“Ain’t that poster love?“
The new issue of NME (Out Nov 12, issue dated Nov 15) has a full four pages of classic Duffy/Bowie photographs in celebration of the quite beautiful Duffy/Bowie - Five Sessions book by Kevin Cann & Chris Duffy.
They also have details of an offer for the book within their pages, but you’ll have to buy the magazine for more details of that.
Meanwhile, stay tuned for a generous offer from the Duffy Archive for Bowie Fans.
“Hold your mad hands”
Many thanks to Shaun Keaveny and BBC Radio 6 Music for premiering ’Tis A Pity She Was A Whore in the UK this morning, and for the much appreciated continued support of David Bowie. Indeed, Sue (Or In A Season Of Crime) has been on the 6 Music 'A' Playlist for the past month.
Shaun’s co-presenter, Matt Everitt, created a new possibility when he unintentionally misquoted Bowie thus: “If Vorticists wrote Roxy Music it might have sounded like this”! He was quick to correct Roxy to Rock. Describing the track as “brilliant”, Matt also explained to Shaun exactly what a Vorticist is/was.
You can listen to the show again here. The Bowie section begins at 02:48:15
As we pointed out previously, the track is available now (Tuesday in North America) via the usual digital outlets, and here is the global iTunes link.
’Tis A Pity She Was A Whore is taken from the forthcoming limited edition 10” single of Sue (Or In A Season Of Crime), which is released via Parlophone on November 17th.
“’tis my face I suppose”
’Tis A Pity She Was A Whore is available now as a digital download from your preferred digital emporium.
Officially released in the UK on November 10th, the track will be made available in the US the following day.
For those of you that would rather taste before you buy, don't forget that BBC Radio 6 Music has the worldwide radio premiere of the track on the Shaun Keaveny show on Monday morning (Monday the 10th) from 7:00am UK time.
Meanwhile, we’ll leave you with the official blurb that sheds light on the inspiration for that title.
DAVID BOWIE ‘TIS A PITY SHE WAS A WHORE’ - DIGITAL DOWNLOAD AVAILABLE NOW
‘TIS A PITY SHE WAS A WHORE is a brand new demo track from DAVID BOWIE available for digital download now and taken from the forthcoming limited edition 10” single of SUE (OR IN A SEASON OF CRIME) which is released on Parlophone on November 17th.
‘TIS A PITY SHE WAS A WHORE is described by Bowie as “If Vorticists wrote Rock Music it might have sounded like this”.
The song acknowledges the shocking rawness of the First World War and the title is a play on ‘Tis Pity She's A Whore’ a John Ford Restoration play first performed in 1629 at the Cockpit Theatre in London. The demo track was recorded, played and written by David Bowie in his home studio.
The artwork for ‘TIS A PITY SHE WAS A WHORE was again designed by Jonathan Barnbrook continuing the linking theme of the NOTHING HAS CHANGED sleeves of Bowie looking into a mirror.
‘TIS A PITY SHE WAS A WHORE is also featured on the limited edition 10’ single and digital bundle of SUE (OR IN A SEASON OF CRIME) which was described by The Daily Telegraph as “the latest example of Bowie’s genius for self-reinvention. Yes, there’s the sound of a big band in the background, but it’s a deeply strange sound, without a trace of nostalgia. And as for the voice, it’s as uncanny as ever, but freighted with decades of experience. The song seems familiar and deeply strange at once, with an extraordinary blend of nostalgia and irony. If jazz is the “sound of surprise”, then Bowie has certainly found it”.
“Sordid details following”
Stay tuned for more regarding this in the next couple of days.
“Little me is waiting”
On this day in 1967 David Bowie recorded his first Dutch TV appearance for a show called Fan Club.
He performed the song Love You Till Tuesday, which had been released as a single in The Netherlands the previous month.
Bowie is pictured here relaxing on the set of the show and there are other shots of him with John Walker who had recorded a solo spot for Fan Club following the split of The Walker Brothers.
The show was broadcast later that month, but sadly it's another of Bowie’s TV performances that seems to have been lost forever...unless you know differently?
“Better make it today”
A brief reminder that this week sees further screenings of Hamish Hamilton’s David Bowie is documentary.
If you’re in any of the countries in the list below right now, check here for local screenings and to book tickets.
Austria
Canada
Denmark
Finland
Netherlands
Norway
Russia
Sweden
Stay tuned for news of more upcoming screenings.
“And the clock waits so patiently on your song”
A mere two weeks to go for the release of Sue (Or In A Season Of Crime) via Parlophone on November 17th in the UK. (Excepting regional variations)
If you’ve not heard the track for some mad reason or other, the file is still available to listen to here on DavidBowie.com.
If you don’t want to spoil the surprise till the track is released, you can get a flavour of just how good both the NME and The Telegraph think it is.
We’ll leave you with excerpts from both reviews with links to the full things too.
+ - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - +
David Bowie Releases Seven-Minute Jazz Odyssey – And It’s Brilliant
Dan Stubbs for NME
‘Sue (Or In A Season Of Crime)’, is the first track Bowie has recorded since releasing the career-reviving ‘The Next Day’ in 2013. And in a typically Bowie-like u-turn, it’s a jazz track. Not just a bit jazzy ‘ it’s proper jazz, recorded with Grammy winning composer Maria Scheider and her 17-piece big band. It’s also a murder ballad, sung from a first person perspective with pointed but enigmatic lyrics that shift in focus throughout.
