David Bowie R.I.P

*Astaire

I had three thoughts.

[...]

― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, January 13, 2016 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Those are great, Ned, thank you.

actually:

absolute beginners
cat people
underground
as the world falls down
when the wind blows
this is not america

^^^ would've been a great bowie album

Do any of the Bowie comps include all of these?

No As The World Falls Down but:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Best_of_David_Bowie_1980/1987

the '93 Ryko comp includes "Absolute Beginners" and "Cat People" but that's it.

Tonight's dreadul, I have gone back to it multiple times thinking 'it can't be that bad can it?' only to learn once again, that it is in fact even worse than I remember.

uh wow, from FB

Unreleased pro live footage from the 1978 tour, supposedly televised in the US (but no one seems to have any specifics on that). Though shot in April, the slate shows a date of Nov. 7. (Post-production completion date? Air date?)

Six songs: "What in The World," "Blackout," "Sense of Doubt," "Speed of Life," "Hang On to Yourself," and "Ziggy Stardust."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyO_g_gObyI

oops that's just the last track, here's the rest (but w/Ziggy cut off)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOO0FjHbwh4

i have not read this thread but this has affected more than i ever thought it would. we simply lost an icon.

RIP David Bowie

also, everyone (i mean people who have Cable or DirecTv ect) will get Showtime turned on for free this weekend. anyways, Showtime is playing something called David Bowie Five Years on Friday the 15th. Since it will be on anyways you should try to catch it, i know i am.

Anonymous piano-practising neighbour who this morning out of the blue launched into Space Oddity: thank you. Really stopped me in my tracks.

I assume Five Years is the BBC documentary, I think from 2013 originally. I watched it the night before last and thought it very good. Well worth seeing.

For those in the UK, or access some other way, it's on the iPlayer at the moment for about a month: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0214tj1

Five Years is really very good. Carlos Alomar, Ava Cherry, Nic Roeg, Fripp, Nile, Wakeman - they're all in there, they're all good value.

Indeed. There are some great recollections, especially with instruments in hand.

It does feel like mourning, this.

I listened to Kenny Wheeler/Bill Frisell, Julia Holter, Ulrich Schnauss and Joan As Police Woman on the way to work this morning and it all weirdly sounded like Bowie.

Brandon Curtis just posted this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/13/arts/music/all-the-young-bands-the-artists-david-bowie-championed.html

It's really weird to listen to David Bowie interviewing Benjamin Curtis now neither of them are with us.

i don't think this album has gotten enough attention (apart from the title track.) what a banger width of a circle is

in going thru the discography this week, this has become my 2nd fave, after the Lodger. So heavy, basically sounds like Bowie had heard Sabbath and King Crimson, and decided to do his take on that.

I've found myself wishing over the past several days that there was a Bowie analogue to the Beatles' Anthology. I'd love to see clips from his career in chronological order and watch his evolution.

As I posted elsewhere, Bowie was downright elemental. There is a before, and there is an after. The only other living musical comparison I can think of is Dylan. Like Bowie, just the very idea of Dylan is radical/revolutionary/epochal.

for a long time I thought someone was playing a Pac-Man machine in the background of "What in the World" - doesn't make sense chronologically but I wanted to believe

I'm sure this has been documented or explored elsewhere, but does anyone know what exactly happened to Bowie in the early '80s? Was it just the siren call of MTV pushing him to change his approach? Sobriety? I've never understood how this unstoppable train went off the rails so abruptly.

Old age

Late 30s is old age?

He wasn't even that old!

On that never to be forgotten day of September 1st, 1984, when "Tonight" was released, he'd been a recording artist for 20 years.

I'm sure this has been documented or explored elsewhere, but does anyone know what exactly happened to Bowie in the early '80s? Was it just the siren call of MTV pushing him to change his approach? Sobriety? I've never understood how this unstoppable train went off the rails so abruptly.

― Professor Bworlph (Old Lunch), Thursday, January 14, 2016

He'd experienced a similar pre-MTV success in America in 1975 but sabotaged it in 1977. Age had something to do with it. And dough. He'd been the world's biggest cult artist for years; he needed money. Plus, by all accounts the Let's Dance success genuinely flummoxed him.

Listening to the Berlin era instrumentals make me wish that a much better version of Heavy Metal had been made and that Bowie had done the score.

Five Years is really very good. Carlos Alomar, Ava Cherry, Nic Roeg, Fripp, Nile, Wakeman - they're all in there, they're all good value.
Wow, sounds great.

Bowie's half of the labyrinth OST might be his mid 80s high point. It's so much fucking fun. And half of Thomas Dolby's band on "chilly down"!

It's very good tho you also have to listen to British music journalists Charles Shaar Murray and John Harris as well as Camille Lapglia which is a chore.

CSM is forced to read his own negative NME review of Low on camera though. That's quite funny.

Late 30s is old age?

rock n roll, mate

wow, I had no idea Bowie went back to snorting coke in the mid-80s, though it would certainly explain a lot. That Spin article was mentioned way upthread, does anyone have a link or a scan?

fwiw i kinda liked "Pretty Pink Rose"

after the brilliant live aid performance i have often wondered what a proper album length collaboration with thomas dolby would have ended up like.
think they could have definitely made an interesting album together.

i tried to watch some of this the other day. didn't get far. fun to skip around through though. just so much 80's....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9fQTQ6z324

so much guitar wank.

Nina, calling out for David like the rest of us:

https://www.facebook.com/a2theRon/videos/10209026686089968/

and then you're all oh right charlie sexton...

Glass Spider so shitty I need to post this. Mere three years later!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtU4-dil84g

Nice of him to bring Frampton in, though. Always dug his playing.

Writers have estimated that by the conclusion of the tour between two[45] and six[6] million people had attended, with another source suggesting that three million fans saw the tour worldwide.[2]

Four of the tour's shows were among the Top 20 grossing concert shows of the year 1987 in the US, and at the end of 1987 it was estimated that the entire tour grossed more than $50 million.[45] In 1991, it was estimated that each show of the tour grossed US$1 million,[46] for roughly $86 million over the course of the tour (or approximately $179 million today, adjusted for inflation).[21]

And after all that, Never Let Me Down never rose higher than #34 (in the US).

from my promo days i have a dvd/2cd set of the glass spider tour.
i have yet to watch or listen to it all the way through.

Forgot all about this. I'd like to think he saw it and had a laugh:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FODvjYoVEi8

"Glass Spider so shitty I need to post this. Mere three years later!"

three years in bowie world is like three decades for normal people.

listened to Heathen today, some really great songs on there. 'Afraid'!

Still working through the discography. A thing I'm realizing is that, for me, the blinding brilliance of some of his work has occluded songs that are still brilliant if not quite as blinding. I just heard 'Move On' as if it were the first time I've ever heard it. Such a lovely song that I've tended to overlook while still reeling from 'African Night Flight'.

Sound + Vision suffered from having Belew handle all the guitar (although Bowie played more rhythm than he ever had or would again) and lots of keyboard presets but Bowie's in good voice and the songs are consistently well performed.

Thus far, from Hunky Dory through Lodger, there have been maybe 3 or 4 songs I could take or leave. Most albums that I like have roughly the same number of meh tracks.