OST ~ Absolute Beginners (1986)

A banda-sonora de “Absolute Beginners” foi lançada simultâneamente com o filme para o promover, e a música do score foi composta por Gil Evans. A faixa-título de David Bowie, "Quiet Life" de Ray Davies, e "Have You Ever Had It Blue?" dos Style Council foram lançadas em singles. Posteriormente fizeram-se versões resumidas do álbum, apresentando apenas os lados um e dois, e as versões em CD retiraram as faixas "Absolute Beginners (Slight Refrain)", "Landlords and Tenants", "Santa Lucia" e "Cool Napoli". Apresenta-se aqui a versão completa, com os 22 temas originais.

DAVID BOWIE's 1970 Historic Archives

Original released on Double CD Parlophone WOAC 50

(EU 2021, May 28)

Consider "The Width of a Circle" as a companion to "The Man Who Sold the World", or perhaps "The Metrobolist", the variation of Man released upon the record's 50th anniversary. Appearing a few months after the Tony Visconti-shepherded "The Metrobolist" - an album that restores the originally planned artwork and title for "The Man Who Sold the World", then adds a largely new remix of the album - "The Width of a Circle" is a double-disc set collecting a bunch of stray recordings from 1970. The centerpiece is a John Peel Sunday Show from February 1970, a complete concert released in part on the 2000 compilation "Bowie at the Beeb". Here, it's possible to hear David Bowie transition from the slightly unwashed hippie singer of the late 1960s into the muscular rocker of the 1970s, as the first part of the show features solo Bowie, with Tony Visconti's Hype entering halfway through and guitarist Mick Ronson joining for the second half of the set. The second disc combines selections recorded for the televised play "The Looking Glass Murders" aka "Pierrot in Turquoise", a bunch of non-LP singles (including alternate mixes), and an appearance on "Sounds of the 70's": "The Andy Ferris Show" from March 1970, plus five new mixes from Visconti. While this second disc is a bit of a clearinghouse, there is a lot to like here. The rarest material, the music Bowie wrote for the play "The Looking Glass Murders", has its stagey charms and it's interesting to hear the origins of the "London Bye Ta-Ta" melody in "Threepenny Pierrot." Some of the rare 45s appeared on Rykodisc's Sound + Vision CD reissue series but it's nice to get "London Bye Ta-Ta," "Holy Holy," and the re-recorded "Memory of a Free Festival" back in circulation, while the Andy Ferris performance contains a brawny version of "Waiting for the Man" and a robust take on "The Width of a Circle." As a whole, "The Width of a Circle" doesn't quite add up to much more than an odds-and-sods collection, but then again, that's its appeal. It allows listeners to live within Bowie's 1970, a strange, weird, and absorbing year when he was figuring out his strengths and weaknesses. (Stephen Erlewine in AllMusic)

"CAT PEOPLE" (OST)

Original released on LP Backstreet BSR 6107

(US, September 1982)

"Cat People" followed Moroder’s "American Gigolo" soundtrack by only a couple of years, but the departure from the Italo-disco sound he helped trademark is considerable. Everything here is slowed down to a twilight half-speed. David Bowie’s “Putting Out Fire (With Gasoline)”, a slow-to-ignite, soul-rock number, actually sounds more at home here than on his chart-busting "Let’s Dance" album, and is the most muscular piece by far. Breaking the synth lines and drum programming of his earlier work down to a sinister, skeletal slow-pulse proved yet again Moroder’s vision in his unflinching willingness to break with the past to stay a step ahead of the game. However, this time it would be nearly 20 years before the bedrock vibrations emanating here were felt at all, first surfacing in the brief synth-electro revival of the early 2000s, and more recently in the narcotic crepuscule of Chromatics, who brought the new crop of interpreters to wider recognition with their work on the Drive soundtrack. A direct line can be drawn from "Cat People" and everything Chromatics producer Johnny Jewel and his Italians Do It Better label have done to bring the new wave of synth-italo-disco to the masses in the last half-decade. The heavily reverb-ed, delicately plucked and muted guitar lines and cinematic synth wash of Chromatics, Glass Candy, Desire, and their current legion of followers can be traced directly to this record, one of the most compelling and original records of it’s era, soundtrack or otherwise. (Jonathan Treneff in RateYourMusic)

DAVID BOWIE Creates Ziggy Stardust

Original released on LP RCA Victor SF 8287 (LSP 4702)