It’s Nick Cave meets Scott Walker meets Herbie Hancock and it’s quite brilliant.
+ - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - +
David Bowie's jazz song shows his genius for self-reinvention
Ivan Hewett for The Telegraph
So where does Bowie’s new song Sue (Or In a Season of Crime) stand with respect to these platinum-selling peddlers of easy listening nostalgia? Miles away, of course. Bowie has spent much of his life evading genre boudaries, and this song is the latest example of his genius for self-reinvention. Yes, there’s the sound of a big band in the background, but it’s a deeply strange sound, without a trace of nostalgia (it’s conjured by the orchestra of Maria Schneider, surely the most inventive jazz composer alive right now). And as for the voice, it’s as uncanny as ever, but freighted with decades of experience. The song seems familiar and deeply strange at once, with an extraordinary blend of nostalgia and irony. If jazz is the “sound of surprise”, then Bowie has certainly found it.
+ - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - +
“And he was alright, the band was altogether”
According to the flyer reproduced here, David Live was released on October 29, 1974.
October 29 was a Tuesday back in 1974, a highly unusual day to release an LP in the 70s as the great majority were issued on a Friday.
Given the other information available, we can deduce that the true release date would normally have been Friday November 1.
Whatever the truth, the date didn't hinder its success as David Live entered the official UK album chart at #2 on November 16, 1974, and remained in the Top 20 for another six weeks till the end of the year.
David Live was Bowie’s first officially released live album, and it was compiled from performances during a run of five shows, from the 8th to the 12th of July 1974, at the Tower Theatre in Philadelphia as part of The Diamond Dogs Tour.
It’s a magnificent recording capturing the energy and excitement of a completely new band that had started the tour a month earlier in Canada.
Incredible to think that Bowie had only arrived in New York three months earlier, but within two months had learnt and rehearsed a whole new set and embarked upon his most ambitious stage show to date.
The album really does stand the test of the past forty years and sounds as exciting now as it did when it was released in October 1974. Listen to it here.
Check out the excellent The Year Of The Diamond Dogs website for more on David’s activities in 1974 including this page dedicated to David Live.
“Halloween Jack is a real cool cat”
It’s often reported that David Bowie began a seven-night stint at Radio City Music Hall, NYC, on 28th October 1974. However, it seems likely that it was actually only five nights that commenced forty years ago this very evening.
As you can see from our press ad for the gigs (which was printed in early October, 1974) there were just three shows announced initially, and those were on the first three days of November. Due to the demand for more tickets, a further two shows were slotted in before November on October 30th/31st.
These five dates were also confirmed by the double-sided one sheet tour programme, pictured bottom right in our montage. The picture above that was taken on November 2nd and if it seems very familiar, that's because it was used upside down last year for the promo CD of Where Are We Now?
Research among serious collectors has failed to turn up tickets or reviews for October 28th/29th, though such things exist for the five nights from October 30th to November 3rd.
There was a David Live advert which included the 28th/29th dates, but it’s worth remembering that even the dates for the July David Live shows at the Tower Theatre in Philadelphia were wrong on the sleeve.
Along with aforementioned advert, it's thought that the October 28th/29th dates were presumed to have taken place when a bootleg tape of one of the shows was erroneously labelled the 28th. And, as we all know, if a mistake is repeated frequently enough, it becomes fact.
This second leg of the Diamond Dogs tour, which started on October 5th, became known as the 'Soul' or 'Philly Dogs' tour, due to the shift away from the Diamond Dogs material in favour of tracks from the upcoming Young Americans album.
Check out setlist.fm for the reported setlist for Halloween night on October 31st, 1974, and have a look at the support set from the Mike Garson Band while you’re there.
Even setlist.fm repeat the October 28th/29th error, using the identical setlist for the 31st.
If somebody out there has proper evidence (review, ticket, etc.), that our theory is wrong, our researcher will eat their Bipperty Bopperty Hat!
“I’ve got Friday on my mind”
As you can see from the press advert accompanying this piece, Germany is among nine countries releasing Nothing Has Changed – The Very Best of Bowie on Friday November 14.
The digital and physical versions for each territory will be released at the same time, aside from the three highlighted below.
Scroll the images here to view the pack shots of the 3CD and vinyl versions of Nothing Has Changed.
With a little over a fortnight to go these dates are accurate, but we will let you know if we hear of any changes before then.
Friday 14th
Austria
Australia
Belgium
Finland
Germany
Ireland
Netherlands (Digital 17th)
New Zealand
Switzerland
Monday 17th
UK
Czech Republic
Denmark (Digital 14th)
France
Hungary
Hong Kong
Norway
Poland
South Africa
Tuesday 18th
USA
Argentina
Brazil
Canada
Chile
Italy
Mexico
Singapore
Spain
Thailand
Wednesday 19th
Japan
Sweden (Digital 17th)
“Well she’s come, been and gone”
Tonight’s performance of the Michael Clark Company’s extraordinary come, been and gone is the third and final chance you have to see it during David Bowie is at the MCA.
There are still tickets left so if you are able to make it, you really should try to get along.
There are still plenty more exciting Bowie related events to come at the MCA, so don't forget to keep an eye on the events page.
