Freak out in a...no, hold on, don"t freak out, it's just good ol' Davey Jones!

I would have thought that his untimely death in 2016 would've cemented David Bowie as one of the all-time greats, but it seems that opinions may still vary quite a bit. Some still see him only as the red-haired make-up wearing glam rock king of the Ziggy years, others remember him with shudders from his beach-blond Let's Dance period. Both are of course surrounded by other Bowie avatars - The Thin White Duke, the Ashes to Ashes harlequin etc. What is undeniable is that Bowie was more than just Ziggy, more than the Top of the Pops star. Bowie did vaudeville, British invasion r'n'b, folk and folk rock, hard rock, glam rock, Philly soul, art rock, mainstream pop, hard rock again, dance pop, art rock again, jungle & drum'n'bass, retro rock and finally a jazz-inspired record. That's an impressive list of musical exploration, whichever way you slice it. Sure, Bowie had times where he was chasing after the bus, rather than driving it. But I would say it's still fair to have him at at least 50% trendsetter, 50% trendhopper. His interest in whatever music caught his fancy at any given time could see him zig where people wanted him to zag, apart from an unfortunate period in the 80s. And hey, even from that time there are things to salvage (in later posts here at One Buck Records).   

I haven't seen Moonage Daydream, the archival documentary directed by Brett Morgen, though I've picked up the movie in the local library, just waiting to be watched whenever I find the time. But the soundtrack to the project caught my eye, mainly because besides a bevy of live music there was a bunch of music presented in alternative and remixed form, some of it featuring gentle mash ups of several compositions. A lot of the more exotic tracks however, were essentially snippets, sometimes only a couple of seconds long. From there was born the idea of a single long track, a sort of megamix that would reunite the most interesting moments of this project. A lot of the music here is from the mid- to late 70s, so if you enjoy Bowie's "Berlin period", then you will probably find lots to like in it. I know I did. It was a lot of fun to revisit these songs with a twist. I hope the same will be true for you. And you might thus not even notice that the song that gave the film its title is missing from the line up! So, there's no freaking out here, but maybe something else...bliss out in a moonage daydream, oh yeah!