David Bowie

David Bowie – Changesonebowie (1976/2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 46:45 minutes | 1,77 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Parlophone UK

Released in May 1976, Changesonebowie begins where Bowie the artist begins in the collective imagination: not with his 1964 debut single “Liza Jane,” but with his 1969 hit “Space Oddity.” Even in 1976, it was already a bona fide classic, but it was the odd man out when it originally appeared on the singer’s second (and second self-titled) album. David Bowie was a hippie, acoustic singer-songwriter album featuring song titles like “Memory of a Free Festival” and “Unwashed and Slightly Dazed.” Especially in the post-Ziggy Stardust “Starman” era, casual fans didn’t have much use for the flaxen-haired pseudo-Bob Dylan vibe of David Bowie. It was perceived as your standard “buy it for the hit” fare, so finally being able to pick up “Space Oddity” on a compilation was a treat. Today the inclusion of an unreleased track or two is mandatory for greatest hits packages, but that wasn’t always the case. For U.S. fans, Changesonebowie was their first chance to own “John, I’m Only Dancing” as anything other than an import. The track hadn’t appeared on an album previously, having only been released as a U.K. single back in ’72. (RCA refused to release the track upon its initial release due to its possibly homoerotic lyrics.) While the Beatles’ Hey Jude (which features tracks that hadn’t been compiled on studio albums), beat Changesone to the market by a good six years, this was still an unusual move for an artist of Bowie’s stature in 1976.

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David Bowie – Changesonebowie (1976/2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 46:44 minutes | 971 MB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Parlophone UK

Released in May 1976, Changesonebowie begins where Bowie the artist begins in the collective imagination: not with his 1964 debut single “Liza Jane,” but with his 1969 hit “Space Oddity.” Even in 1976, it was already a bona fide classic, but it was the odd man out when it originally appeared on the singer’s second (and second self-titled) album. David Bowie was a hippie, acoustic singer-songwriter album featuring song titles like “Memory of a Free Festival” and “Unwashed and Slightly Dazed.” Especially in the post-Ziggy Stardust “Starman” era, casual fans didn’t have much use for the flaxen-haired pseudo-Bob Dylan vibe of David Bowie. It was perceived as your standard “buy it for the hit” fare, so finally being able to pick up “Space Oddity” on a compilation was a treat. Today the inclusion of an unreleased track or two is mandatory for greatest hits packages, but that wasn’t always the case. For U.S. fans, Changesonebowie was their first chance to own “John, I’m Only Dancing” as anything other than an import. The track hadn’t appeared on an album previously, having only been released as a U.K. single back in ’72. (RCA refused to release the track upon its initial release due to its possibly homoerotic lyrics.) While the Beatles’ Hey Jude (which features tracks that hadn’t been compiled on studio albums), beat Changesone to the market by a good six years, this was still an unusual move for an artist of Bowie’s stature in 1976.

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David Bowie – Brilliant Adventure (1992 – 2001) (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 10:01:00 minutes | 7,32 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Parlophone UK

The fifth in a series of box sets that break down David Bowie’s discography into cohesively thematic eras, Brilliant Adventure (1992-2001) covers the most years of any of the sets to date: nearly a full decade, almost twice as long as the period chronicled on 2018’s Loving the Alien (1983-1988). Eagle-eyed observers will note that there’s a gap of four years separating the material on Loving the Alien and Brilliant Adventure: that would be when Bowie led Tin Machine, the noisy guitar outfit whose discography operates under a different contract than his solo work. That means Brilliant Adventure picks up with Black Tie White Noise, an artful blue-eyed soul excursion from 1993, then runs through The Buddha of Suburbia – an excellent, adventurous album that flew under the radar in 1993 – the 1995 Brian Eno reunion 1. Outside, 1997’s Earthling, and 1999’s Hours, adding an expanded version of the BBC concert from 2000 originally released as part of 2000’s Bowie at the Beeb, a three-disc collection of remixes, edits, and B-sides called ReCall 5 and Toy, an unreleased album from 2001. Heavily bootlegged over the years, Toy features Bowie revisiting a bunch of songs he wrote in the ’60s, most written and recorded prior to “Space Oddity.” Hearing Bowie apply Hours aesthetics to swinging, mod-ish material is odd but mildly appealing; it’s a slight record but it’s nice to have it as part of the official discography. The rest of the box follows a familiar and comforting pattern, confirming that the ’90s were a bit of a creative resurgence for Bowie. The pair of 1993 albums are complementary in their strengths, the period affectations of 1. Outside wind up giving the album complexity that Bowie further explores on Earthling. Given that stretch, it’s little wonder that he sounds a bit spent on Hours, but the BBC Live show is quite good and it’s fun to sort through the grab-bag of ReCall.

