Mixtape Mania Returns! Bowie's Back! In A Ton Of Different Languages!

And the enunciations continue! Stop the press! Hot from the mixing desk! That's Right! Can't Stop Won't Stop!

O.k., enough of this nonsense. But yeah, holiday pastime Bowie mixing is back. It might not have seemed that way, because I spread out my little Bowie mixtapes/megamixes over a year and a half of One Buck Records time, but these were all done in summer 2023, along with the 2.Downtown continuation of the Nathan Adler diaries. And by the end of the summer, I was very well mixed out and Bowie'd out, so I bowed out of Bowie mixing endeavors for a good long while.  But while sorting through my music folders a month or so ago, I realized that at the time I had put a bunch of songs aside for two further mixes, including one with a thematic hook that I really wanted to do. 

And wouldn't you know it, it's the first week of holidays for me, so I could get to work right away, and Bowie mixtape no. 5, fresh from OBG's mixing desk, is here. And if the name of the mix, Babel, hasn't tipped you off yet - it's the first one with a clearly defined theme: Bowie has dabbled, for most of his career, in recording in different languages to cater to his fans worldwide. No one can accuse Bowie of not being a cunning linguist...   

Sometimes he cut a foreign language version because he loved the coutry or the language, as in his two Indonesian-language songs, and sometimes as a career move, such as trying to catch the attention of German schlager listeners in 1967 with a 'German version' (basically one German verse followed by most of the song in English) of "Love You 'Till Tuesday". The same idea is essentially true for the Italian adaptation of "Space Odyssey". Bowie was told that Italians wouldn't get the whole spaceship astronaut thing, so the song was turned into "Ragazzo Solo, Ragazza Sola" - lonely boy, lonely girl. How do you say 'lost in translation' in Italian? 

Some of these tracks went nowhere, such as a barely released Spanish version of "Day-In, Day-Out", others were little gifts to fans, such as the Japanese version of "Girls" as Bowie's habitual bonus track for the Japanese album version of Never Let Me Down, or the French and German adaptations of "Heroes" on those countries' versions of the album of the same name. I also went back to his Berlin trilogy for the Turkish-flavored parts of "Yassassin" and the wordless vaguely Eastern-inspired wailing of"Warszawa", as well as the African rhythms of "African Night Flight" and a snatch of Japanese from "It's No Game". The atmosphere of "Abdulmajid" seemed to fit, so that instrumental track got mixed in as well. This is not supposed to be an 'all non-English music of Bowie, ever' thing, but pretty much everything of significance that isn't English should be here. 

Here's the tally of Bowie's Babel: 2x German, 2x Italian, 2x Indonesian, 1x Spanish, 1x French, 1x Mandarin, plus the above mentioned bits and bops, for the usual 30 minutes of Bowie. 

Bowie the chameleon is one of those easy catchphrases for the genre-hopping artist, but he is also - and definitely -  a chameleon in terms of dealing with these foreign languages. I obviously can't speak for how well he pulls off Indonesian, Japanse and Mandarin, but the Spanish sounds okay. He clearly doesn't speak German and manages with phonetics, while Italian seems to come naturally to him. His accent in French is pretty atrocious, though. But these versions are often more than pure gimmicks, and seem to have been important for Bowie, at one stage or another of his career. Now they can all be enjoyed in one easily digestable 30 minute package which I hope you will enjoy. In any language. 

The David Bowie Alt Album Super Duper Extra Bonus Package

Going along with the second volume of the We've Got You Covered series for all you Bowie-lovers out there and also because I realized some rummaging in Mr. Bowie's back catalogue, especially the Young Americans and 1. Outside alts, here's the simple package reupload deal for, I suppose, all those new visitors from Brazil (Olà!) and Vietnam (Xin chào!)...I don't know how y'all got here, but welcome! Now you just have to simply ask for a link instead of just going through the backlog in vain! 

Anyway, uncle OBG's got you, so here are in one tidy package all alt albums of Bowie that I've done: The OBG version of Never Let Me Down, 1. Outside sequel/side-quel  2.Downtown, and the whole plastic soul extravaganza of Young Americans - The Complete Edition and Shilling The Rubes. This summer I might get back into some Bowie work to go along with these, but to visitors, old and new, here's the Bowie megapackage if any of you need it...or want it...as usual there's tons of info in the accompanying write-ups. 

Update: Heureka! Some have (or one has?) seen how easy it is to ask for a link. Thanks, "unknown"! (Next step: sign with an nickname...any nickname). So, the Byrds alt album mega pack, this one, is now re-upped, as are the two Beach Boys alt albums and Alice Coper's Ruckus At The Movies. That should keep some of y'all occupied...