“Listen to me, don’t listen to me”
November 17 is turning out to be a busy day for Bowie fans, particularly for those in London on the day.
Aside from the release of Nothing Has Changed – The Very Best of Bowie and the single Sue (Or In A Season Of Crime), there’s also the do at Curzon Soho we told you about yesterday. (See previous item)
And now Classic Album Sundays presents (on a Monday), David Bowie’s Hunky Dory with the album’s producer Ken Scott at Brilliant Corners on the same evening as the Curzon presentation.
It’s the second time CAS has featured Hunky Dory, but this time around the timing is unfortunate and it’s a bit of a shame that the two-different-places-at-the-same-time machine has yet to be invented.
Anyway, below are links to both events, you just have to decide which you’d rather be at!
FOOTNOTE: Our picture shows Ken Scott at Abbey Road in January 2003 working on a 5:1 multi-channel mix of The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars.
““You know who I am,” he said”
Vanity Fair posted a piece by Michelle Memran today, titled: Tony Kushner Gives Rave Review of Stripped-Down, David Bowie-ized Production of Angels in America.
That pretty much explains the angle of the article, but here’s the intro to further expand.
Tonight Tony Kushner will be seated in BAM Harvey Theater, at the Next Wave Festival, watching a radical restaging of his Pulitzer Prize–winning play, Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, by the innovative Belgian director Ivo van Hove. Just over 20 years since its watershed Broadway debut, the vast modern classic has been produced and remounted more times and in more cities than Kushner has time to count, but this particular rendering by the Dutch theater company Toneelgroep Amsterdam still astonishes him. The much-lauded—and intensely searching—playwright and screenwriter is now thinking back to 2009, when he first saw van Hove’s dazzling, nearly five-hour Dutch-language distillation, a year after it opened to raves at Amsterdam’s Municipal Theatre (where it continues to run in repertory).
And here’s a bit mentioning the inclusion of the Bowie music.
In fact, the Angel revealed here is a male E.R. nurse who simply walks onto the stage. And not only does the Angel—who is typically female and winged and crashes through the ceiling in a shower of crumbling plaster at the end of Part One: Millennium Approaches—choose to walk instead of fly, but all of its celestial sound effects, and all of the sound cues throughout the play for that matter, have either been dropped or replaced entirely by David Bowie’s music.
“When you listen to [David Bowie] songs, you’ll hear the beginning of the 80s,” says van Hove. “And so many of his songs talk about decay, death, change, transformation. That’s his music and that’s why we used it. I think all art should be subversive. Why go to the theater? To be shocked, to be blown away, to be emotionally touched, to come out of the theater having experienced something. Perhaps you don’t even know what it is yet, and why. But your imagination has been stimulated. That’s what we try to do onstage.”
Raed the full thing here.
This three day run of Angels In America is part of the 2014 Next Wave Festival at BAM and there are just two performances remaining on Friday and Saturday. Visit the BAM site for tickets.
BAM Harvey Theater (651 Fulton Street, New York City)
October 23 and 24 at 7 P.M.; October 25 at 6 P.M.
By Tony Kushner
Toneelgroep Amsterdam
Directed by Ivo van Hove
Set and light design by Jan Versweyveld
Costume design by Wojciech Dziedzic
Video design by Tal Yarden
Music by Wim Selles
US PREMIERE IN DUTCH
RUN TIME: 5hrs 10min (with 45min break)
FULL PRICE TICKETS START AT $40
By Tony Kushner
Toneelgroep Amsterdam
Directed by Ivo van Hove
“Screening above Central London”
The Curzon in London’s Soho are marking the release of Nothing Has Changed – The Very Best of Bowie on November 17 with a special screening of the documentary film, David Bowie is.
The film’s director, Hamish Hamilton, will also be present for a post-screening discussion/Q&A.
As if this wasn’t enough, the Curzon will also host a Bowie look-alike contest for which the winner will receive a bulging Bowie goody bag, including stuff money can’t buy, probably.
Anyway, tickets are already on sale so best get a wriggle on if you don’t want to miss out.
Go here for tickets and more information.
EVENT
David Bowie is + live Q&A with director Hamish Hamilton
Monday 17 November 6.10pm
PG
“But the Pretty Green Tees are following me”
Pretty Green, the menswear label founded by Liam Gallagher, has teamed up with Mick Rock to create a range of five T-shirts featuring iconic Ziggy era Bowie images.
The Pretty Green Mick Rock David Bowie T-shirt collection will be available to buy from Pretty Green’s online store in limited numbers from 31st October, priced at £95 each.
Scroll the images here to view larger versions of each shirt. We’ll leave you with the blurb from the press release.
This season we’ve had the pleasure of working with the legendary Rock and Roll photographer Mick Rock on a range of limited edition T-shirts developed from Mick’s iconic photographs of David Bowie.
Mick Rock (born 1948 in London, England) is a renowned British photographer who has created iconic shots of rock and roll legends such as Queen, David Bowie, Syd Barrett, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop and The Stooges, The Sex Pistols, The Ramones, Joan Jett, Talking Heads, Roxy Music, Thin Lizzy, Mötley Crüe, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and Blondie.