(UK 1972, June 16)

Borrowing heavily from Marc Bolan's glam rock and the future shock of A Clockwork Orange, David Bowie reached back to the heavy rock of "The Man Who Sold the World" for "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars". Constructed as a loose concept album about an androgynous alien rock star named Ziggy Stardust, the story falls apart quickly, yet Bowie's fractured, paranoid lyrics are evocative of a decadent, decaying future, and the music echoes an apocalyptic, nuclear dread. Fleshing out the off-kilter metallic mix with fatter guitars, genuine pop songs, string sections, keyboards, and a cinematic flourish, "Ziggy Stardust" is a glitzy array of riffs, hooks, melodrama, and style and the logical culmination of glam. Mick Ronson plays with a maverick flair that invigorates rockers like "Suffragette City," "Moonage Daydream," and "Hang Onto Yourself," while "Lady Stardust," "Five Years," and "Rock 'n' Roll Suicide" have a grand sense of staged drama previously unheard of in rock & roll. And that self-conscious sense of theater is part of the reason why "Ziggy Stardust" sounds so foreign. Bowie succeeds not in spite of his pretensions but because of them, and "Ziggy Stardust" - familiar in structure, but alien in performance - is the first time his vision and execution met in such a grand, sweeping fashion. (Stephen Erlewine in AllMusic)

Planet Earth is blue, and there's nothing I can do...

Original Released as "DAVID BOWIE"

on LP Philips SBL 7912 (UK 1969, November 4)

The US edition appeared in early January 1970 on LP Mercury 61246 and with the title "Man Of Words Man Of Music" (new cover above). Three years later, in November 72, the album was re-issued in the States as "Space Oddity" (RCA AQL 4813, with another different cover and without the theme "Don't Sit Down").

Prior to the album a single was edited in July 1969: "Space Oddity / The Wild Eyed Boy From Freecloud" (Philips BF 1801). I brought this single home from the store one day and waited patiently for the solitude of night to unlock its secrets. I can still remember pressing my ear against the speaker and drinking the song’s strange magic in like some extraterrestrial oxygen, amazed that the artist had once again cleared the impossibly high expectations I held for him. The lyrics were about Major Tom leaving the Earth. But in that same month, on the 20th, another man, named Neil Armstrong, was in reality the first human to walk on the moon (I saw the direct transmission in the company of my father, all night long).

"Space Oddity" was the first record on which David Bowie looked and sounded like the Bowie whom the world has come to know. One glance at the spooky, androgynous face that adorns the record was enough to signal that the Anthony Newley-influenced, light-pop singer who sang the novelty number "The Laughing Gnome" a few years earlier was a thing of the past. Leaving behind the mannered, English music hall-isms of his initial recordings, Bowie roughened up the sound, creating a ragged, eclectic mix of folk and rock tinged with electronic sounds. The record yielded his first American hit, and began the singer's soon-to-be meteoric rise to international rock icon-hood.The title track, a sci-fi mini-epic, is an enduring classic in which Bowie squeezes every bit of drama from both his dour low range and the soaring upper reaches of his voice. Even after decades of continued airplay, "Space Oddity" is surprising for its intricate arrangement, nifty guitar playing, and palpable sense of interplanetary estrangement. Other fine and lesser-known musical moments include the sublimely subdued "Letter to Hermione", and the sprawling and strange "Memory of a Free Festival".

DAVID BOWIE: "Metrobolist" or "The Man Who Sold The World"

Original released on LP Mercury 61325

(US 1970, November 11)

Even though it contained no hits, "The Man Who Sold the World (originally Metrobolist)", for most intents and purposes, was the beginning of David Bowie's classic period. Working with guitarist Mick Ronson and producer Tony Visconti for the first time, Bowie developed a tight, twisted heavy guitar rock that appears simple on the surface but sounds more gnarled upon each listen. The mix is off-center, with the fuzz-bass dominating the compressed, razor-thin guitars and Bowie's strangled, affected voice. The sound of "The Man Who Sold the World" is odd, but the music itself is bizarre, with Bowie's weird, paranoid futuristic tales melded to Ronson's riffing and the band's relentless attack. Musically, there isn't much innovation on "The Man Who Sold the World" - it is almost all hard blues-rock or psychedelic folk-rock - but there's an unsettling edge to the band's performance, which makes the record one of Bowie's best albums.