If you want more cool Bowie covers...well, we've got you covered...

Round two in our round-up of cool Bowie covers, and there's quite a number of 'em. Now, I wouldn't have bet that one of them would come from Dead Or Alive, who I only know as a slightly ridiculous-looking one hit-wonder with "You Spin Me 'Round (Lie A Record)". Then again, I wouldn't have figured that Culture Club would bring one of the highlights of Volume One in this We've Got You Covered series. The other unexpected and 80s-related joker in the pack is Midge Ure's cover of "Lady Stardust". 

The love of Brian Molko for Bowie (and Bowie's embracing of the band) are well-documented, his acoustic cover of "Five Years", done for French television, is still a really nice tribute. As for a less obvious fan, I wouldn't have figured Seal for a Bowie-fan, but his lovely unplugged take on "Quicksand", one of the lesser known Bowie classics, is a personal highlight of this set. Speaking of underrated songs that rarely get covered: Native American rock'n'rolller Stevie Salas covers Diamond Dogs-era obscurity "Dodo". "Little Wonder", from Bowie's little-loved Earthling drum'n'bass album is also a little on the obscure side, Run Toto Run's cover is a lovely, decidedly less noisy reading of the tune. "In The Heat Of The Morning" is one of Bowie's realatively unknown numbers from the pre-stardom Decca era and gets a fabulous reading from The Last Shadow Puppets. Another lost gem from that same era is "The Gospel According To Tony Day", covered exquisitely here by Edwyn Collins. 

The other possibility is of course to take a known number, but give it an unusual new coat of paint. That happens when bluegrass combo Cornbread Red cover "Under Pressure", while also unwittingly launching me down the Pickin' On...rabbithole. Unusual is also the word for the cover of "Ziggy Stardust", not so much because it's an acoustic unplugged version, but because it's done by the decidedly un-acoustic Def Leppard in the middle of a rowdy pub audience! And also unusual: Choir!Choir!Choir! and David Byrne, helped out by a ton of bystanders, making a huge sing-alone cover of "Heroes"! Covers from, among others, Fury In The Slaughterhouse and Hugh Coltman, are close to the originals and more workman-like, but still very fine additions to the series, bringing in some as-of-yet not covered songs to this second volume. 

And that's it. Eighteen high quality covers covering the spectrum of Bowie's music. Nothing more, nothing less. Yup, we've got you well covered again, David.  

Edit: I mislabeled an artist on the comp. It's Cornbread Red, not Iron Horse who cover "Under Pressure". I've changed the tagging in the new donloadable version. 

A trip through the golden years of Mr. David Bowie...

So, time to wrap up my "What I did during my summer holidays", here meaning summer holidays 2023, which was mainly spent fidgeting around with bits and pieces of David Bowie, almost literally. I did the first three David Bowie mixtapes, which worked for some, and didn't for others, and I pieced together lots of bits and pieces to make the alternate album/imagined sequel 2. Downtown. So, this is the fourth and last of the mixtapes, entitled Golden Years because I specifically wanted to make a mixtape that covers his commercial heydays of the early to mid-80s. 

Bowie's pop star work from 1982 to 1987 is often considered a huge misstep, with Bowie selling out to sell records again and going for the lowest common denominator. Which, to be fair, is true. Let's Dance, from hiring Nile Rodgers as producer and musical director to the song material and arrangements chosen was specifically designed to bring Bowie in the charts again, and it did so, and then some. Tonight was a lazy follow-up with minimal songwriting from Bowie, and Never Let Me Down, which I will still stan for and did an alternate album of, was let down my awful production and some weak songs, though it's better than general opinion has it. But, yeah, it's a difficult period to love unconditionally, only bested by the folowing Tin Machine-era for least loved Bowie. 

But not all was bad, and maybe Golden Years will remind you of that. Or not, but it'll valiantly try. As usual, the idea was to not use the original hit versions, but use lesser known versions of the songs, so you'll get, among other things, live versions of "Heroes", "Fame" and "China Girl", the TOKiMONSTA remix of "Golden Years", the dub mix of "Absolute Beginners", the vocal dance mix of "Tonight" and another snatch of the Moonage Daydream version of "Modern Love", all of course in longer or shorter snippets, as per usual. And there are a couple of other little surprises, which I will let you discover for yourself, if you feel so inclined. 

Golden Years lets the blond-dyed David Bowie of the 80's (and a bit of the 70s and 90s) back in your life, if only for a short while (literally, as this is the shortest of the four mixes). So, let him in, and see if you can't swing a little bit with the thin white duke platin-blonde popster...