Often referred to as "The Man Who Shot the Seventies", most of the memorable images of David Bowie as Ziggy Stardust were shot by Rock, in his capacity as Bowie's official photographer. Being part of this Glam Rock movement meant that Mick’s lens was at the heart of a cutting edge music and fashion scene which radically transformed the culture of the times.
The photos we’ve used for ‘The David Bowie Collection’ were taken in 1973 and are a mixture of performance images and those taken from the iconic saxophone session which formed part of the artwork he art directed for the ‘Pin Ups’ album. At the time Bowie’s experimentation with makeup, mime and outrageous costumes were revolutionary. They were like nothing ever seen before and inspired a whole new generation of rebels.
“And me I’m on a radio show”
Pin Ups, David Bowie’s album of 60s cover versions, was released 41 years ago today, and was possibly the last great glam rock album of all time. (Discuss)
Either way, it still sounds incredible today and if you’ve not heard it in a while, reacquaint yourself with Pin Ups on Spotify now.
Also, don't forget the Pin Ups Radio Show with exclusive recollections from Bowie made in 1973, that we told you about last year.
The show features snippets from Pin Ups interspersed with brief observations from Bowie regarding some of the bands he covered on the album, adopting his very best mockney to recall his days as a mod during the period.
The Pin Ups Radio Show was originally recorded as a promotional tool for the release of the record in 1973, but never used.
“There’s been many others”
For those of you that haven't yet managed to get your hands on NME in one format or another, they have now published the full list of the forty Bowie tracks chosen for this week’s ten-page Bowie cover feature, online.
If you don't want to know yet, stop reading now...if you do, here they are in descending order.
+ - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - +
David Bowie's 40 Greatest Songs - As Decided By NME And Friends
David Bowie has plenty of stone-cold classics to choose from so it was a challenge to pick out his 40 greatest songs. With a little help from Thurston Moore, St Vincent, Johnny Marr, Wild Beasts and a few more of our favourite artists we count down, from 40 to 1.
As the new David Bowie best-of is prepared for release, we rank his Top 40 tracks, as chosen by NME and with a little help from Thurston Moore, St Vincent, Johnny Marr, Wild Beasts and a few more of our favourite artists.
40. 'It's No Game (Part 1)' (1980) St Vincent: "'It’s No Game (Part 1)' from ‘Scary Monsters’ is my favourite song, an example of his ability to make immensely likable and at the same time dystopian music. I love Robert Fripp’s guitar playing there, it’s so perverse – it’s disgusting and I love it."
39. 'Wild Is The Wind' (1976). With his album 'Pin-Ups', Bowie paid tribute to his favourite bands of the previous decade by covering their songs. Released three years later, 'Wild Is The Wind' – formerly recorded by Johnny Mathis and Nina Simone – would have stuck out like Ziggy at a funeral on that LP. In Bowie's hands, the winsome, delicate track twists like a snake around a branch.
38. 'Aladdin Sane' (1973). Peter Brewis, Field Music: "This song is, for me, one of David Bowie's standout pieces. Stylistically it has one foot in the Ziggy Stardust era with the other kicking towards the experimentalism of the European years. The lyrics seem to deal with the pre-war decadence of the ‘Bright Young Things’."
37. 'Quicksand' (1971). Aaron Hemphill, Liars: "With just his voice, an acoustic guitar and amazing lyrics that are incredibly arranged, this song takes me further than any track ever has from ‘Hunky Dory’. I think his choice in words and incredibly expressive voice communicates such a unique mental and emotional state that it makes the song much more than the sum of its parts."
36. 'Fashion' (1971) Imagined as a successor to The Kinks' 'Dedicated Follower Of Fashion', their commentary on British fashion and its disciples, 'Fashion' sends up that scene as something conformist and controlled ("We are the goon squad and we're coming to town"), even aligning its regimented posturing with military formations ("Turn to the left, turn to the right").
35. 'Andy Warhol' (1971). Bowie’s fascination with Andy Warhol boiled over into song on 1971’s ‘Hunky Dory’, capturing all the kaleidoscopic colour of the ’60s icon’s famous prints in four minutes of flamenco guitars. Warhol reportedly didn’t like the song, worrying that it made fun of his appearance, but for plenty of Bowie fans it’s one of the most inventive of his early-’70s pomp.
34. 'Black Country Rock' (1970). King Tuff: "'The Man Who Sold The World' is my favorite Bowie album because it’s as close as Bowie ever got to Sabbath, and there’s lots of pretty crazy ‘out’ musical moments. Lyrically it’s all about insanity and straight-up weirdness. The guitar playing is some of Mick Ronson’s best, and Tony Visconti kills it on the bass, big ol’ funky style."
33. 'The Jean Genie' (1973). Johnny Marr: "Even though he's made much cleverer records, 'Jean Genie' is an amazing example of what a good rock singer he is. It has such a cool detachment, and it's very sexy. It has a simmering undertow of violence about it, which is a weirdly English thing. Even though it's based on a Muddy Waters riff, it doesn't sound like an American band."
32. 'Lady Grinning Soul' (1973). The last track on ‘Aladdin Sane’ has long been rumoured to be about American soul singer Claudia Lennear, whom Bowie had a dalliance with – as did Mick Jagger, who is reported to have written the much earthier ‘Brown Sugar’ about her. Whoever it’s about, it’s one of Bowie’s most off-kilter recordings from a particularly fertile period in his career.
