ChangesOneBowie or ChangesTwoBowie

Two and it's not really close

look at these letters, all large and smushed up together nicely

https://i.imgur.com/zvdMhIA.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/cd3ZbeA.jpg

xp true for me too, even though almost every single song on One (except 'changes' and 'suffragette') was my favorite bowie at some point

Same font as Station to Station I think?

ChangesOne was a key high school album for me, then sometime in my 20s I decided he was about the silliest person out there, then in my 40s I went back to my five or six favourite songs and loved them more than ever. Easily the first one, although I don't like "Space Oddity" or "Fame." (Always hated the way radio would play "Ziggy Stardust" as a standalone, losing the great segue into "Suffragette City"...and losing "Suffragette City" itself.)

you bet your ass

https://i.imgur.com/mMT5s9T.jpg

it's not like either aren't great but if you put Golden Years on Two they'd be even further apart for me

One has more of my faves on it, but the 1990 Rykodisc CD is the only thing called Changesbowie that I've ever owned, so this all looks weird to me.

i thought about including it as a third option, but unfortunately the cover is so bad that it was disqualified

two for mine, despite being a weird cash-in effort that could do with more tunes from Lodger and Heroes (and Low for that matter)... eg Be My Wife / Heroes / Blackout / Boys Keep Swinging / Look Back In Anger... fucked up late 70s pop Bowie = best Bowie

but C1B still a classic compilation

two for mine, despite being a weird cash-in effort that could do with more tunes from Lodger and Heroes (and Low for that matter)... eg Be My Wife / Heroes / Blackout / Boys Keep Swinging / Look Back In Anger... fucked up late 70s pop Bowie = best Bowie

but C1B still a classic compilation

Oh

Two, no contest. Found it in a record store, maybe was the first Bowie album I owned, got it right before the Ryko reissue series began. Aladdin Sane blew my teenage mind. Saw him live a year or so later on the Sound + Vision tour. In the digital era, I swapped in Golden Years for John, I'm Only Dancing... just like Noodle Vague!

Voted 2, but it was pretty close. C1B was the first Bowie record I bought so it gets "baby duckling imprints on first mama-like creature" points.

I'm surprised at how easy the 2-voters are finding this.
When you consider what most artist's "Greatest Hits" tracklisting looks like, this reinforces how remarkable Bowie was.
After years of disregarding it, I have recently realised how brilliant 'Fashion' is. The guitar work is pretty out there for a hit single. So that's pushing me towards 2.

Was ‘On Broadway’ ever listed on any other version of Aladdin Sane? You know the first section of the actual song Aladdin Sane itself is probably my all time favourite version of Bowie. Essentially before the Garson piano starts going bonkers. I was not prepared for the vibe of that song when I bought the album as a teen; woozy, eerie and sorta-concussed. Aladdin Sane was my favourite Bowie album for years after. He never did anything like the title song again I don’t think. It had a unique atmosphere. Maybe some of Young Americans is like it I guess.

Voted ‘One’. Flows really well despite being roughly in chronological order. Can see that track for track ‘Two’ may be the more heavyweight offering but it still looks a bit thrown together.

Besides, ‘One’ was my first Bowie album. Got it as part of my ill-fated and brief membership of the Britannia Music Club in1980.

One is just one of those perfect flawless comps that's been around my whole life. it's the best David Bowie comp so i will go with One.

Two is an edgier option tho for sure. I like the album art better. But opting for "John I'm Only Dancing (Again)" instead of "Heroes" was a mistake.

"Fame '90" grew on me but switching it out on the Ryko version was a bullshit move.

Two is indeed the edgier option and One might suffer from overplay or over-familiarity, but One is the clear choice imo, a perfect LP. Lack of Heroes on Two is also a fatal flaw.

I don't like the first three tracks on ChangesOne, and I never cared much for Fame either... I agree it is kinda weird that neither one has Heroes on it

Voting for One, which was also my first Bowie album (on cassette, when it came out.) On Two, I'd swap John for Heroes but also Wild Is The Wind for TVC15. Might even have enough space left over for Panic in Detroit.

Also "Ashes To Ashes" is a shortened version.

Yeah, 2 is more "heady" but I never cared very much for DJ or JIOD(A) while every song on 1 is the greatest song ever.

ChangesOne had the Bowie you would hear on rock radio, those were pool hall songs that belonged to everyone... Two was a personal soundtrack for the time when I got a car and could drive into the city and begin spending time in seedy places with really weird people. But I ended up with Two mostly because the day I was at the record store and wanted some Bowie, that was what they had!

