1975.

A top ten album in both the US (#9) and the UK (#2) it also furnished Bowie with his first ever #1 US single in the shape of the Bowie/Lennon/Alomar composition, Fame.

Young Americans still sounds a remarkable work today and Jason Draper’s enthusiasm for it shines through in his latest epic, posted below: ‘Young Americans’ at 50: A Track-by-Track Guide to David Bowie’s “Plastic Soul” Album.

The image here is from the shoot for the Young Americans TV advert.

#YoungAmericans50

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‘Young Americans’ at 50: A Track-by-Track Guide to David Bowie’s “Plastic Soul” Album By Jason Draper

Full of slick grooves and sparkling riffs, the eight ‘Young Americans’ songs gave life to David Bowie’s vision of “plastic soul”.

David Bowie had been edging towards soul music as early as 1973, when he opened his US TV special, The 1980 Floor Show, with a new funk-indebted song, ‘1984’. With wah-wah riffs slicing their way through the following year’s Diamond Dogs album, a wholesale reinvention as a blue-eyed soul singer seems, in retrospect, like a natural development for Bowie – although the pace at which he was evolving remains staggering. As proven by this guide to all eight songs on Young Americans, his immersion in the music coming out of Black America in the 60s and 70s – not least the floor-filling sounds of Philadelphia International Records – made for one of the biggest creative about-turns of his career. Slick, soulful and full of daring, Young Americans is vintage Bowie.

‘Young Americans’: A Track-by-Track Guide to Every Song on the Album

‘Young Americans’

The time: 1975. The place: A downtown discotheque in Anywheresville, USA. A crack of drums, and the band slide into the slinkiest groove yet heard on a Bowie record, with David Sanborn’s in-your-face saxophone calling hormone-fuelled adolescents to the floor. “My Young American was plastic, deliberately so,” Bowie said of the inner-city characters he placed at the centre of Young Americans’ title track, opening his love letter to Philadelphia soul with a narrative of nervy newlyweds seeking to find their way through mid-70s North America, with all its capitalist traps and political murk. Doing for his target audience of soul boys and soul girls what ‘Oh! You Pretty Things’ had done for the burgeoning glam scene of the early 70s, ‘Young Americans’ was an astute clarion call that truly broke Bowie stateside when it went Top 30 on the Billboard Hot 100. “It worked in a way I hadn’t really expected,” Bowie later said of the song. “Because while my invention was more plastic than anyone else’s, it obviously had some resonance.”

‘Win’

“Plastic” may have been Bowie’s preferred descriptor for the eight songs that make up Young Americans, but ‘Win’ reveals how malleable the concept could be. Twinkling guitar and reverbed sax characterise this impassioned ballad, whose fluid time signature, slipping seamlessly between 6/8 and 4/4, reject any notions of uneasy rigidity in the material. “The chord structures are much more of a European thing than an American thing,” Bowie once said of this slow-rolling triumph. “But it imbued the muscular qualities of soul music pretty accurately, and I got these pretty heavyweight American musicians working on it. It gave it some sound of a kind of a fake authenticity to it.” Emotionally, too, the song marks a triumphant early high point on the album. Calling it “a ‘get up off your backside’ sort of song”, Bowie gave ‘Win’ some of the most affecting lyrics found on Young Americans. Seemingly a shot across the bows of all those who would sit and hope – in vain – for Bowie’s failure, ‘Win’ hits the mark and then some.

‘Fascination’

After making a casual comment about ‘Young Americans’’s backing vocals, a fledgling singer by the name of Luther Vandross found himself thrust into the role of arranger, leading Ava Cherry and Robin Clark, wife of guitarist Carlos Alomar, through harmonies on many of the album’s tracks. Then only 23, the future ‘Never Too Much’ hitmaker also displayed his nascent songwriting chops, loaning Bowie an original tune he’d penned, titled ‘Funky Music (Is a Part of Me)’. Rewriting it as ‘Fascination’, Bowie had his band dig deep into the song’s groove, with plenty of squelchy low end sitting beneath elliptical lyrics that speak of desire. “He said he didn’t want to be so presumptuous as to say ‘funky music’, since he was a rock artist,” Vandross later explained of Bowie’s lyric changes. “He said, ‘Do you mind?’ And I said, ‘You’re David Bowie, I live at home with my mother, you can do what you like.’” Two years later, when recording the self-titled debut album by his own band, Luther, Vandross re-cut the song under its original title and using his own lyrics.

‘Right’

Reflecting on the Young Americans recording sessions in the BBC documentary David Bowie: The First Five Years, Robin Clark explained the difficulties of capturing the call-and-response vocals that elevate Right from a strong groove – what Bowie described as “putting a positive drone over” – to one of the most distinctive songs on the album. “That was so hard,” she said. “David had like a puzzle. He brought this paper to us, and he said, ‘This is how I want you to sing this.’ It wasn’t a straight, ‘Just sing it linearly and melodically.’ It was, ‘I want it to jump in here, and I want you to jump out there, and jump back in here.’ That, too, was the first time I’d ever seen anything like that in my life.” The vocal acrobatics he teased from his trio of singers during the song’s mid-section were almost impossible to replicate live. On record, however, they goad Bowie on as he redefines himself yet again: “Never no turning back,” he sings. “Never been known to fail.”