31. 'Absolute Beginners' (1986) Written for Julien Temple’s fairly rubbish adaptation of Colin MacInnes’ 1959 novel of the same name, Bowie’s theme is the best thing about the whole sorry affair (including his own performance in the movie). A retro-sounding ode to blossoming love, the doo-wop-flavoured track was a welcome return to form after the horror of 1984’s ‘Tonight’ album.
30. 'John, I'm Only Dancing' (1972) "I'm gay and always have been," Bowie said in 1972. Eight months later, 'John, I'm Only Dancing' was released. Bowie never confirmed whether or not it concerned what it was rumoured to be about – a real-life gay relationship or John Lennon’s comments on his cross-dressing – but that didn’t stop his US label from preventing its release until 1976.
29. 'Always Crashing In The Same Car (1977). One of the last songs to be drawn from the cocaine-addled period Bowie spent in LA between 1975-76, apparently based on an incident when he sought vengeance on a rip-off drug dealer by deliberately crashing into his car. The oddly hushed drums and eerie synth led producer Tony Visconti to describe it as “spooky”.
28. 'All The Young Dudes' (1974). As if being the greatest rock star on the planet wasn't quite enough, by 1972 Bowie had even set about saving his contemporaries from extinction. Apparently, Mott The Hoople were about to call it a day – until Bowie learned of their predicament and wrote, produced and played guitar on '...Dudes', which instantly took the band to the top of the charts.
27. 'China Girl (1983). Originally included on ‘The Idiot’, Iggy Pop’s David Bowie-produced 1977 solo debut, with Bowie on toy piano and Pop playing a fun-size drumkit. It was re-recorded for ‘Let’s Dance’: Bowie replaced the original’s claustrophobic scratchiness with extroverted disco hinging on a Nile Rodgers riff.
26. 'Drive-In Saturday' (1973). A homage to the doo-wop of 1950s America, 'Drive-in Saturday' described a world that would have been as alien to a young Bowie as that described in 'Life On Mars?'. Its lyrics are a sci-fi movie in miniature, telling of a post-apocalyptic society learning how to "get it on like once before" by watching videos of Mick Jagger over coo-ing glam rock’n’roll.
25. 'Kooks' (1971). Written after the birth of Bowie and wife Angie’s son Zowie (who renamed himself Duncan and went on to direct the excellent Moon), Bowie makes it clear that he would never be a tough parent, suggesting gently to his offspring, “Don’t pick a fight with the bullies or the cads/’Cos I’m not much cop at punching other people’s dads”.
24. 'TVC 15' (1976). The recording of ‘Station To Station’ has become infamous for Bowie’s diet as much as anything else. He starved his body of all nutrients (besides milk, cocaine and red peppers) and replaced them with dirty disco and funky soul. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he became prone to hallucinations; on 'TVC 15', his girlfriend crawls into his TV set.
23. 'Queen Bitch' (1971). Here, Bowie doffed his “bipperty-bopperty hat” to Lou Reed and The Velvet Underground. The track would also influence Bowie’s future – it’s a glam rock prototype, with a camp, catty lyric from Bowie and guitarist Mick Ronson nicking the razor-sharp riff from Eddie Cochran’s ‘Three Steps To Heaven’. The road to the all-conquering ‘Ziggy’ era began here
22. 'Be My Wife' (1977). Bowie decided, for whatever reason, to sing one of ‘Low’’s more conventional tracks in an exaggerated but strangely cold and remote London accent, something he never repeats anywhere else on the record. It’s wholly at odds with the crashing piano, squalling guitar solos and booming drums that litter the song, resulting in a compellingly confusing listen.
21. 'Fame' (1975). The single that made David Bowie huge in America was inspired by the rather unsexy subject of how utterly pissed off he was at his then-management. While attempting to extricate himself from his contract, Bowie was egged on by his new pal John Lennon, who went on to supply the title and backing vocals.
20. 'Ziggy Stardust' (1972). Remarkably, this track was never released as a single, despite being one of Bowie’s most famous songs. The lyric is about Ziggy, the ultimate rock superstar, getting too big for his boots and ultimately self-destructing. It’s helpful that Mick Ronson is on hand to paint this picture with one of the great all-time rock riffs.
19. 'Station To Station' (1976). William Doyle, East India Youth: "When I first heard 'Station to Station', it scared me how good it was. This song seems to deal with all of his neuroses at the time of recording – his obsession with the occult, the Third Reich, normal things like that – and it’s backed by the most coked-up end section I've ever heard."
18. 'Space Oddity' (1969). Anna Calvi: "My dad put it on the car when I was six, and at first I thought his voice was horrible. But by the end of the song, I loved it. That was it – my passion for David Bowie began and it hasn’t stopped since."
17. 'The Man Who Sold The World' (1971). 1971’s ‘The Man Who Sold The World’ is not just a vintage slice of Bowie story-telling but a key part in his ’90s renaissance, 20 years later. Bowie’s critical stock was at a career low when Nirvana gave a rendition of the track in their iconic MTV Unplugged session, coming after Bowie’s late-’80s run of maligned albums.
16. 'Golden Years' (1976). "Gonna drive back down where you once belonged/ In the back of a dream car 20 foot long," promises 'Golden Years', but that positivity soon dissipates, as Bowie prays "I'm begging you save her little soul" and tells the woman in question (claimed to be either his first wife Angela or backing singer Ava Cherry) to "run for the shadows".