We've Got You Covered, Ziggy...uh, I mean...David

In the beginning, the We've Got You Covered series existed solely as a vehicle for Gene Clark covers. Then I opened up the series to Little Feat (with a little help of some friendly neighbourhood bloggers), and recently I figured that we definitely need some new blood in the series. And who has not only a huge back catalogue of great songs, but also songs in a variety of styles and songs that could invite artists that cover them to try and do something interesting with them? That's right, it's Ziggy The Thin White Duke Mr. David Jones. Bowie, whether you like him or not,  had one of the most adventurous discographies out there, and the possibilities for over artists are varied. Sure, you can fill whole albums alone with the most popular picks like "Life On Mars?" and "Space Oddity", but obviously in these and the following editions of We've Got You Covered: David Bowie we also hope to dig into some lesser known songs of the Bowie back catalogue. 

Some of the versions in this series are from dedicated tribute samplers, others from b-sides, various artist comps, album deep cuts or live in studio performances. Ian McCullough's and Sharleeen Spiteri's take on "Changes" is exclusive to this comp, as is the "Intro" track by the David Bowie Tour Band (featuring Gail Ann Dorsey who will pop up in later editions). which was the intro to their tribute to Bowie at the Brit Awards in 2016. 

Gail Ann and her perfect haircut

It's interesting how many new wave and new romantics acts declared allegiance with Bowie, possibly as a direct reaction to punk's rejection of him. The often maligned Culture Club deliver a fantastic, moody version of "Starman", while Duran Duran consider the ramifications of "Fame". Frankie Goes To Hollywodd take a trip to "Sufragette City" and Tears For Fears - even if it's the early-90s, Roland Orzabal-only version of the band - chime in with a really nice version of "Ashes To Ashes". 

Sure, there's some traditional-sounding covers here, not least from Bowie's backing band, the Spiders From Mars, but of course the more adventurous versions are what really make these series interesting. The Moonshiners' reggae take on "Modern Love" certainly qualifies, as does the theatrical take on "Life On Mars?" courtesy of the unlikely combination between The Divine Comedy and France's Yann Thiersen. There is also Beck's idiosyncratic re-imagining of "Sound And Vision" (presented here in a special edit) and Iva Davies & Icehouse's absolutely magnificent, slowed-down version of "Heroes", conceived for a ballet performance. Like Tears For Fears, Icehouse in the mid-90s were at that time basically only frontman Iva Davies, plus whichever sidemen he would work with, but they had a special knack for Bowie covers, as we will see a little bit later on.

Mr. Jones and Mr. Davies....perfect haircuts 2

And then, at the end, we let the weirdness take over completely: First there's American wild card group The Gourds (already familiar to long-standing One Buck Heads for their unique take on Snoop Dog's "Gin and Juice"), whose take on "Ziggy stardust" can best be described as, uh, Calypso Bluegrass?! And then we end things with those bona fide weirdos The Flaming Lips and their cosmic take on "Space Oddity". Oddities, indeed. 

To start things off I did include the heavy hitters of Bowie's backlog in this first volume, but future editions will include some lesser known numbers. In the meantime, there's lots of fun to dig into. So dig! 

Mr. Jones, care for another round in the old mixtape business?

And of course, Mr. David Jones is not the one to deny such an opportunity. And why would he? (Also, he's dead and I don't know him personally, but that's beside the point). So, part three of my "What I did during my summer vacation 2023" series, which was pretty much all Bowie all the time. The first two Bowie mixtapes you can find here and here, and - oh boy - is it really more than nine months since the last one? There's one more after today's edition, and the last part of my Bowie-related summer holiday mixing sessions was the never esisting sequel to art pop extravaganza 1. Outside, dashingly titled 2. Downtown. But yeah, enough with the chit chat, off to business. 

At the heart of Where Are We Now? was the idea to marry Buddha of Suburbia's outstanding (almost) instrumental "The Mysteries" to his vocals from late period masterpiece "Where Are We Now". From there I expanded to the usual 30 minutes, and as before I prioritized numbers from the Moonage Daydream movie as well as unusual versions of remixes to the original versions, so that even hardened Bowie fans would have things to discover or re-discover during this. So, "Shopping For Girls", one of the few successful Tim Machine numbers, is here in the attractive, acoustic, slide guitar-based arrangement Bowie used for his 50th birthday, "Panic In Detroit" is the remake he cut in 1979 and "Seven" is here in its demo version rather than the album or single cut.  

