Next week's Mail On Sunday will feature a freebie Bowie CD.

It's created a *lot* of debate and discussion on the Bowie forum I use, from comments on the 'new' song, to people preferring to abbreviate Mail On Sunday to M.O.S., along with cries of 'sell out' provoking an additional thread or three.

The original thread here for anyone interested anyway.

http://www.network54.com/Forum/8980/thread...iSELECTBOWIE+CD

The CD / selection itself though? Pretty good actually, some might want to get it before commenting (yes yes I've read more than enough comments about feelings of 'dirty hands' for buying 'M.O.S' over on the Bowie forum).

Today my favourites are Life On Mars (I used to get annoyed over that paper-y drum sound - noticed that on Suffragette City on Ziggy the other night too, and double beat on the second verse too...but it's a favourite for now, just beating Bewlay Brothers), Lady Grinning Soul (beautiful, love that sweeping ending), and Win.

Over to you then - pick up to 3, and comment please :)

My three are:

Sweet Thing/Candidate
Bewlay Brothers
Loving The Alien

I notice that all the CD tracks were apparantly selected by Bowie as his favourites. There's a couple that I don't recognise, but the three that I've mentioned are certainly amongst my favourites. If I were Bowie though, I would have included John I'm Only Dancing, Moonage Daydream, and I prefer Quicksand to Bewlay Brothers.

In this weekend's MOS, there was a Genesis CD. My folks who had bought the paper offered me the CD, but I politely declined.

A waste of plastic isn't it. :angry:

Not even recyclable. :angry: :finger:



re the less familiar Bowie tracks.

Time Will Crawl was on the largely hated 'Never Let Me Down' album, he's part re-recorded it to repair it (the track that is) apparently.

Some Are was a Low era outtake, think Eno was involved. Pretty good. :)

Life On Mars.
Hang On To Yourself.
Sweet Thing/Candidate/Sweet Thing/Sweet Thing/Candidate/Sweet Thing/Sweet Thing/Candidate/Sweet Thing/Sweet Thing/Candidate/Sweet Thing/Sweet Thing/Candidate/Sweet Thing...
Goes on a bit, though.

Yes it is.

Another use for CDs.

That's good to know.

In future I'll save up CD-R's that go wrong, and if I have the misfortune to ever accidentally get a Genesis freebie CD - I know where to send it.

I'm not a wasteful person so I'd rather give unwanted freebie's to a charity shop as someone might want it - but there are limits on what I'd want to inflict on people. :D

It's a shame record recycling is non-existant / in its infancy.

The 'best' I could find is this -

http://www.recyclethis.co.uk/20070416/how-...e-old-vinyl-45s

The thing is, it's *not* cheap to send a large load of scratchy, so crap they're no use to anyone records (from my record buying and selling days, these are the remainders of stuff I was literally given at boot fairs), even if artists will recycle them.

:(

That's not a bad song but ruined by crap 80s production - drum machines and cheesy synths & horns etc. Hopefully the new one will be better.

I vote Life On Mars as it's brilliant. Sweet Thing, Bewlay Brothers & Some Are are rather good as well. Also of note it the version of Hang On To Yourself from the superb Live At Santa Monica 72 which is thankfully re-released next week.

There's only one Bowie document worth having and which reveals the faker at the heart of the fraud and that be David Live. And brilliant it is too. How he revels in fakery because he suddenly admits it...four sides of someone suddenly realising who they are. And therefore frightening too. For him. And for us. Forget the Berlin period, the Ziggy nonsense and get yourself a copy of David Live (£5 in Fopp last time I looked.) As a live document it's on a par with Totale's Turns :o .

Hmm.

I was thinking about this sort of thing over the weekend - the old Bowie doesn't feel anything, puts it all on, doesn't sing from the heart blah blah blah...

that's as maybe. I felt, on listening to Pin Ups, of all things, that he emotes well, he 'feels' the idea or thing he's singing about, even if it (the thing he's singing about) is inanimate, or not something he feels strongly about personally. That was my vague thoughts on the matter.

All I know is, ultimately, while a lot of different artists capture my imagination - particularly so these days - it's Iggy/Lou/MES/Bowie I go back to. The Bowie albums of the 70's, even for their faults are still untouchable. The Beatles albums have more filler.

I often feel there are *very* few albums by *anyone* I'd feel happy to listen to in full - Bowie (along with the others I mention) has quite a few exceptions to that rule. :)

You're right about David Live tho, great album largely, particularly the latest edition (with Space Oddity, Panic In Detroit, Time and Here Today, Gone Tomorrow).