15. 'Starman' (1972). Ian McCulloch, Echo And The Bunnymen: "It made me want to be heard. When I saw Bowie on 'Top Of The Pops', I thought, ‘I want to wear his kecks too.’ I stared at his groin thinking, ‘I’ve got a lot of puberty to do.’"
14. 'Suffragette City' (1972). "Say droogie, don't crash here!" yelps Bowie, showing off the influence of Anthony Burgess' 'A Clockwork Orange'. The song – which borrows from ’50s rock'n'roll, including a piano riff inspired by Little Richard – was offered to Mott The Hoople to record, but frontman Ian Hunter didn't think it was good enough and they recorded 'All The Young Dudes' instead.
13. 'Rock'N'Roll Suicide' (1972). The closing track on ‘Ziggy Stardust’ was one of the songs that actually fitted the loose ‘concept’ feel of the LP. Bowie chronicled Ziggy's final fall from grace, torn into pieces by his feverish acolytes. The melodrama of the story is reflected in the music, a grandiose, theatrical epic, inspired, according to Bowie himself, by French poet Baudelaire.
12. 'Five Years' (1972). Thurston Moore:: “It was one of the first Bowie things I heard as I got that album when it came out. The fact that he opened up with this drum pattern that was really kind of a bit odd, was just completely experimental and avant-garde. Then there’s acoustic guitar and this voice that had a certain banality to it. It’s just a completely radical listen.”
11. 'Moonage Daydream' (1972). Although an integral part of the storyline of Bowie's 'Ziggy Stardust', 'Moonage Daydream' was released in 1971 as the debut single by his side project Arnold Corns. In 2003, Bowie revealed the influence of The Hollywood Argyles' 1960 track 'Sho Know A Lot About Love' as he thought the combination of sax and piccolo was "a great thing to put in a rock song".
10. ‘Oh! You Pretty Things’ (1971). Written just before Bowie's first child was born, 'Oh! You Pretty Things' finds him relating his anxieties about his impending fatherhood by pumping them into a story of aliens taking over the earth. With both prescience and paranoia, he warns parents: "Don't kid yourself they belong to you/They're the start of a coming race".
9. 'Ashes To Ashes' (1980). Recall is a powerful tool. Bowie likes to litter his songs with references to earlier works, and it's a trick he pulled off most neatly in 'Ashes To Ashes', looking to the future with its airy funk, but looking back to an earlier character in its lyrics. Its big reveal is the fate of Major Tom, cast here as a junkie drifting into oblivion.
8. 'Modern Love' (1983). There's a tragic irony to 'Modern Love'; it's not that David Bowie managed to make a perfect song about his cynicism at the world. It's that his prescient observations about the burgeoning business charm offensive of the 1980s exposed the hollowness that would consume his own career for a few years – critically, at least– until he formed Tin Machine in 1989.
7. 'Life On Mars?' (1971). James Bagshaw, Temples: "It’s really catchy, but in a really unconventional way. There’s one bit where he hits a really high note and it’s so bold – I don’t think I could ever be that bold until I really learn to sing. It’s very clever without being pretentious, which is the perfect mix."
6. 'Let's Dance' (1983). Courtney Barnett: "Most of the stuff he does makes me want to dance. He knows how to write a good song and everything he does is kind of funky. I normally do a little bit of the twist – a subtle twist."
5. 'Rebel Rebel' (1974). Bowie’s friendship with Mick Jagger intensified around the period when ‘Rebel Rebel’ was written and released – Bowie’s wife Angie claims she caught them in bed together. It was common for Bowie to take inspiration from his musical heroes, but the heaven-sent riff here owed as much to Keith Richards as it did to the Stones' singer.
4. 'Young Americans' (1975). From its opening verse, as two lovers endure awkward first-time sex, ‘Young Americans’ only gets bleaker. The air of gloom mirrored that of 1970s America, where the news was full of Richard Nixon’s defiant smirks and Ted Bundy’s murderous suburban rampages. The result, underneath a blanket of 70s soul-pop, is one of Bowie’s most quietly heartbreaking songs.
3. 'Changes' (1971). Tom Fleming, Wild Beasts: "I think 'Changes' is appropriate funeral music – it’s cheery without being Paul McCartney with his thumbs in the air. Funerals are about change. Everyone dies. So what? 'Time may change me, but I can’t trace time' – that’s kind of perfect really."
2. 'Sound And Vision' (1977). Originally conceived as an instrumental (save for a backing vocal by producer Tony Visconti’s then-wife Mary Hopkin), Bowie reputedly added his vocal at a very late stage in proceedings. Despite the sprightly guitar riff, sparkling sax and synth splashes, Bowie sings of the inescapable ennui that plagued his attempt to kick a severe coke habit.
1. ''Heroes'' (1977). A romance for the ages, with Bowie's remarkable vocal and a rumbling, relentless, four-chord juggernaut of sound that's almost as monolithic as the Berlin Wall itself. On release, it was met with a resounding shrug: that it's gone on to become his best-loved song – and it topped our writers’ poll comfortably – is its ultimate triumph.
+ - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - +
See the online version, which is illustrated with a shedload of great Bowie pictures, here.