I didn't even realize until recently that there was anything other than just plain old Changesbowie. Amazing that he knew he was going to do a second one when he titled the first one. Life on Mars being missing from Changesonebowie seems like one of the biggest greatest hits comp oversights in history, outside of every INXS comp that omits Don't Change.

yeah kinda remarkable that neither comp includes heroes or life on mars, which have evolved into his most acclaimed songs

i like sound + vision and ashes to ashes more than any song on vol. 1, but hard to deny that vol. 1 is stronger overall.

actually nvm i'm gonna contradict myself after 2 minutes of thinking--i would reach for two over one 10 times out of 10, so that's my vote.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I don't recall hearing "Life On Mars" on the radio throughout the 80s or 90s. Was it a 70s hit in the US?
I like that One maintains the "Ziggy -> Suffragette" segue although I'm seeing that neither song was a single. Guessing maybe they were more like AOR/FM staples of the era. Idk tho bc I was not around then.

I was around then. Life On Mars was never on the radio in the 70's, nor was John I'm Only Dancing for that matter.

changesone was my bowie world til like 87, but all changestwo since as a preference.

I've heard Under Pressure more times in public than every other Bowie song combined

good poll idea! the vinyl copy of ChangesOne that i found in the basement as a teenager was unbelievably crucial to me. ChangesTwo might have blown my mind even more but c'mon what a stack of songs that is on One! so i'm voting for that, with a strong suspicion that when it switches to poll results the images will vanish and we will have no idea what happened.

My vinyl copy of ChangesOne includes a filled out but never mailed application to join the David Bowie Fan Club by an 18y/o girl named Sue who lists her other favorite recording artists as Lynyrd Skynyrd, Black Sabbath, CSNY, and Led Zeppelin. In the box that asks "Are you also a member of the Mick Ronson Fan Club", she checked 'no'.

like that One maintains the "Ziggy -> Suffragette" segue although I'm seeing that neither song was a single.

wow I never knew that - always thought they were because they are on The Singles, but turns out they weren't, and neither was Starman!

The Singles Collection, I meant

"Life on Mars" was possibly better known as a Barbra Streisand album track in the US in the '70s

That two-cassette version of The Singles Collection hung around two of my car glove compartments for a decade – I loved it.

”Starman” was a single, obviously, and a hit, even in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starman_(song)

xxp

ah I misread the Wiki page, yes Starman was a single

a strong suspicion that when it switches to poll results the images will vanish and we will have no idea what happened.

i hope not! i think the images should carry through to the results. of course, there is a 99.2% chance that imgur will someday be bought out by GloboCorp and tossed in the dustbin with tinypic and photobucket, so we can't completely rule out the possibility of broken image links

Voted ‘One’. Flows really well despite being roughly in chronological order.

It totally does, but I'm not sure what the 'despite' is doing here. Going chronologically from freakfolk to glam rock to plastic soul is what makes it flow. Changestwo seems much more of a hodgepodge to me. I'm in the 'One' camp here.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Karl Malone will understand this...Unfolded exactly like a baseball HOF vote: all the more esoteric, sabermetric voters declare early, the stodgier, more predictable votes (and I voted for ChangesOne myself) come in at the end.

Two is quite interesting in the hodgepodge-iness of the tracklisting isn't it! I'd think I'd reach for that presently but mainly because only "Starman" is prominent on rock radio here while I've been passively exposed to most of One for my entire life. And "Aladdin Sane", "1984" and "Wild Is The Wind" are amongst slightly deeper cuts I'd have pressed for myself if consulted.

hear ye, let the record dee-clare, just in case the popular image hosting Imgur happens to get bought out by GloboCorp and then shut down, the final results were:

CHANGESoneBOWIE: 27
CHANGEStwoBOWIE: 21

all 48 of the ilxors left on the cursed island voted in this poll, and let it be remembered that no one was wrong

TWO is the one i'd currently go for (and the one i voted for) just because i haven't played the crap out of every song to the degree that i have the songs on ONE.

i think Two is a weird tracklist to me because I mentally have this wall between the pop-rock-glam stuff thru 75 and the weirder wilder more dissonant stuff that follows, and it feels soooo weird to have those early-70s cuts (awesome songs tho they are!) alongside fucking "sound and vision" and "ashes to ashes." I mean it definitely does something interesting to juxtapose them! same as the ilx bowie poll results playlist does. just as a record one could buy and put on, my mind really rejects it.

(this is not like, a real problem with it.... there are Beatles comps that run into something similar to this - Past Masters e.g., and i've never had a problem with that. maybe it's cause i got to know the Berlin and Berlin-adjacent material so much later in life.)

got a theory that there's no such thing as a bad bowie compilation, even this poor fucked up thing - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Collection_(David_Bowie_album)

whoops, broken link! this one works: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Collection_(David_Bowie_album)

the theory seems to work! that's a weird collection, but Cracked Actor, Width of a Circle, and Always Crashing in the Same Car are both some of my favorite Bowie songs, album tracks or otherwise, and Teenage Wildlife is like the reverso world's version of Heroes

thanks for the link fix!

yeah & i find hearing those lesser album tracks out of context can often provide new insights/pleasure into songs i'd kind of written off (or had just become part of the furniture)

(which i suppose is a long-winded way of agreeing with "it definitely does something interesting to juxtapose them")