The original idea was to focus on his artier songs, but I quickly changed course, making place for fan faves like "Life On Mars?"and "Changes" and ravers "Holy Holy", fearing that otherwise the mix would become somewhat of a slog to get through. Now we not only have a solidly entertaining thirty minute trip through Bowie's career, but also something that has enough dynamism and variety to hold up to repeat listens. It also makes use of Bowie's own adventurism: Around the half-time mark we have a mash up that Bowie himself commissioned in the mid-2000s when these first became popular, "Rebel Never Gets Old". And finally, I decided to build the last third around Bowie's and Reeves Gabrels' pre-Tin Machine re-imagining of "Look Back In Anger", an impressive (if divisive among fans) track. And, ironically, Where Are We Now? has way more "Moonage Daydream" than Moonage Daydream! 

Listening back to this at least a year after last listening to it, I was pleasantly surprised. I think this runs really well and I hope you'll agree...

Ain't it grand time to shill the rubes, David !?

And the David Bowie plastic soul extravaganza continues here at One Buck Records, as here is part two of the David Bowie Young Americans project. And like said in the piece on Young Americans - The Complete Edition, today's One Buck Record is an alternate version of Young Americans, one which does include two of the most famous outtakes from the period: "The Gouster" - which gave Bowie's first configuration of the album its name and a famed outtake that for years was simply a song title with no assurance that the rumored title and song actually existed. This is even more true of "Shilling The Rubes", which for years was only known as a rumored title of the album, but no leaked track that would prove its existence. And yet, "Shilling The Rubes" does indeed exist and is giving this alternate album its title. It is, however, much less polished than many of its brethren from the Sigma sessions, and in order to make it a satisfying track, some surgery had to be performed. "Shilling The Rubes" is clearly a demo that has a guide vocal by the man himself, and at one point he hasn't finished the lyrics yet, and is simply doo-doo-dooing over the melody. That section has been removed, as has been the studio chatter during the last seconds of the music. Now, "Shilling The Rubes" sounds more than ever like a finished song, warts and all. However, the songwriting and production style of "The Gouster" and "Shilling The Rubes" is quite different from the final Young Americans album, so they wouldn't have been a good fit for The Complete Edition.

The third track not on Young Americans - The Complete Edition is Bowie's cover of Springsteen's "It's Hard To Be A Saint In The City". While the other two were left for the above reasons, I didn't include "Saint" because there are - even among Bowie experts - some discussions about its exact provinence. Bowie clearly worked on a version of the song at Sigma, but the two releases it was on list it as a Station To Station outtake, so possibly another version was cut at Cherokee studios, but - as Nicholas Pegg argues - the finished track has a number of Young Americans hallmarks, so most likely the available version is indeed from Sigma studios with possible later overdubs for Station To Station before being re-abandoned again. 

As for the rest of the songs from the album, all of them are alternative versions or mixes. "Young Americans" is presented by what is called The 'Gouster version', though the differences are relatively minimal. The 'Gouster version' of "Right" is quite different though, with some more pronounced guitar work, less emphasis on the sax and the backing choir and a different Bowie vocal in which he doesn't try as hard to be a seductive soul singer. 

"Across The Universe" is presented in a stripped-down mix that takes off most of the instruments to focus on Bowie's admittedly stellar vocals (and Lennon's backing vocals). "I hammered the hell out of it" said the man without a trace of false modesty. "Someone Up There Likes Me" is an unfinished mix that sounds a little sprightlier than the finished version, though I edited down the endless vamp section at the end. Interesting for a different reason is the alternative versions of "Win", which was essentially due to an accident: When prepping the first CD edition of Young Americans, the original 1974 mixes were accidentally swapped out for these 'alternative echo-heavy mixes'. The Ryko Disc remaster from 1991 rectified that error and issued the album in its original form.

The "Young Americans (Reprise)" track was created from an early version of the song with an entirely different, slower but more funk-inspired rhythm. Problem being: That track exists (in public) only as a one-minute snippet, so I did some editing with a bit from the original to turn it into its final form...

So, out of all these disparate ingredients I tried to create a new, fresh look at Young Americans. I think I succeeded, but then again, maybe it is I who is just shilling the rubes... 

Mr. Bowie and his entire plastic soul extravaganza...