“It’s a Drive-In Saturday”
For those of you in Chicago to see the David Bowie Is exhibition, you may want to tie in a trip to the Ed Pashcke Art Center where the current exhibition is Steve Schapiro: Warhol, Reed, & Bowie.
The photographer spoke to Chicagoist about the exhibition recently. Here’s an edited extract from the article regarding Bowie.
+ - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - +
CHICAGOIST: You're a great observer of humanity, even with iconic, larger-then-life figures like Bowie. I am thinking specifically of the Bowie photograph from The Man Who Fell to Earth, one of the highlights of the show. This was printed at the last minute for this exhibit, correct? There is a sombreness and vulnerability in this work while it is magical.
STEVE SCHAPIRO: It's an image that was never printed till about two weeks before the show. I looked at that transparency and realized it is a really good picture, and it was only when I thought we needed another Bowie picture to round out the exhibit that I went back and looked at the transparencies and I found this image. It had never been edited or printed. It is entirely untouched.
CHICAGOIST: Do you find when you are photographing a performer like Bowie, a quintessential performer and artist, I am thinking, like you were saying, he was very aware he was being photographed, but he also seemed to put his guard down for you. Can you talk about that?
STEVE SCHAPIRO: I think Bowie is very smart and I think he has a great sense of images and in coming up with new kinds of images. The first session I did with him started at four in the afternoon and ended at four the next morning when I did that picture of him on the motorcycle, and we used the headlights of a car to light it. He would constantly come up with new costumes and I would pick up my camera to photograph him and it would be an incredible outfit, but he would stop me and say, "Wait a minute, I need to fix something," and he would go to the dressing room and come back 20 minutes later in something totally different. Fortunately, there would be a lot of things he would try on, so we would get a lot of pictures. The picture of him smoking a cigarette was a cover of Rolling Stone and it has been used a lot, but it was originally the cover for Rolling Stone.
+ - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - +
You can read the full thing on the Chicagoist site, where there are also links to the Steve Schapiro: Warhol, Reed, & Bowie Exhibition.
Speaking of The Man Who Fell to Earth, if you’re in Chicago over the weekend to see David Bowie Is, you may also want to attend the Bowie Film Festival while you’re at the MCA.
You are also encouraged to attend the film festival as a character played by Bowie in one of the films. TJ Newton the thirsty alien disguised as a human, Jareth the child-snatching Goblin King, friend of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol, or the star of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars himself.
We’ll leave you with the full schedule, which kicks off with Basquiat on Saturday at 1:00pm.
+ - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - +
Join the MCA for a weekend that celebrates some of David Bowie’s greatest moments on the silver screen: from cult classics like Labyrinth (1986) and The Hunger (1983) to Bowie’s notable performances in films such as The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976) and his portrayal of Andy Warhol in Julian Schnabel’s Basquiat (1996). All screenings take place in the Edlis Neeson Theater.
Come as the Goblin King, Warhol, or the vampire John Blaylock: visitors are invited to dress up in Bowie-inspired attire for this event. Tag #DavidBowieIs on your photos.
Schedule
Saturday
1 pm: Basquiat
Directed by Julian Schnabel, 1996, USA
108 minutes
Basquiat tells the story of the meteoric rise and fall of artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. Basquiat starts out as SAMO—a graffiti artist living in a cardboard box in Thompkins Square Park—before he is “discovered” by Andy Warhol, and the New York art world quickly makes him a star. Success, however, has a high price, and Basquiat pays with friendship, love, and eventually, his life.
3 pm: David Bowie 5 Years
Directed by Francis Whately, 2013, UK
59 minutes
Featuring a wealth of unseen footage and thoughtful interviews, this documentary highlights five key years in David Bowie’s music career and charts his continual evolution through the various roles that make him an icon of our times.
4:15 pm: The Man Who Fell To Earth
Directed by Nicolas Roeg, 1976, the Netherlands
139 minutes
Seeking help for his drought-stricken planet, a space alien crash-lands on Earth and becomes a fabulously wealthy industrialist. In his quest to build a return spacecraft, however, money and its attendant decadence ultimately exert a stronger gravitational pull.
6:30–7:30 pm GO GLAM!
Get your very own lightning bolt with our Bowie make-up artists!
7:30 pm: Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
Directed by D. A. Pennebaker, 1973, UK
90 minutes
The July 3, 1973 historic concert of the “leper Messiah” was to be David Bowie’s last concert with his Ziggy persona and the Spiders from Mars. A great medley of “Wild Eyed Boy From Freecloud”/“All The Young Dudes”/“Oh! You Pretty Things” and covers of The Velvet Underground and The Rolling Stones are but some of the highlights.
9 pm: The Hunger
Directed by Tony Scott, 1983, USA
97 minutes
Miriam, a centuries-old vampire, preys on urban clubgoers with her vampire lover John. When John suddenly begins to age rapidly and waste away, Miriam casts a spell upon Sarah Roberts, a doctor who researches premature aging.
Sunday
Noon: Labyrinth
Directed by Jim Henson, 1986, USA
101 minutes
Fifteen-year-old Sarah accidentally wishes her baby stepbrother, Toby, away to the Goblin King. Jareth, King of the Goblins, threatens to keep Toby and turn him into a goblin if Sarah cannot complete his ever-changing Labyrinth in thirteen hours.