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David Bowie – Blackstar (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 41:17 minutes | 882 MB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Columbia

Blackstar (stylised as ★ ) is the twenty-sixth studio album by David Bowie. It was released on 8 January 2016, the date of Bowie’s 69th birthday, and features seven songs. The title track was released as a single on 20 November 2015 and was used as the opening music for the television series The Last Panthers. “Lazarus” was released on 17 December 2015 as a digital download and received its world premiere on BBC Radio 6 Music’s Steve Lamacq the same day.

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David Bowie – Aladdin Sane (2013 Remaster) (1973/2013)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 41:50 minutes | 1,61 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Parlophone UK

“Let’s call it Ziggy goes to America!”Bowie said half jokingly at the time. “The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars” made David Robert Jones a superstar in 1972. Away from Elvis, artrock and blues, to irresistibly decadent rock’n’roll with lipstick and sex. With “Aladdin Sane” he drives the party to the top in the following year.

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David Bowie – A New Career In A New Town (1977-1982) (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 05:50:08 minutes | 13,68 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Parlophone UK

This HighResaudio set features all of the material officially released by David Bowie between 1977 and 1982 including all four studio albums, his 1978 live album ‘STAGE’ in both original and expanded tracklistings, the newly compiled “HEROES” E.P., collecting together both the German and French long and single versions of “Heroes”, and the exclusive new compilation of single versions, non-album singles and B-sides, ‘RE:CALL 3’. Also included exclusively is a brand new remix of the 1979 album ‘LODGER’ by long time Bowie producer/collaborator Tony Visconti.

This description may differ from the content of the album. The track-list represents the complete content of the album.

Digitally remastered

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David Bowie – A New Career In A New Town: 1977-1982 (Expanded Edition 2017) (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 06:25:10 minutes | 8,17 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Parlophone UK

After Five Years (1969 – 1973) and Who Can I Be Now ? (1974 – 1976), to dive into the box set A New Career In A New Town (1977 – 1982), is to zoom in on David Bowie’s Berlin period. In 1977, Ziggy moored up in the German city, then disfigured by a wall. With Diamond Dogs in 1974 and in particular Young Americans the following year, soul and funk were suffused with a rock’n’roll sound. But this Bowie was to be eclipsed by a colder, more cerebral, experimental Bowie. Always ready to re-invent himself, to follow trends (when he wasn’t setting them himself…) and simply to question things, he flew to Berlin, where things were in motion. Alongside Brian Eno, formerly of Roxy Music, he wrote his famous Berlin trilogy, which opened with Low. On this bizarre record, everything begins with a weird baroque soul instrumental, with electronic textures (Speed of Light), then a balanced mix of songs and other instrumental tracks. Capable of delivering futurist soul (Sound And Vision), a sombre and mysterious symphony (Warszawa), new-wave minimalism that sounded like a Sci-Fi soundtrack (Art Decade) or disjointed, cubist rock (Breaking Glass), this was David Bowie revisiting his experiences with Krautrock from groups like Neu!, Can and Faust, playing with Kraftwerk’s machines but remaining himself: a genially insane savant still ahead of his time.

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David Bowie – Young Americans [2016 Remaster] (1975/2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 40:52 minutes | 1,53 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Rhino

Driven by an entirely deeper dynamic than most pop artists, David Bowie inhabits a very special world of extraordinary sounds and endless vision. Unwilling to stay on the treadmill of rock legend and avoiding the descent into ever demeaning and decreasing circles of cliché, Bowie writes and performs what he wants, when he wants. His absence from the endless list of “important events” has just fuelled interest. Constant speculation about what the guy was up to has even led some to wonder if this is his greatest reinvention ever.

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David Bowie – Shadow Man (Unplugged & Somewhat Slightly Electric Mix) (Single) (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 08:06 minutes | 157 MB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Parlophone Records

A fair few of you around the globe already basking in the light of the 7th of January are no doubt enjoying the latest streaming single release on ISO Records via Parlophone. It takes the form of the beautiful Shadow Man (Unplugged & Somewhat Slightly Electric Mix). This 2000 recording is coupled with Shadow Man (Early Version) recorded thirty years earlier in 1970, which is exclusive to this streaming single.
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David Bowie – Black Tie White Noise (1993/2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 56:40 minutes | 2,15 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Parlophone UK