:)

Life On Mars? (my favourite Bowie single as Heroes was a bit butchered for the 45 release as far as I can remember)

Sweet Thing/Candidate/Sweet Thing (two fantastic songs for the price of one with one of the greatest segues ever)

Win (one of the very best songs from what could be my favourite Bowie album, most likely a minority opinion)

Some good songs on that CD, but I'm trying to imagine 'playing' it in my mind. It can't have much of a flow surely?

I think you have a point.

However as 'primers' / non greatest hit 'introductions to' go, it's very good, and shows the breadth of some of Bowie's work better than the 'Sound and Vision' Box set did/does. The remit for the first version of that release was just that - "to show the breadth of Bowie's work" went the patter. It did, but also included some album cuts that to me - and I'm sure to others too weren't that great, or at least not that great out of context (cf Let's Spend The Night Together, Fascination, Watch That Man from David Live etc...).

This does a lot better, in less time, for a lot less money.

:)

Couldn't agree more, I adore this 'track'.

"Stranger-In-A-Strange-Land", eh? ;)

Yes. I read back in the 80's he'd hoped to star in an adaptation of that, and ended up doing the Man Who Fell To Earth instead.

:)

Some Are is a low point in an otherwise excellent comp of his instrumentals - All Saints. I'm guessing he collaborated with Philip Glass on it, otherwise he owes Glass a pint or two.

I've only ever really liked Lodger, Low and (in its day) Let's Dance, so maybe I should mug someone coming out of a newsagent for this CD? Or don surgical gloves and actually buy the MOS, without getting my hands covered in blood, shit, bile and spleen?

No, no, no. You're talking about a different 'Some Are' -- which is, as you say, a Philip Glass piece.

The original 'Some Are' (which is presumably on this CD) is much shorter, dates from 1976/7 and is extremely haunting. You used to be able to get it as an extra track on the Rykodisc CD of Low, but I don't know if it's available now.

Ahh, OK thanks. (I always thought I knew a fair bit about music but Bowie has always been a gaping mainstream hole for some reason) Shit, looks like I'm going to have to get the M*** O* S***** after all - unless anyone can recommend a similar comp.

Sweet thing is a very good track.
Havent heard some are, but I do remember 'Warza-wa' (spelt correctly) from Low was very haunting, in fact I was surprised at the time that one whole side seemed to be instrumental/type thing.

sweet thing/candidate/sweet thing
win
teenage wildlife


sweet thing a great eerie take on shallow american culture,even better on david live

win because its wonderfully optimistic

teenage wildlife seems like a plodding going nowhere track until you realise-wow

looks alright, for sort of nowt, but nothing I would but the Mail for.

Check yer inbox. ;)

Available today - you can always throw the paper away (in the recycling).

For those who may be curious.

:)

I managed to get one of these from someone who buys the M*** On S***** - good job because I wouldn't have bought it myself.

Hang On to Yourself taken from Santa Monica sounds a bit punchier than the previous CD of this - look forward to getting it. Nice to have Some Are on disc.

The new mix/recording of Time Will Crawl is a significant improvement - it no longer sounds shit - with a much more punchier rhythmic mix, far more dynamic allowing the vocals greater distinction - these are pronounced very much at the beginning anchoring the melody. On the new version:

The guitars drive it along nicely - Mrs HTL whose not heard the original reckons it sounds a bit like Neil Young. I see what she means. Before it sounded more like Paul Young.

Proper drumkit - no more crappy 80s synth drums.

The synths have been lowered in the mix.

In the the new mix, I still don't like horns much - some of them have been mixed down at the beginning which makes them more tolerable on the whole. Unfortunately, Bowie didn't remove the unpleasant muso guitar solo which blighted the original but in this context it's a little more tolerable. The strings sound quite effective adding to the variation - can't hear them on the original so I think they're new.

Maybe he should have done the whole thing again and just used his original vocal track. Maybe he should have done a similar salvage operation on Loving the Alien as well.

Am currently basking in a 2-disc comp of the Ryko bonus tracks, thanks to a very benevolent forum member - with his permission I'd gladly pass it on - so no MOS ink/bile on my hands :)

At the risk of stating the obvious: it's all so wonderfully English, as English as the Beach Boys were American, without being at all twee.

Share them any way you want to. :applaud:

Life on Mars
Win
Loving the Alien

Life on Mars - when I was a little kid my eldest sister was a big Bowie fan and had Hunky Dory on incessantly when it came out. One of my earliest memories is being regularly spooked by the sinister piano chord change just before "but the fil was a frightening bore..."

Win - in top crooning mode. No surprise he was on the Bing Crosby show.

Loving the Alien - a very temporary return to form. A great song which also returned me to listening to him.

Is this MOS thing then re-recorded stuff, or what ?

No.

Only Time Will Crawl is (part) re-recorded.