Help me with David Bowie - Page 2

I'm with you there , it seems to be his own personal favorite. When he did the 'Live by request' TV show a few years ago, he got to pick one song himself, and that was his pick, as the encore...

With regards to Tin Machine, anyone interested in grunge and related genres owe it to themselves to check out the first album, grunge from the time when Nirvana were still in diapers . When grunge got big later on, Bowie had already 'been there, done that', as is so often the case with the MainMan .

So, in answer to the original question, you can't go wronmg, but be prepared to buy (or at least sample) several albums before you find the Bowie you like (unless you, like me, end up buying the lot, CDs, DVDs, singles, t-shirts etc, but then I've been collecting him since the mid-70s...)

Bowie from 1971 thru 1980 was terrific, every new Bowie release in thoses days was a major event and he rarely disappointed.
Almost inevitably the high quality paled, but it`s been good to see him return to something like his old form with "Heathen" & "Reality".

Incidentally the 30th Anniversary re-issues of "Aladdin Sane" & "Diamond Dogs" are real good packages, can`t wait for "Young Americans" later this year, "Station To Station" next year.

Regards

You may want to comb the used bins for either the Rykodisc or RCA CDs (or vinyl) of the classic albums. I haven't been too happy with the recent Virgin remasters. The Rykos and RCAs are not without their flaws, but I still prefer them to the recent reissues.

That being said, I can contradict myself somewhat and say that my favorite way of listening to "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars" is currently the surround sound mix on the recent SACD. I have hope for the future!

If you are worried about a "best of" spoiling the albums, I wouldn't, since none really go so deep into his best albums to spoil them and they all have a pretty good sampling of the multiple phases of his career prior to their release.

Regards,

Bowie is an artist in the truest sense of the word, and the only thing I don't like of his is the pop era. My favorite is easily Low. Now that's weird.

Yeah, if browsing for used Bowie CDs, be sure to look at the labels to figure out what you've got.

The current Virgin CDs generally have a solid black back cover with a small photo of what the back cover of the album used to look like. No bonus tracks. Very good sound quality.

Before Virgin came Rykodisc. The Rykodisc ones are easily recognized by their bonus tracks, and by the interesting back cover art. Rykodisc ones are also sometimes spotted without the Rykodisc label, but with an EMI Europe label instead -- basically the same product. Very good sound quality, but some complain that there's hardly any low end. The sound is a bit too "bright." But Rykodisc was the first company to actually use the original master tapes, and what they did was state of the art at the time. Unfortunately the ability to deliver solid low frequencies hadn't quite been developed at that time.

Long before Rykodisc was RCA - virtual antiques. The RCA CDs sound like crud. The RCA CDs are rarely seen today even in used stores, so you don't have to worry much about coming across them, but if you do, avoid them. They're from the days when CDs were only just invented. If you want to hear a version of Diamond Dogs where there's tape warble and other stray tape errors, go for the RCA version.

You will find a LOT of people who strongly disagree with you. Lots of people also hate the Virgin titles - over on the Steve Hoffman site, they're almost universally despised as the worst of the bunch.

I don't say this to disparage your opinions - you like what you like - but I wanted to point out that a lot of others feel differently. I think some - not all - of the RCAs are the best out there. For example, the RCA Man Who Sold the World is vastly superior to the Ryko...

My collection consists entirely of the Ryko issues. I had the chance to compare Pin-Ups and Station To Station to the new CDs, and I thought that the new ones sounded kind of cooked in comparison, the way new CDs tend to sound.

I've never heard any of the RCA issues -- what would you say makes the RCA Man Who Sold The World better?

It's a fair complaint that the Virgin titles have been compressed. A least they are consistent.

But the support for the old RCA discs, I really cannot understand. If a CD sounded good back then, it was by chance more than by design.

People need to appreciate just how antique those old RCA Bowie CDs are. They were among the very first CDs ever made. Engineers had no experience putting albums onto CD.

Put it this way: remember cardboard longboxes, those 12" tall cardboard boxes meant to make CDs fit into album shelving in record stores? The Bowie CDs came out before cardboard longboxes had even been INVENTED. Bowie's CDs came in 12" clear plastic blister packs with staples. It was the very first days of CD, early to mid 1980s.

The so-called "master tapes" were whatever tapes the studios had handy. The clean up and restoration was nil.

Safest bet is to buy either the Rykos or the Virgins.

BASS! The Ryko Man is thin and tinny, while the RCA is warm and full. That's how it should be - don't forget producer Tony Visconti was a bass player, and he clearly favored low-end for the production.



Which has an upside - they didn't futz with them like engineers do today. The big reason folks like the RCAs is because they're flat transfers - no noise-reduction, no EQ, no compression, no anything that would alter things negatively. Are some of the source tapes less than stellar? Sure, but obviously some people prefer that to higher generation tapes that have been messed with.

Don't dismiss early CDs unilaterally. Many of them still sound very good. Many don't, but the belief that newer=better is clearly wrong. Most people who've heard it regard the 1983 Abbey Road as the best Beatles on CD - but I guess you'd just dismiss it as an "antique"...

The RCAs are generally as good as the tapes that were used. They are mastered at a lower level than most titles today, but with volume adjusted correctly, some of them (but by no means all) sound quite good. The Rykos used uniformly good source tapes, but had a tendency to be eq'd brightly, which hurts some songs/titles more than others. The Virgins use uniformly good source tapes, but usually sound overprocessed and a bit lifeless to me.

Regards,

Re: Help me with David Bowie

Overheard on another forum, November 2006, a fourth wave of David Bowie's back catalogue:


My speculation (or maybe hope) is that these are coming out for the first time under David Bowie's own ISO label (distributed via Columbia). If so, we can probably expect 2-disc gatefold editions like on the so-called "limited edition" 2-disc reissued of Hours and Earthling which Bowie was forced to only release in Europe (I guess because Virgin still controlled the US).