Black Tie White Noise was the beginning of David Bowie’s return from the wilderness of post-Let’s Dance, the first indication that he was regaining his creative spark. To say as much suggests that it’s a bit of a lost classic, when it’s rather a sporadically intriguing transitional album, finding Bowie balancing the commercial dance-rock of Let’s Dance with artier inclinations from his Berlin period, all the while trying to draw on the past by working with former Spider from Mars guitarist Mick Ronson, collaborating with Let’s Dance producer Nile Rodgers, and even covering inspiration Scott Walker’s “Nite Flights.” On top of that, the record was inspired by his recent marriage to supermodel Iman – the record is bookended with “The Wedding” and “The Wedding Song” – and then tied up and presented as a sophisticated modern urban soul record, one that draws from uptown soul (including, rather bafflingly, a duet with Al B. Sure!) and state-of-the-art dance-club techno, while adding splashy touches like solos from avant jazz trumpeter Lester Bowie and a nod to modern alt-rock via a nifty cover of Morrissey’s “I Know It’s Gonna Happen Someday.” That’s a lot of stuff for one record to handle, so it shouldn’t come as a great surprise that the album doesn’t always work, but its stylish restlessness comes as a great relief, particularly when compared to the hermetically sealed previous solo Bowie record, 1987’s Never Let Me Down. Black Tie White Noise displays greater musical ambition than any record he’d made since Scary Monsters, and while much of the record feels like unrealized ideas, there are songs where it all gels, like on the paranoid jumble of “Jump They Say,” the aforementioned covers, the impassioned “You’ve Been Around,” and the self-consciously smooth title track. Moments like these are the first in a long time to feel classically Bowie, and they point ahead toward the more interesting records he made in the second half of the ’90s, but they are encased in a production that not only sounds dated years later, but sounded dated upon its release in the spring of 1993, two years into the thick of alternative rock. At that point, the club-centric, mainstream-courting Black Tie White Noise seemed as an anachronism during the guitar-heavy grunge-n-industrial glory days – something Bowie tacitly acknowledged with its 1995 successor, Outside, which was every bit as gloomy as a Nine Inch Nails record – but separated from the vagaries of fashion, it’s an interesting first step in Bowie’s creative revival.
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David Bowie – Hunky Dory (1971/2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 41:49 minutes | 1,48 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Parlophone UK

After the freakish hard rock of The Man Who Sold the World, David Bowie returned to singer/songwriter territory on Hunky Dory. Not only did the album boast more folky songs (“Song for Bob Dylan,” “The Bewlay Brothers”), but he again flirted with Anthony Newley-esque dancehall music (“Kooks,” “Fill Your Heart”), seemingly leaving heavy metal behind. As a result, Hunky Dory is a kaleidoscopic array of pop styles, tied together only by Bowie’s sense of vision: a sweeping, cinematic mélange of high and low art, ambiguous sexuality, kitsch, and class. Mick Ronson’s guitar is pushed to the back, leaving Rick Wakeman’s cabaret piano to dominate the sound of the album. The subdued support accentuates the depth of Bowie’s material, whether it’s the revamped Tin Pan Alley of “Changes,” the Neil Young homage “Quicksand,” the soaring “Life on Mars?,” the rolling, vaguely homosexual anthem “Oh! You Pretty Things,” or the dark acoustic rocker “Andy Warhol.” On the surface, such a wide range of styles and sounds would make an album incoherent, but Bowie’s improved songwriting and determined sense of style instead made Hunky Dory a touchstone for reinterpreting pop’s traditions into fresh, postmodern pop music. – Stephen Thomas Erlewine
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David Bowie – Toy (Toy:Box) (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:38:59 minutes | 3,47 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Parlophone UK

Published in November 2021, Brilliant Adventure zooms in on David Bowie’s 1992-2001 period. At the heart of this copious box set of more than 130 tracks is Toy, an unreleased opus recorded in New York between July and October 2000, on which the Thin White Duke revisits his songs from his mod beginnings, in the sixties (when he was acting as Davy Jones and the Lower Third and Davie Jones with the King Bees), and that he dresses with the sound of his time. Rereadings of pre-fame compositions that Bowie designed mainly with Earl Slick on guitar, Gail Ann Dorsey on bass, Mike Garson on keyboards and Sterling Campbell on drums. In addition to the original album, this Toy Box offers two additional discs of the same repertoire with alternative versions and acoustic versions. Hardcore fans of the star who would have turned 75 the day after the release of this box set will appreciate this umpteenth sleight of hand of their idol in the form of time travel
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David Bowie – David Bowie: Live in Chile 1990 (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:36:38 minutes | 649 MB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Maison Blanche

One of a few big names to come to Santiago for Rock in Chile (Bryan Adams, Eric Clapton, and Mick Taylor being the others), most of David Bowie’s setlist from the first evening was broadcast on national television – although with a slightly dodgy mix, and a VHS tape that hadn’t been stored in the best conditions for seventeen years after the show. Good setlist, and you get to see plenty of Bowie being a theatrical and magnetising performer.

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