Parlophone has released a limited edition of 6000 copies of a vinyl EP called “Is it any wonder?”. Well I am not surprised. They are milking the cow. Hopefully they would answer the question of the title with a roaring YES, but I don’t know, did they? Did they?
How many releases from the “Space oddity” demos era can there be? This is getting absurd!
The Bowie estate has run amok with this. During 2019, celebrating 50 years since these recordings, they have released three super expensive vinyl things and one slightly less expensive 5-CD box. There has been a 4-vinyl singles box, a 3-vinyl singles box and one vinyl LP box with fancy packaging. I don’t care for singles, it is only a mess to change the speed on the turntable, and I thought the “The ‘Mercury’ demos” box was way too expensive. But I also have this OCD, I am a compulsive collector, and in the end, I needed to have it.
The nice jacket
The Bowie estate is releasing a lot of concerts nowadays, six live albums since the beginning of 2017! It’s great and I love it. Hard for my bank account, but good stuff for my vinyl collection on the shelves. Glastonbury 2000 was released last November. It’s taken from a short summer tour David did in 2000. I was looking forward to this live show from June 25th as I love the BBC show recorded two days later, on the 27th, that was released on the special edition CD of the “Bowie at the Beeb”.
This was Bowie’s first return to the Glastonbury Festival since 1971, as told by Bowie from the stage. Bowie seems to have been in a really good mood and the band is great. The double LP contains 22 tracks. The older songs are stronger than the newest ones, but that is no surprise, I guess.
“Re:Call 1” is a double album of b-sdies and “odds and ends” from the “Five years 1969-1973” mega-box era. Let’s see if we can find any interesting pieces here!
Bowies “Ziggy Stardust”-tour started in Aylesbury in January 1972 and ended in London in July 1973. At the end of the tour the shows included several songs from the recently released “Aladdin Sane” but during 1972 the shows showcased many older songs, including several from the 1971 album “Hunky Dory”. “Live Santa Monica ‘72” is recorded in October ’72 and part of the “early phase”. So how does this album do?
Continue reading “David Bowie – Live Santa Monica ’72 (2008)”
“Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars” is a documentary and concert film by D. A. Pennebaker that covers the last concert of the Ziggy era. It was the show where Bowie famously “retired”…
“Of all the shows on this tour, this particular show will remain with us the longest, because not only is it the last show of the tour, but it’s the last show that we’ll ever do. Thank you.”
Continue reading “David Bowie – Ziggy Stardust: The Motion Picture (1983)”
I really dislike this album. Bowie at the height of his powers and he wastes it on a useless covers-album? It is so boring. Bowie wanted to celebrate the bands he listened to in the sixties. Maybe if you were around at the time you could appreciate it more, or if you like the music from the era very much. I am not one of those.
I was going to listen to the album for the first time in many moons. I put it on and a few seconds into the first song “Watch that man” I got goose bumps running up my arms. I was flung back through time to my childhood’s summers out on the island Tjörn on the Swedish west coast. I was walking on the narrow sloping path through the gnarly pine trees towards the warm cliffs down at the waterline for yet another dip in the salty ocean. Sverker, Lottie, Ulrika and Marika were not far behind. It was the best of times. “Aladdin Sane” was played over and over again on the TDK AD cassette tape. On the flip side I had “Diamond Dogs” but we loved “Aladdin Sane” the most…
Ziggy played guitar, jamming good… “Ziggy Stardust” is an iconic album. It’s one of the best glam-rock albums ever and it’s on the short list for my albums that I have listened to the most in my life. It is filled with great songs, almost no weak points all through. All that said, I am still a little bit conflicted over exactly how great it is…
My relationship with “Honky dory” is a strange one. Back when I started collecting vinyl records, in my first vinyl era, I didn’t have the means or tools to buy all albums at once. A big part of the thing was to actually not be able to find all the albums right away. We went to the one record shop there was in Skövde. Then we went to record fairs in Gothenburg and Hova. Browsing bins of vinyls was the happy times. And the album I always seemed to miss out on and longed for was “Hunky dory”.
