Changesbowie (David Bowie, 1990)

Back when this was the only David Bowie disc I owned, Changesbowie served its purpose. Nowadays, except when I'm jonesing (no pun intended) for some post-Ziggy Stardust material, it is usually left as an afterthought, save for the inclusion of the non-album track "John, I'm Only Dancing". To this day I still haven't acquired a regular David Bowie album dated later than 1972. Back in college, however, this was all I had, so it served as a good introduction. Being a total novice, I didn't realize it was a replacement of two older compilations (Changesonebowie from 1976 and Changestwobowie from 1981) though a number of tracks were added or deleted and it is not strictly a direct lift of its predecessors. I think it was just enough to warrant not having to re-issue the old compilations directly during the Rykodisc catalog adoption.

Changesbowie on its own is a fairly standard-issue "greatest hits" package, including all the highlights from 1969's Space Oddity though Tonight (1984). Although it was a strong seller, particularly in the UK, coming out on the heels of the immensely successful Sound + Vision box set, it is pocked with a few glaring flaws. First off, like many of these compilations, the compilers felt the need to add a little "bait" to the tracklist to entice those already enriched with a lot of David Bowie albums. Unfortunately, the track is a remix of "Fame" (or, in its own right, "Fame '90"), a universally panned marring of a track that didn't need any modernization. In fact, by 1996 it was sheepishly removed and replaced with the original version. Secondly, it misses opportunities for "better" bait tracks. Certainly some of the pre-Space Oddity stuff might have found a seat at the table, or perhaps one of the numerous "non-album" songs. Thankfully, Bowie at the Beeb has helped in those areas immensely, even if they are not the originals. Finally, in an attempt to valiantly put everything on a single disc, some songs were shortened or removed. Therefore, "Heroes", "Let's Dance", "China Girl", and "Modern Love" are all the single versions, and the songs "Starman", "Life on Mars?", and "Sound and Vision" were omitted for the CD, but were part of the cassette and vinyl versions. Nice way to reward obsolete media, huh? Well, if anything positive can be said about removing the songs, it's that the first two messed up the otherwise chronological sequence.

Speaking of chronologies, I've been very slowly working my way through the studio albums in roughly chronological order, so the the so-called Ziggy Stardust barrier of 1972 is still in effect, but I've heard enough from YouTube and the radio of the later albums to know they are worthwhile, at least until we get to around Tonight, the beginning of a number of questionable career moves for Bowie. Of course, as the old saying goes, if you don't like the current Bowie album you're listening to, you will probably love the next one, and it seems that his most recent album has done a lot to repair some of that damage from the 1980's.

Space Oddity [Man of Words/Man of Music] (David Bowie, 1969)

First, a little program note. I'm calling this album Space Oddity even though the proper name is just David Bowie. However, to avoid confusion with the previous album of the same title, I'm sticking with the re-issue name (though not posting the re-issue cover). And, just to really mess with everybody, this album even sports a third title, Man of Words/Man of Music, which almost nobody uses anymore. Until 2009, pretty much everybody referred to the album as Space Oddity, which started with the re-issue version designed to capitalize on both the Ziggy Stardust era as well as the fact that the song of the same name was really his breakthrough hit. All was well and good until yet another re-issue reverted the name back to David Bowie. So, just to be absolutely clear, this is about the album featuring "Space Oddity", not the far more obscure self-titled album from the 1960's.

All right then! "Space Oddity" was one of those songs I had known for a long, long time, but I never bothered to check out the rest of the album until much more recently. By the time I got around to it, I was quite familiar with the album released the year after, The Man Who Sold the World, a much heavier album, and some live versions of these songs recorded for the BBC. Because of the runaway success of "Space Oddity", it may be tempting to think of this as Bowie's "space rock" era, but it's far more of a folk/country/singer-songwriter album, with a few nods to the "old" Bowie from the 1960's and a little foreshadowing of what was to come. Even a song like the brilliant "Cygnet Committee" is really only a spacey name for an elaborate, mostly-folk, multi-part song. Other than the title track, though, most of the songs are not standard classic rock radio fare. A lot of it could be fairly described as a more lucid Syd Barrett, an early idol of Bowie's. Songs like "Memories of a Free Festival" have an unmistakable "Hey Jude" vibe, and of course the Beatles were still very much a driving force in music in 1969.

As they say with Bowie, if you don't like the album you're currently listening to, you will certainly love the next one. While I couldn't bring myself to choose one over the other, the change of direction is obvious with The Man Who Sold the World, a heavier album that also gives the members of his band (an embryonic Spiders of Mars) more exposure and identity. But even that album would have it's own reaction in Hunky Dory, and within just a few years Bowie would leave it all behind to pursue blue-eyed soul and electronic music later in the decade.

The Man Who Sold the World (David Bowie, 1970)

Similar to what they say about so many things in life, if you don't like the David Bowie album you're listening to, you will probably love the next one. In the late 60's and early 70's (and even beyond that) it seemed like Bowie couldn't keep still. His early "mod" phase had morphed into a folk-rock sound by 1969, probably best represented by "Space Oddity" on the album titled variously Man of Words, Man of Music or David Bowie (not to be confused with the prior album of the same name) or Space Oddity. However, that album didn't enjoy widespread success until a bit later, so David Bowie brought in some heavier musicians and the result was the vastly different The Man Who Sold the World. Songs like "The Width of a Circle" and "The Supermen" that were once folk-influenced numbers were transformed into extended hard-rock mini-suites. Oddly, none of the tracks on the album enjoyed success as singles. In the end, Bowie once again elected to switch gears in 1971 with the lighter but more successful Hunky Dory, which ushered in the Ziggy Stardust era.

The album enjoyed a resurgence of popularity in the mid-1990's when Nirvana included the title track in their "Unplugged" show. Both the original version and the cover are good in their own ways and I would be hard-pressed to say who did it better. However, the real strength in The Man Who Sold the World is in the first four songs, not so much the title track.

I still don't have a lot of Bowie in my library and I would like to fix that, but I'm not in any particular hurry. Although I'm more partial to his earlier work, I've found something to like in each of his many eras. Hopefully I will revisit his music here soon.