It's been a good long while since I posted something involving Mr. David Jones. And last time I did, I previewed doing something with Young Americans, Bowie's soul-inspired interlude in between roughly the Ziggy Stardust and Thin White Duke/Berlin-Trilogy eras. Which is already quite descriptive of Young Americans. Unlike all the projects surrounding it, Young Americans didn't have a big fancy concept or conceipt behind it, it was quote unquote just an album of songs. Which is fine, obviously, though for some Young Americans could never quite shake its reputation as a transitional album, made by an uncertain artist. Which, technically is probably true, but that doesn't lessen the modest pleasures of Young Americans. Not to mention it did what was its unofficial goal: establish Bowie completely in the American market. Before this album Bowie had essentially been a curio, that weird Brit who could place a song or two in the charts and of course had a devoted fan following during the Ziggy years, but hadn't really made much inroads on being a household name or being a constant charts presence. Young Americans changed that.   

Modest pleasures you heard me say? Yes, I wouldn't rate Young Americans as a top Bowie album, and it's not among my favorites, though last time we talked about Bowie one user had it as theirs. But it is a pretty nice diversion - the fact that there isn't some sort of fancy sci-fi or arthouse concept attached might actually work in its favor for some. It's an album purely for pleasure - fitting, since Bowie is trying his hands on Philly Soul, albeit at a typically distanced fashion, thus the term 'plastic soul' he coined himself, pointing out the ersatz nature of the exercise and the fact that a "white limey" (in his own word) was singing soul music, or, rather, some kind of mutated, Bowie-fied version of soul music. 

What changed the trajectory of Young Americans quite a bit was the belated and unexpected presence of one John Winston Lennon. Writing and recording of most tracks had been completed in Philly's fame Sigma studios during two hectic (and cocaine-filled) weeks in August 1974, then in late December Bowie and his crew wrapped up "Win" and "Fascination" at New Tork's Record Plant and the album seemed to be set, with Bowie and Toni Visconti starting to mix the recordings. Lennon was also at the Record Plant, putting the finishing touches on his all-covers album "Rock'n'Roll". The two Brits, who had begun socializing  a year before, went into a one-day recording session at Electric Ladyland to ostensibly record a cover of "Footstompin'", an old doo-wop number that Bowie had already played in concert and where guitar slinger Carlos alomar had developed the beginning of the riff that would turn into "Fame". Rightfully thinking that the riff was too good for a mere cover, Bowie and Lennon wrote and recorded "Fame" on the spot and then - possibly slightly overegging the pudding - Bowie's take on "Across The Universe". 

Bowie called Visconti, who had returned to London the morning of the recording session, somewhat apologetic - both for Visconti missing out on working with Lennon and for the fact that the inclusion of the two new cuts would mean that other completed songs for the album would have to be dropped. This is entirely in the eye of the beholder, but I think he dropped the ball on this one and the wrong tracks from the album. "Who Can I Be Now" and "It's Gonna Be Me" were both taken off the album at the last minute to make space for the Lennon collaborations. Visconti sounded non-plussed about the decision: "Beautiful songs and it made me sick when he decided not to use them". 

On one hand you can argue that the driving "Fame" and his take on "Across The Universe" bring some much needed muscle to an album that otherwise floats by on sometimes interchangeable midtempo grooves. On the other, the two dropped songs were clear highlights of the sessions and I would've rather dropped "Win" and "Right" (or maybe "Can You Hear Me"). Another solution to this conundrum didn't really exist for Bowie in 1975, but it does today here on One Buck Records: Just make the damn thing a double album! Which is of course what Young Americans - The Complete Edition is, a look at how Young Americans would sound like if, instead of replacing those two songs he adds the Lennon-tracks and then rescues his soul-reworking of "John, I'm Only Dancing". That song was clearly dear to him, turning up as the opening track on early mock-ups of the album. When the album was initially dubbed The Gouster in September, it was the opening track, and even in December - when Bowie wanted to call the album Fascination after the then just finished track - it was still in that spot. But it got mercilessly axed, like those two great soul ballads. Throw in "After Today", a disco-soul excursion with Bowie in falsetto mode, and you've got yourself a solid double vinyl album. 

Twelve tracks, spread across four sides at three tracks each, with every side coming in at a little more than 15 minutes - this could have totally worked, even if at aroung 62 minutes it would have been on the shorter side of double albums. Well, it'll be for you to judge what you make of Bowie's plastic soul extravaganza - now longer and better than ever. 

But that isn't all, dear non-paying customer! Young Americans - The Complete Edition is part of a two-tier project. Be back in two days' time for Shilling The Rubes, an alternate album version of Young Americans featuring a different set of outtakes and different versions of the album's songs...