There's still a chance these are again from Virgin, but with Bowie having left Virgin in 2001, my hope is that he got the rights to his back catalogue back. If so, he's got no reason to hold back. If he wants to compete with the shelves full of Virgin editions, these need to be better.

Re: Help me with David Bowie

I think the yourmusic.com is the way to go - most of Bowie's stuff for $6.00 each delivered.

My top 5 Bowie albums are:

Heroes
Station to Station
Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust
Low
Ziggy Stardust (ST)

Also I wouldn't be so concerned with getting the XXth anniversary doubles as the extras are pretty dispensible. The exception to this is the Alladin Sane double which has "All the Young Dudes" a track which you really need.

After you investigate Bowie further you will find a lot of interesting music that he has collaborated on or has connections to like Iggy Pop, Brian Eno/Roxy Music, Lou Reed, Mott the Hopple, Adrian Belew, etc. I can't vouch for the Queen, NIN, Mick Jaggers hookups though!

Re: Help me with David Bowie

And don't forget Velvet Goldmine!

Re: Help me with David Bowie

Sorry, but this simply isn't true, there is not a master in history from a major that isn't mastered, which includes all of the above. What the older transfers do lack is heavy limiting, which when done to excess is not a good thing.

Re: Help me with David Bowie

I started with 'Diamond Dogs'...

A unique 'theme' disc with enough catchy tunes to get you hooked.

Re: Help me with David Bowie

Just FYI, the reissues in stores now are not new remasters after all, they are just the current discs in cardboard "lp replica" sleeves.

Young Americans will come out later this year in a 2 disc edition with new mastering (and a surround sound mix on a dvd disc), though.

Re: Help me with David Bowie

So, do these remasters suffer from the loudness effect that everyone's been complaining about? The only "new" versions of these albums I've purchased in the past 10 years have been the SACD's of Scary Monsters and Ziggy Stardust (I don't count the Heathen and Reality SACD's as really new, but I could be wrong). Both of these are well worth seeking out.

Re: Help me with David Bowie

Without reading every post on this thread (apologize if this has been mentioned before), here's what to buy:

(1) Hunky Dory
(2) Aladdin Sane
(3) Ziggy Stardust
(4) Low

I personally dislike any Bowie from the 90's onward but Bowie in his prime is a force of nature.

Stay away from best of's.

Incidentally, the two songs you mentioned are by all accounts 2 of his best.

Re: Help me with David Bowie

I am surprised so many people hate the entire lot of post-"Scary Monsters" Bowie. Now I agree that his EMI pop phase was relatively uninspired and "Tonight" and "Never Let Me Down" were both dreadful dreadful albums, but I think since "Black Tie White Noise", he's launched one of the most exciting career renaissances any artist who slumped an entire decade could make. While the 70's will always be his "decade", I think he's recorded some of the greatest songs of his career in the past fifteen years. The Hearts Filthy Lesson, New Killer Star, I'm Afraid Of Americans, Thursday's Child, etc... great stuff that makes you forgive Day In Day Out.

Re: Help me with David Bowie

I was a big Tin Machine fan too.

Re: Help me with David Bowie

The self confessed sellout period aside, I like pretty near everything Bowie has done. It amazes me (actually it doesn't given his talent) that he is still able to produce innovative and interesting new music after so many unique offerings. The latest albums are great, and there are very few artists who I would blind buy a new release from, but Bowie hasn't let me down yet.

Re: Help me with David Bowie

I agree, the past fifteen years has totally made up for the 80's pop phase (although I own up to loving Absolute Beginners) and he is one of maybe three or four artists that I will buy a new cd of without as much as hearing a note before I purchase it, because every album he releases is quality.

Re: Help me with David Bowie

I have 11 of the Japanese lp-replica remasters (actually, I've been rebuilding a music collection after pretty much my entire cd collection was stolen last year, so I'm rebuying the Bowie catalog, not getting useless second copies of cd's I already have on the shelf))... I have everything backed up on mp3 and they're just fine, but I am not one of those digital-heads who eschew owning them) and I am very pleased with the packaging and class and love shown into it. I have a vinyl copy of Aladdin Sane and I compared the lp-replica with the vinyl and it was extremely faithful to the original. I think I'm going to pass on the Tonight, Never Let Me Down and Tin Machine's tho, those are three albums I don't really want to hear again.

How would I rank my fave Bowie albums? probably something like this
1. Lodger (I know, pretty unorthodox favorite, but while I hated it the first time I heard it, I grew to love it from start to favorite)
2. Station To Station
3. Scary Monsters
4. The Man Who Sold The World
5. Aladdin Sane (maybe not his best album on a concept level, but from start to finish the thing is full of great songs)
6. Ziggy Stardust
7. Diamond Dogs
8. Hunky Dory
9. Low
10. Young Americans
11. Heroes
12. Heathen
13. Earthling
14. Reality
15. Let's Dance
16. Black Tie White Noise
17. Space Oddity
18. Outside
19. Pin Ups
20. Hours
21. The Buddha Of Surburbia
22. Tin Machine II
23. Tin Machine
24. Never Let Me Down
25. Tonight

take away 22-25 and everything else is incredibly stellar and I can't wait for the next album due this year. Bowie is definately someone who has proven himself worthy of being purchased sight unseen. I know Low seems rather low considering how important a classic it is to his catalogue, but it's not that I dislike Low at all, but that the eight albums ahead of it are just so damn good.

Re: Help me with David Bowie

On an HT-related note, there's a documentary available on DVD called The Devil And Daniel Johnston that looks pretty interesting. Apparently he's been writing brilliant songs for years, but mental illness has prevented him from having much of a performing career.