‘Somebody Up There Likes Me’

With it’s gospel-tinged uplifts and softly crooned backing vocals, ‘Somebody Up There Likes Me’ masquerades as a slow-dance number (“He’s so divine, his soul shines”), but it harbours more urgent concerns. It was a “Watch out, mate, Hitler’s on his way back” song, Bowie told NME shortly after the release of Young Americans, adding, “It’s your rock’n’roll sociological bit.” He had already walked the line between rock idol and messianic leader on The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars, and, with a prescient eye on the ways in which politicians manipulate the media to their own ends, Bowie ensured that lyrics such as “He’s got his eye on your soul, his hand on your heart” carried altogether more sinister undertones. Building in intensity over its six and a half minutes, ‘Somebody Up There Likes Me’ sounds like a rise to supremacy in itself, as requested by Bowie in his handwritten notes to producer Tony Visconti: “The sound throughout this [last] section should become more and more Spectorish and powerful.”

‘Across the Universe’

Originally recorded by The Beatles for their final album, Let It Be, the John Lennon-penned ‘Across the Universe’ had always been a favourite of Bowie, who would call it “a portrait of the spiritual heart of where Lennon was at”. After befriending Lennon in New York City, Bowie invited him to Electric Lady Studios in January 1975, specifically to cut a cover of ‘Across the Universe’ during what would be one of the final Young Americans recording sessions. “I thought, Great, because I’d never done a good version of that song myself,” Lennon told Melody Maker the day after the album’s release. Dropping the Sanksrit mantra of Lennon’s original (“Jai guru deva om”) and upping the intensity with his own rich vocals and layered guitars, Bowie, by his own estimation, “hammered the hell out of” the track. He would go on to remove three songs from the album’s planned tracklist – ‘John I’m Only Dancing (Again)’, ‘It’s Gonna Be Me’ and ‘Who Can I Be Now?’ – in order to make room for this cover, plus an original number worked up with Lennon in a flash of inspiration that would provide the album’s unforgettable closing track.

‘Can You Hear Me’

Originally cut with Lulu for an aborted project with the Scottish singer, ‘Can You Hear Me’ is, like ‘Win’, another deeply emotive Young Americans song that belies the album’s “plastic” tag. An early Bowie version – later released on the “lost” album The Gouster – is a sparse soul ballad with Bowie’s vocal front and centre. In its final guise, ‘Can You Hear Me’ floats on conga and Visconti-scored strings, the fullness of the arrangement doing nothing to deter Bowie from delivering a delicately poised performance. “This is a real love song. I kid you not,” he told NME, although he refused to say who it had been written for.

‘Fame’

It’s perhaps no surprise that one of Bowie’s most enduring songs dealt with one of his life-long preoccupations: celebrity and its artifice. Developed from a riff on ‘Foot Stomping’, an old R&B number by The Flares, and reflecting conversations that Bowie had had with John Lennon (“We spent endless hours talking about fame, and what it’s like not having a life of your own any more,” he later told Musician magazine), ‘Fame’ takes an acerbic look at life lived under the media’s glare, where “what you get is no tomorrow” and “what you need you have to borrow”. Recorded immediately after committing ‘Across the Universe’ to tape, ‘Fame’ features Lennon on piano, acoustic guitar and backing vocals, although the former Beatle’s biggest contribution, as Bowie later put it, “was the energy, and that’s why he got a credit for writing it. He was the inspiration.”

Indeed, ‘Fame’’s distinctive guitar riff is unmistakably the work of Bowie’s latest recruit – and soon-to-be crucial collaborator – Carlos Alomar, while its cut-up, fuzzed-up deconstruction of fame could only have come from Bowie’s brain, his pitch-shifted vocals seeming, by turns, mocking and disorientating as they cascade towards the ultimate snub for a “sleb”: “What’s your name?” His first-ever US No.1, the song cemented Bowie’s profile stateside, and its stock would remain high throughout his career, appearing in his setlists right through to the tour for the Reality album. With covers by artists as diverse as Duran Duran, Scott Weiland and Smashing Pumpkins, samples in tracks by Public Enemy and Ol’ Dirty Bastard, and syncs in TV and cinema, ‘Fame’ – which Bowie himself would revisit in a ‘Fame ’90’ remix – has spoken to everyone who’s found that having a public profile isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. “There’s very little about it that anybody would covet,” Bowie told Q magazine in 1990. “I still have my favourite times when I’m not recognised, or at least left to my own devices.”

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