David Bowie's Art-Crime Epic: The Sequel That Never Was! Let's Go 2. Downtown

David Bowie doesn't do small. Big plans, big gestures, big everything. So, when he decided to work with Brian Eno again and cut an arty album inspired by his 'Berlin trilogy' in 1994 (after a return to ambinet textures in his excellent The Buddha Of Suburbia quasi-soundtrack album), he gathered musical partners from all kinds of eras, including Reeves Gabrels, Mick Garson and Erdal Kizilcay and got going. Encouraged by Eno's Oblique Techniques with signs giving instructions such as “Your are the last survivor of a catastrophic event and you will endeavour to play in such a way as to prevent feelings of loneliness developing within yourself”, Bowie and the band convened in Mountain Studios in Montreux and put hours and hours of material on tape.

Additional recordings to make the upcoming record more conventional saw Bowie add a couple of numbers to what was to become 1. Outside, the first in a proposed series of connected albums, detailling the story of private eye Nathan Adler and his investigations into an art-crime involving mutilation, cybernetics and what have you. The story itself was rudimentary and never made much sense, but it also was never the point in the slightest. As usual, Bowie used a concept as a launching pad, then cheerfully ignored questions of continuity or coherence. The essay included in 1. Outside probably explained the story better than the music did, and even then the whole thing was fragmentary at best. Bowie's original plan was to bring out the Leon/Outside material in yearly album installments, bringing him all the way up to the new millenium. Like we said: big plans, big gestures, big everything...

Alas. 1. Outside was the first episode of the on-going adventures of Nathan Adler in Oxford Town that unfortunately never were on-going and stopped after that very first episode. Admittedly, the whole an-album-a-year-plan was wishful thinking and never feasible, not in the classic distribution model of 1990s record companies. And Bowie of course never was in this thing for the long run, having been inspired by some of the 1995 material to dig deeper into jungle and drum'n'bass music, leading to 1997's Earthling, then zig-zagged to a relatively classic retro sound for 1999's hours. Forgotten in all this, or almost, were the further adventures of Nathan Adler, his suspects Leon Blank and Ramona A. Stone, and other unsavory characters populating Oxford Town. In 2002 Bowie returned to the Montreux material and started to prep it, hoping to turn it into a belated follow-up tentatively titled 2. Contamination.

As with so many other interesting projects, and especially from this time period (see: the unreleased Toy album), 2. Contamination never came to be, and the rest of the Montreux material stayed in whatever vault it was put. Then, after a 2003 leak of material called 'The Leon Tape' gave some fascinating insight into some of the wayward material and extremely odd nature of most of the Montreux sessions' music, something confirmed by the 2015 leak of The Leon Suites, three suites that were mixed as proof of concept for record companies when Bowie & Co. were looking in vain for a record deal for the original, almost entirely abstract project. Truthfully, it's no wonder that no record company wanted to touch what Bowie proposed without making substantial changes. The Leon Suites are completely uncompromising, extremely fragmentary and fragmented, often more talked than sung by Bowie in one of his often extremely theatrical character voices, with musical sections often only a minute or two long. But it also included a number of beautiful moments that deserved to be heard, preferrably in a slightly less abrasive setting. Which is where this alternative album comes in.

So, this isn't 2. Contamination, because no one knows what that woud have looked and sounded like. Technically, this album didn't even start as an 1. Outside-related project. The idea to do it came when I listened to hours b-sides “We Shall Go To Town” and “No One Calls”, a couple of cold, arty, angsty numbers that seem to have nothing in common with the rest of the nostalgic glow of hours, thus, the relegation to b-side status. They did, however, inevitably bring to mind the art-song atmosphere of 1. Outside. This got me thinking. What if Bowie doesnt bring these songs out as little-to-not-heard b-sides in 1999, but uses them to kickstart a sequel to 1. Outside, integrating them into some of the Montreux material to finally offer a follow-up to Nathan Adler's adventures?

2. Downtown is a follow-up/partner album to 1. Outside that has two goals: Continue, or at least expand, as well as possible, the story, while integrating some of the best unissued material from The Leon Suites, genuinely beautiful stuff like the track I titled “Chrome Foretold”, or “We'll Creep Together”. The middle of the first album side (so to speak) is designed as the arrest (“Round Up The Usual Suspect”) and interrogation of Leon (“Something Really Fishy”) who proclaims his innocence (via an alternative mix of “I Have Not Been To Oxford Town”, the only number also on 1. Outside), before turning its attention to suspect Ramona A. Stone and her vision of things.