SERGEI PROKOFIEV: "Suite From Romeo and Juliet" + "Peter and the Wolf"

Recorded in 2013, Maestro Riccardo Muti’s performances of selections from Sergei Prokofiev’s "Romeo and Juliet" drew critical acclaim. On this recording, Riccardo Muti conducts selections from both of Prokofiev’s suites derived from his ballet – beginning with "Montagues and Capulets" and taking the listener on a journey through Shakespeare’s story as told by Sergei Prokofiev.

"David Bowie Narrates Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf" is a classical music album containing David Bowie's narration of Sergei Prokofiev's 1936 composition "Peter and the Wolf". Bowie was RCA's third choice to undertake the narration for "Peter and the Wolf" behind Alec Guinness and Peter Ustinov, who had both turned the album down. Bowie later said that it was a Christmas present for his son, Duncan Jones, then 7 years old. Stephen Demorest, reviewing the album in Rolling Stone at the time of its release, describes Bowie's involvement as "engaging and benevolent". Demorest finishes his review by saying Bowie had "found his most charming guise since Hunky Dory." Joe Viglione for AllMusic finds the album as "charming" and Bowie's performance as "splendid" and describes the Philadelphia Orchestra's involvement as "first rate". He finished by saying it was "A remarkable and well-crafted project". The original 1978 US version of the LP album was pressed on green vinyl and included liner notes insert (RCA Red Seal ARL1-2743). Later issues were pressing in standard black vinyl. 

DAVID BOWIE - "Hunky Dory"

Original released on LP RCA Victor LSP 4623

(UK 1971, December 17)

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 Erlewine in AllMusic)

DAVID BOWIE: "Heroes"

Original released on LP RCA Victor PL 12522

(UK 1977, October 14)

Bowie's second instalment in the Berlin trilogy is a criminally underrated masterpiece, brimming with invention and vigour. "Low" was most certainly an amazing achievement and an absolute treat to listen to, but unlike most, I feel that "Heroes" tops it in every regard. The first side (like "Low", containing the more conventional songs) has more urgency than the tracks on "Low". There is more energy and more depth to the song writing. Where "Low" was fragments/ideas with magnificent textural framing, "Heroes"' first side shows really intricate song writing being beautifully combined with dense and innovative arrangements that take the clunky synth and electronic sounds of "Low" and fuse them into a more sophisticated whole. The lyrics are also much more intriguing. "Low" was lyrically and vocally quite sparse, but on "Heroes", Bowie delivers some of his most compelling lyrics. Just a couple of the fantastic snippets that pop up include:

«Your lips cut a smile on your face»

«There's slaughter in the air

Protest on the wind

Someone else inside me

Someone could get skinned»

«Sons of the silent age... Don't walk, they just glide in and out of life

They never die, they just go to sleep one day»

And of course we all know the gorgeous lyrics that the title track possesses. Not to mention Bowie's ultimate vocal performance on this track. In fact, the vocals on the "Heroes" album soar like on no other release of his. The songs climax and Bowie belts out some amazingly expressive and emotive performances. Overall, the first half of the record takes the best parts of "Low"'s first half and "Station to Station" and turns it into the most successful and engaging group of tracks that he has ever released. The second half of the album sees Bowie reprising the ambient themes explored on "Low" but once again this album outdoes its predecessor. The instrumental tracks on "Heroes" are even more evocative than those on "Low". Bowie and Eno once again strip away the clunky synth and electronic sounds and create more focused and more atmospheric pieces second time around. Bowie feels like more of a presence on this album overall. Less detached, and not hiding away from himself as much. This is further displayed by the re-introduction of his sax playing on a number of tracks. He adds personality and flair to "Sons of the Silent Age", provides one of many gorgeous melodic layers on "V-2 Schneider" (which trumps both "The Speed of Life" and "A New Career in a New Town"), and his free-jazz styled, heavily treated playing on "Neukoln" is oddly appealing. Bowie also plays the Japanese Koto on "Moss Garden" giving a beautifully subtle and sensitive performance on what is a perfect ambient piece. If you own "Low", love it, and are wondering which album to get next... well I can't recommend "Heroes" highly enough. If you own "Station to Station" and love it... ditto. If you have some of Bowie's other albums from some of his other periods and are curious about which of the more experimental albums to start with, this is the one. It's one of those albums that is experimental without compromising quality song writing. It takes the ideas first generated on "Low" and expands and improves upon them, while introducing a highly unique and infinitely appealing aesthetic all of its own. It is also more timeless than "Low". It's sounds are still fresh and haven't dated a bit in the 4 decades since its release. It is not only the best of the Bowie and Eno collaborations (The Berlin Trilogy), it is also, in my opinion, the greatest achievement by this most amazing artist. (in RateYourMusic)

