Help me with David Bowie (1 Viewer)

[Aaron Reynolds]

You're in for a wild ride, Matt.

Don't dismiss Tin Machine I (just titled Tin Machine, with the band in black suits against a white background on the cover) -- definitely worth a listen.

I agree about the live tracks on the Ryko Station To Station -- I love all of the Ryko issues, which sound fabulous and have all kinds of interesting bonus stuff.

Do any of you guys have the bonus 2000 concert disc that came with the initial issue of Bowie at the Beeb? I thought it was really a lot of fun, especially the rock version of I'm Afraid of Americans, and Let's Dance with the Spanish guitar intro.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

I have that and also like some of the versions on it. I could go the rest of my life without ever hearing "I'm Afraid..." again. I've seen Bowie 44 times (seriously) since 1995, and I'd bet he's played that song at almost all of the shows...

 

[Colin Jacobson]

Station to Station is probably my favorite Bowie album. The two bonus tracks are great - KILLED "Stay" - but why not give us more? I'd love an officially-released version of the 1976 concert...

 

[Aaron Reynolds]

Could be that those two are the only two that are in releaseable shape, or that are "great" from that show. Like that legendary Who show where everyone was crying out for an official release, and when the band finally tracked down the source of the bootleg and heard the original materials, there was no recording at all of the bass. Whups!

Have you heard an unofficial release of the rest of the show? Is it all as good as Stay?

I have to admit, I still haven't got around to picking up Heathen or Reality yet. Keep meaning to, keep forgetting...

I've only seen him once, to my chagrin, and it was last May. Great show, though. Is the DVD of that tour any good?

 

[Will_B]

"I've only seen him once, to my chagrin, and it was last May. Great show, though. Is the DVD of that tour any good? "

No. Sadly, the DVD of the Reality Tour is an exercise in using a video mixing board's special effects to absolutely obliterate all traces of the actual concert, and to hide the age of Bowie. I think it is some kind of statement a la "This is Not Reality" but it ruins the DVD.

However if you buy the Korean (I think) CD of Reality, it comes with a bonus DVD of another Reality concert, with NO SPECIAL EFFECTS added. And that is FAN_FING_TASTIC.



"Have you heard an unofficial release of the rest of the [Nassau 1976] show? Is it all as good as Stay?"

I have it (had it), but it is also the only CD I own that actually got the infamous CD rot. Guess that's what you get for going underground. The show could best be described as having a lot of gusto, but also having some dated moments: I remember that Panic in Detroit went on far too long because it also served as the bathroom break. There's a wacky 1970s sort of drum solo in the middle of it which goes on to Spinal Tap proportions.

 

[Aaron Reynolds]

Hey, Will, thanks for the tip! Since I own neither, I'll see if I can find that Korean CD/DVD. Any idea of where to find it?

 

[AricB]

Yeah, I'd like to know too... I hated the video editing on A Reality Tour DVD, the audio is good and the live performance was great, I saw all 3 chicago shows, but the cheese ball effects were rediculous. but for 11.99 at BB it's hard to not pick it up.

I'm interested in some of the TM stuff, I think they do a Pixies cover on one disc, I'll likely track it down at some point in time.

Aaron, you should pick up Heathen it's a very good disc, especially on SACD in surround, it's one of my top 5 for 5.1 music discs.

Yeah, the 2000 disc from the Beeb is great, since I'm in my 20's the 90-2000 material is some of my favorite. The other discs are very good too.

 

[John McM]

has anyone gotten the DualDisc of Reality yet?

 

[AricB]

I have it. What would you like to know? It's not high res, but in Dolby Digital 5.1. i havent gone through the extras yet.

 

[Will_B]

Aaron, I got my CD+DVD set (not talking about the DualDisc) on ebay, but I dont see any listed at the moment. There used to be many of them available for about $20 each. Now I am really sad to see that places like Tower Records and even Amazon.com are asking for $50 to $60 for it. That shouldn't be -- it wasn't rare.

Checked mine, and the country of origin is Singapore by the way, not Korea. It is a legitimate product by the way, Sony Europe. The DVD in this CD + DVD package is in NTSC which is useful. Though it does have subtitles in some kind of asian language for the between-song banter.

Known as the "Asia Tour Edition", it has a silver/grey slipcase with the Reality artwork (grey instead of white).

 

[Mikael Soderholm]

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...)

 

[seanJ]

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

 

[Ken_McAlinden]

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,

 

[Jeff Ulmer]

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.

 

[Will_B]

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.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

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...

 

[Aaron Reynolds]

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?

 

[Will_B]

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.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

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"...

 

[Ken_McAlinden]

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,