The rest of the album further follows Adler down various rabbit holes, drops in on murderer/artist The Minotaur (“Into The Labyrinth”), then mirrors its predecessor by mimicking it: 1. Outside concluded its opressive, atonal and arty drama with a pure slice of pop, as Bowie somewhat inexplicably chose to re-record Buddha Of Suburbia's “Strangers When We Meet” as the closing number. 2. Downtown does a comparable gambit, using Bowie's 1. Outside b-side “Get Real” (a pop number certainly cut with the more conventional numbers in spring 1995 in New York) as its pop song closer, with Nathan Adler (possibly?) urging people to step out of cyberspace and 'get real'. But careful, the Minotaur is still lurking somewhere out there...

Listeners will also hear a familiar refrain, literally. I decided to use the ultra-catchy “Toll the bells, hail the private eye / All's well, the Twentieth Century dies” from “I Have Not Been To Oxford Town” as a leitmotiv throughout the album, incorporating it into a couple of numbers, as a kind of theme song for Nathan Adler going through his investigation.

So, 2. Downtown. This is, even if I focused on the bits that are more linear and melodic, still arty and not an easy “let it run in the background” kind of listen. It really demands your attention, while still being way more listenable than The Leon Suites. It also is proof for those who gave up on him during the mid-to-late 80s that he still had some of that arthouse juice that fueled the 'Berlin Trilogy' and Scary Monsters. (Also, if you haven't yet, check out my alt album version of Never Let Me Down which, if nothing else, beats the tar out of the released version.)

I'll let Nathan Adler take it from here...

From Davey Jones' Locker: More Sounds, More Visions

When I finished the first of my David Bowie mixtapes (see September 2023), based on the alternative mixes from the Moonage Daydream film, I was generally happy with the results, but there was definitely room for improvement. It was, in many ways, a test run. And a test run includes oversights. Cleaning up the mess (closing and filing all tracks used and in the running for the mix) I realized that I hadn't used one track I really liked: the Moonage Daydream mix of "The Mysteries" (complete with a snatch of "Absolute Beginners"), which I felt was perfect as a sort of overture for a mix. This could mean only one thing: sequel!

So here is the second David Bowie mixtape, and my personal favorite. one justifiable criticism of the first mix was the length of the songs used, which didn't work for some readers. Some of this was down to the length of the original song pieces (some more snippets than songs), but I aligned behind that type of length on that mix. This new mix, Sounds And Visions, has, I feel, a bit more breathing room. It's definitely a more relaxed, and maybe more relaxing, listen. Songs generally run a little longer, some to full length or almost, and there's a more balanced feel to this one. Some song bits are still relatively short, on purpose, in a "hey, remember this cool song?" vibe. And, like the first mix, the emphasis was on hearing Bowie not quite like you and I know and love him, so I heavily leaned on alternative versions (like the acoustic version of "The Man Who Sold The World" he cut for his 50th birthday special), a live cut ("Sons Of The Silent Age, featuring Peter Frampton on co-lead vocals), a mash-up ("Rebel Never Gets Old", commissioned and released by the man himself), a demo ("Let's Dance"), deep cuts and remixes to give this a slightly different feel once again. Cover art borrowed from a gentleman named Ahmad Nusyirwan. 

So yeah, overall I'm quite proud of Sounds And Visions which came out like I wanted it to. Tell me what you think in the comments, will ya? 

Without further ado, here's Bowie and his Sounds And Visions.  

The Folly of King David: Reworking Bowie's Never Let Me Down

Never Let Me Down has the reputation of being the worst of all David Bowie albums. No one has a good word for it. When the Loving The Alien boxset covering most of Bowie's 80s output came out in 2018, many fans used their reviews to again point out their disgust for the album, giving it one-star reviews, "only because I couldn't give zero" type stuff. This is an unnecessarily harsh reaction to an album that is certainly a disppointment, but not the out-and-out career-killing disaster many of its detractors see it as. Misguided, yes. Overwrought, yes. But the absolute bottom of the barrel? C'mon man.

To be fair, it's pretty easy to mock the endeavor. The wannabe clever cover art. Bowie's hair cut. The cast of thousands. And, uh, Mickey Rourke. Nothing says mid-80s excess like inviting the Rourkester to mumble some lines in what is very generously and euphemistically credited as a "mid song rap". Bowie, always easily swayed by public opinion gave up his support for the album quickly, lamenting his production choices and - as he had with Tonight - vowing that some of these songs were better than the release form has let on. Only some years later he mused about maybe wanting to re-record some of Never Let Me Down's songs. Alas, it was one of the many projects he wanted to do that he never got around to in his lifetime. But it probably gave ample justification to the Bowie estate to commisson a new reworked version of the album for that 2018 box set release. Never Let Me Down (2018) reworks the album from the ground up, mainly keeping Bowie's lead vocals and select instruments or instrumental passages. But some of the backing tracks, worked up by old Bowie allies like guitar squealer Reeves Gabrels (who notedly wasn't yet part of Bowie's crew in 1987) are almost a hundred percent new. Which means that the official reworking of Never Let Me Down is an odd record, a record lost in time, where vintage Bowie vocals and topics collide with a decidedly modern production.