2:30 pm: Absolute Beginners
Directed by Julien Temple, 1986, USA
108 minutes
In this musical adaptation of Colin MacInnes’s novel about life in late-1950s London, nineteen-year-old Colin is hopelessly in love with Crepe Suzette, a model whose relationships are strictly connected to her progress in the fashion world. In order to earn her love, Colin gets involved with a pop promoter and tries to crack the big time, but he finds his new life moves further away from his ideals and Suzette.
“Somebody special, Looking at me” *
As you are well aware, Jonathan Barnbrook is the designer behind The Next Day campaign, not to mention his work on Heathen and Reality, and the associated single releases from each of the three albums.
In NME’s three-page piece about Sue (Or In A Season Of Crime) and the upcoming Nothing Has Changed compilation they published last week, there was a page given over to Barnbrook’s discussion regarding the design of Nothing Has Changed, or, to employ the correct style; Nothing has changed.
Well, they only used a small part of Barnbrook’s contribution, so he has kindly given us permission to use the full, unedited piece here. It's a great read and he sheds light on those mysterious stickers which we first revealed here.
Over to you Mr Barnbrook.
===============================
There is no longer such a thing as ‘the record cover’, quite early on in the process of designing ‘The Next Day’ I realised that the release of an album is an event, not something physical, I don’t mean that it is just digital now, more, it is distributed, talked about publicised in every format. It now appears on websites, twitter etc. The physical package in the shop is but a small part of what could actually be described best as an event.
To deal with this very modern issue for the design it needs to be an underlying concept that works for everything. For ‘The Next Day’ it was the white square, which took on a life of its own and announced Bowie was back, it played with his identity after an absence of 10 years and your expectations of the pop star as an image to project your own thoughts on.
Design for 'Nothing has changed' was a very different task. We have the context of Bowie producing music again and a whole generation acknowledging his influence and also others discovering him anew. We are dealing with a set of tracks that are curated from his past which are already known. It is a not a release which shouts that someone is back with the burning light of new work, but more a collection that needs to be portrayed with a design that is a little bit softer and more reflective in its tone.
Here I was also faced with the task to make something of interest in a world where the record cover has simply become, ‘nice’ and not the subject of discussion or adulation that it was in the 20th century. This is coupled with the fact that most ‘Best Of’ designs are atrocious – overdone montages of library photos of the musician that look as though they were possibly not even seen by them, meaning that the design is not usually for the true fans. There is very little mindspace to find beauty or to identify with the artist. Instead this design for 'Nothing has changed' is deliberately restrained, minimal, and well, un-designed, allowing the contemplative nature of the images to come through.
To be true to the content, photos from different times in Bowie’s career are used, including one from today. A different image appears on each format. The linking theme is Bowie looking in the mirror. Something which was a strong enough ‘archetype’ to provide an immediately identifiable visual link, but also to make it clear this was a collection of songs through the experience of one person’s life, not necessarily a specific concept or period of time as albums tend to be.
Each image is captioned (and it has been made to look like a caption rather than a title), with the line from the Bowie song ‘Sunday’ from ‘Heathen’, which is ‘Nothing has changed’, as the title of the album. All the other information appears upon a sticker which can be peeled off leaving only the image and this sentence. The typography is vaguely reminiscent of the time period but not overtly so. There is nothing that makes me cringe more than a retro cover for a compilation, these kind of releases are only interesting if they are viewed in the light of today, not full of nostalgia for a time that no longer exists.
The use of a caption rather than title creates a dialogue between the image and text. From this there are of course the rather clichéd thoughts about Bowie changing musical styles all through his career but it immediately throws up some other more interesting thoughts. Bowie as the young dandy and the obvious comparisons with Oscar Wilde and 'The Picture of Dorian Gray’ with the portrait that ages. In the younger photos, with Bowie looking in the mirror, how is he imagining his future? Does he, as we all do at that time, feel immortal? Does he see himself in the way that others see him? As Ziggy Stardust, does he see the separation between himself and the character he has created? With the later images, as a man who has lived an incredibly unusual life, what is he thinking about? His legacy? How the world perceives him? When he sees his reflection, does he at any moment imagine himself in a similar way to someone who has listened to his music does?
Other questions too that we all face arise in my mind, how does he deal with getting old, his mortality, his looks changing? Is this more difficult for someone who has constantly been photographed and who’s image has been everywhere? Can a soul and the decisions made be seen in someone’s face?
Although I have taken time to explain these covers here, they are meant to be talked about far less than ’The Next Day’, more I hope that they do what a good record cover should do, enhance the experience of listening to the music and also maybe make the listener reflect a little on what a 'Best Of’ actually is, not just a grab-bag of songs that by a series of unconnected events are regarded as the 'best tunes', but a whole life experience of one musician, some of which was planned, some of it was instinctive, some of it influenced by stuff beyond anybody’s control. But, all was driven ultimately by one person’s unique creative force and how they dealt with and interpreted the world.
+ - + - + - + - + - + - +
Barnbrook
+ - + - + - + - + - + - +
Thanks Jonathan, and congratulations on another beautiful design concept.
* For those of you wondering about today’s lyric quotation and what Bowie song contains that line...it’s actually from the Bryan Ferry song, If There Is Something, which appeared on the debut Roxy Music album and was covered by Tin Machine for their second studio album.