Repeating the formula of "Low"'s half-vocal/half-instrumental structure, "Heroes" develops and strengthens the sonic innovations David Bowie and Brian Eno explored on their first collaboration. The vocal songs are fuller, boasting harder rhythms and deeper layers of sound. Much of the harder-edged sound of "Heroes" is due to Robert Fripp's guitar, which provides a muscular foundation for the electronics, especially on the relatively conventional rock songs. Similarly, the instrumentals on "Heroes" are more detailed, this time showing a more explicit debt to German synth pop and European experimental rock. Essentially, the difference between "Low" and "Heroes" lies in the details, but the record is equally challenging and groundbreaking. (Stephen Erlewine in AllMusic)

DAVID BOWIE: "Low"

Original released on LP RCA Victor PL 12030

(UK 1977, January 14)

Following through with the avant-garde inclinations of "Station to Station", yet explicitly breaking with David Bowie's past, "Low" is a dense, challenging album that confirmed his place at rock's cutting edge. Driven by dissonant synthesizers and electronics, "Low" is divided between brief, angular songs and atmospheric instrumentals. Throughout the record's first half, the guitars are jagged and the synthesizers drone with a menacing robotic pulse, while Bowie's vocals are unnaturally layered and overdubbed. During the instrumental half, the electronics turn cool, which is a relief after the intensity of the preceding avant pop. Half the credit for "Low"'s success goes to Brian Eno, who explored similar ambient territory on his own releases. Eno functioned as a conduit for Bowie's ideas, and in turn Bowie made the experimentalism of not only Eno but of the German synth group Kraftwerk and the post-punk group Wire respectable, if not quite mainstream. Though a handful of the vocal pieces on Low are accessible - "Sound and Vision" has a shimmering guitar hook, and "Be My Wife" subverts soul structure in a surprisingly catchy fashion - the record is defiantly experimental and dense with detail, providing a new direction for the avant-garde in rock & roll. (Stephen Erlewine in AllMusic)

DAVID BOWIE: "Station To Station"

Original released on LP RCA Victor APL 1327

(UK 1976, January 23)

Taking the detached plastic soul of "Young Americans" to an elegant, robotic extreme, "Station to Station" is a transitional album that creates its own distinctive style. Abandoning any pretense of being a soulman, yet keeping rhythmic elements of soul, David Bowie positions himself as a cold, clinical crooner and explores a variety of styles. Everything from epic ballads and disco to synthesized avant pop is present on "Station to Station", but what ties it together is Bowie's cocaine-induced paranoia and detached musical persona. At its heart, "Station to Station" is an avant-garde art-rock album, most explicitly on "TVC 15" and the epic sprawl of the title track, but also on the cool crooning of "Wild Is the Wind" and "Word on a Wing," as well as the disco stylings of "Golden Years." It's not an easy album to warm to, but its epic structure and clinical sound were an impressive, individualistic achievement, as well as a style that would prove enormously influential on post-punk. (Stephen Erlewine in AllMusic)

Wow, this is really good. Much of it was intended as the soundtrack to "The Man Who Fell To Earth", but the music wasn't actually used. It was the first record to feature Bowie's late-70s, Carlos Alomar-dominated band, and his last gold record for a while. Practically every song got airplay - the proto-industrial "TVC15," the romantic, irresistable disco number "Stay," the lengthy "return of the Thin White Duke" title track, and the Top Ten hit "Golden Years." Alomar and Slick smoke, the rhythm section is mega-funky, the chord progressions are mind-boggling, and Bowie affects a cool, slightly dissonant vocal style that grabs your attention. With only a half-dozen numbers and most of them plodding on past five minutes, some of it drags (the semi-acoustic ballad "Wild is the Wind"); but the high points make it a must-have for Bowie fans. The bonus tracks are contemporaneous live versions of "Stay," with just-filling-in-for-the-tour lead guitarist Stacey Heydon funking explosively, and "Word on a Wing." (Wilson Alroy in AllMusic)