Sometimes, the mix is successful and the song finally sounds like Bowie probably envisioned it: "Glass Spider" now truly sounds like an art song, while some of the rockers like "New York's in Love" and "Bang Bang", thanks in no small part to Gabrels' involvement, now do indeed sound like blueprints for the unfortunate Tin Machine project that was about to follow. The songs might still suck, but at least they're now rocking more convincingly. Other tracks are not as as succesful: "Time Will Crawl", for my money one of Bowie's best songs of the 80s gets completely neutered in its new arrangement. The album also proceeds in a pretty obvious manner: Almost every song gets a new arty, instrumental opening, before the 'real song' kicks in. It's a fun discovery to hear these songs with a new coat of paint, but I'd still say that about half of the songs profit fom the new treatment (with some still sort of sucking, mind you), a quarter stay about the same and the final quarter are actively worse. Besides, for a total stinker like "Shining Star (Makin' My Love)" it doesn't matter that Mickey Rourke is now replaced by Laurie Anderson, it still shows that you can only polish a turd so much, it'll stay a turd, albeit much shinier. 

Bowie's understanding of what was wrong with Never Let Me Down was mainly concentrated on the sound of it, but there were a couple of other words coincidentally starting with the letter s that help understand its failures and possible redemption. S like sensibilities, for example. Bowie all of a sudden doing political commentary and contemplating the fate of the downtrodden and poor was a shock to his old audience, so used to abstract imagery and elaborate metaphors. This was of course also an unfortunate preview of what was in store during the Tin Machine years. With the lyrics, like Bowie's vocals, staying the same nothing can be done about that, though in all fairness I think the criticisms of that kind are fairly overblown. Maybe because I'm easily amused by Bowie referencing Top Gun. 

Bowie thought that Never Let Me Down's main failures were sound and sensibility, whereas I would argue they were selection and sequencing. Bowie picked the wrong songs and then sequenced them in the absolute worst manner imaginable. The two b-sides hailing from the sessions, "Girls" (a number he had given to Tina Turner a year prior) and "Julie" are infinitely better than half of what ended on the album. "Julie" might be one of the most straightforward pop songs Bowie ever recorded, but it has a memorable melody and could have even been a hit, something that can't be said for some of the crap that ended up on the album. Not only did Bowie make the mistake of including stuff like "Too Dizzy", the aforementioned "Shining Star" and the decidedly limp cover of comrade Iggy Pop's "Bang Bang", he also decided to put them all together into the side two from hell. After a relatively promising first side, where all the better-to-good songs hang out, the flip side has one disaster after another and is - in its original form - pretty hard to stomach. Insipid, both musically and lyrically, it does indeed come dangerously close to being the dumpster fire Bowie diehards think of when having nightmares about Never Let Me Down. 

But there is eminently salvagable stuff on this album. I won't stand here and proclaim my reworked version of Never Let Me Down as some sort of lost classic or great album. It's not, because the original ingredients weren't made for it to be. But it's a fun album, if you can get behind the general idea of 80s pop Bowie, and it's a good listen to my ears. The first rule was: no access to anything that isn't vintage. Never Let Me Down is about as 80s an album as you can get, and instead of akwardly trying to camouflage that, like the 2018 reworking did, just embrace it, people. Secondly: throw out the crap and replace it by something better. Bowie himself started the process, deleting the lightweight and rapidly obnoxious "Too Dizzy" from all CD editions of the album. We throw the three songs mentioned above plus "New York's In Love " on the trash pile and add in the also aforementioned "Girls" and "Julie". The a capella dub mix of "Never Let Me Down" serves as the source of a new intro and outro to the album, cementing the title song as the anchor around which the other tracks got arranged around. Some other minor surgery: I never liked the 'fake live' opening of "Zeroes", totally at odds with the song's plastic sound, so I created a new opening out of the "Time Will Crawl" guitar riff. And I couldn't decide which version of "Day In Day Out" I preferred, so I didn't choose, instead creating a hybrid mix of the more percussion-oriented Groucho Mix and the original version. 

Now, this might not sway people who never forgave him for Let's Dance or Tonight, but if you can get down with the Pop Bowie of the 80s, then throw this on, throw your ol' shoulderpadded sequin jacket on and let your mullet flop like never before...c'mon folks, never let me down... 

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!