David Bowie

Changesonebowie (21 May 1976 / 13 April 2018)

Changestwobowie (November 1981 / 13 April 2018)

 ^{David Bowie — Changesonebowie (21 May 1976 / 13 April 2018)}
⦿     “★ is a distorted mirror that renders daily life odd and the mundane downright nightmarish... These are diabolical earworms, all the more creepy for their singsong lucidity. But hasn’t that always been Bowie’s genius, knowing exactly how much sugar is needed to smuggle in the strange?” — NEW YORK MAGAZINE/VULTURE
Album release: 21 May 1976 / April 13, 2018
Record Label: RCA Records / PLG UK Catalog
Duration:     44:14
Tracks:
01. Space Oddity (2015 Remastered Version)     5:17
02. John, I’m Only Dancing (Original Mix)     2:47
03. Changes (2015 Remastered Version)     3:37
04. Ziggy Stardust (2012 Remastered Version)     3:14
05. Suffragette City (2012 Remastered Version)     3:26
06. The Jean Genie (2013 Remastered Version)     4:07
07. Diamond Dogs (2016 Remastered Version)     6:04
08. Rebel Rebel (2016 Remastered Version)     4:34
09. Young Americans (2016 Remastered Version)     5:14
10. Fame (2016 Remastered Version)     4:21
11. Golden Years (2016 Remastered Version)     4:03
Charts:
⦿      1976 UK Albums Chart      #2
⦿      Billboard Pop Albums      #10
Certifications:
⦿      MC:     2× Platinum
⦿      RIAA:      Platinum
Personnel:
⦿      David Bowie — vocals, guitars, keyboards, saxophone, harmonica, stylophone, Moog, Mellotron, backing vocals
⦿      Tim Renwick — guitar (side one, 1)
⦿      Mick Wayne — guitar (side one, 1)
⦿      Rick Wakeman — mellotron (side one, 1)
⦿      Herbie Flowers — bass (side one, 1; side two 1,2)
⦿      Terry Cox — drums (side one, 1)
⦿      Mick Ronson — guitars, piano, moog, backing vocals (side one 2~6)
⦿      Trevor Bolder — bass (side one 2~6)
⦿      Mick Woodmansey — drums (side one 2~6)
⦿      Tony Newmark — drums (side two 1)
⦿      Aynsley Dunbar — drums (side two 2)
⦿      Carlos Alomar — guitars (side two 3, 4, 5)
⦿      Earl Slick — guitars (side two 4,5)
⦿      John Lennon — guitar, backing vocals (side two 4)
⦿      Mike Garson — Piano, keyboards (side one 2~6, side two 1~4)
⦿      Roy Bittan — piano (side two 5)
⦿      Willy Weeks — bass (side two 9)
⦿      Emir Ksasan — bass (side two 10)
⦿      George Murray — bass (side two 5)
⦿      Andy Newmark — drums (side two 3)
⦿      Dennis Davis — drums (side two 4, 5)
⦿      David Sanborn — saxophone (side two 3)
⦿      Pablo Rosario — percussion (side two 3)
⦿      Larry Washington — percussion (side two 3)
⦿      Ralph Mcdonald — percussion (side two 4)
⦿      Ava Cherry, Robin Clark, Anthony Hinton, Diane Sumler, Luther Vandross —  backing vocals (side two 3)
⦿      Warren Peace — backing vocals (side two 3, 5)
⦿      Jean Millington, Jean Fineberg — backing vocals (side two 4)
⦿      Harry Maslin — Editing, Assembling and Mastering
Review
by Stephen Thomas Erlewine;  MAY 24 2016; Score: 8.8
⦿      The original David Bowie hits compilation tells the story of Bowie’s metamorphosis from quizzical folkie to a conquering colossus, and is partially responsible for cementing his stardom.
⦿      It’s easy enough to think there’s no need for a reissue of Changesonebowie, the original David Bowie hits compilation, in 2016. In the 40 years years following its initial 1976 release, it has effectively been written out of Bowie’s active discography, banished from the catalog after a rush~released 1984 CD. Changesbowie, a 1990 revision designed for compact disc, swapped out the original hit version of  “Fame” for a remix but otherwise presented a thorough overview of Bowie’s hit~making peak, setting the stage for a flood of digital~era compilations that reworked the same territory. The most recent of these was the shape~shifting 2014 set Nothing Has Changed but 2002’s double~disc Best of Bowie is something of a standard bearer, offering 39 hits, including all 11 songs from Changesonebowie. All these compilations have had the effect of making the original greatest hits feel antiquated: it would seem an album made redundant by history.
⦿      And, yet, Changesonebowie is an important record in the arc of David Bowie’s career — maybe not on the level of The Rise & Fall of Ziggy Stardust & the Spiders From Mars or Low, but it isn’t a stretch to say that the album is partially responsible for cementing Bowie’s stardom. When Changesonebowie first appeared in May of 1976, Bowie was four years removed from his Ziggy Stardust~fueled UK breakthrough, but he had only recently cracked the U.S. market, with “Fame” hitting number one in 1975. He’d remain in the Billboard Top 10 with Young Americans and Station to Station and, this, the compilation that closed the curtain on the first act of his career.
⦿        Bowie would soon decamp to Berlin to reinvent himself as an electronic art~rocker, but Changesonebowie isn’t especially interested in his progressive side. Some freakiness lies on its margins — the interstellar folk of “Space Oddity,” the coy sexuality of the non~LP single “John, I’m Only Dancing” — but the anchors here are the heavy rockers: “Ziggy Stardust” and “Suffragette City,” “The Jean Genie,” “Diamond Dogs” and “Rebel Rebel.” Riffs rule all, so loud and hooky they obscure whatever faint hint of camp there may lay underneath Mick Ronson’s guitars. Those suggestions of a stranger world — all the allusions to aliens, tramps and zombies — are faint transmissions from the depths of the individual albums, but what’s here is Bowie at his simplest. This is quite deliberate. He chose the tracks for Changesonebowie, bypassing actual British hits while elevating “Ziggy Stardust” and “Suffragette City” into the canon by their mere inclusion.
⦿        That’s because Changesonebowie turned into a major hit upon its release. It is one of the handful of David Bowie albums to be certified as Platinum in the U.S. — it earned that distinction in 1981, five years after it went gold upon its initial release — an honor Hunky Dory, Ziggy Stardust, Station to Station, Low, and “Heroes**” all missed. Odds are Changesonebowie would be the one Bowie album that you'd find in a record collection in the ‘70s and early ‘80s, and it was designed to be that way. It was meant to be cool, stylish and accessible — as glamorous as the Tom Kelley portrait on the cover — which means Changesonebowie deliberately bypasses stranger elements. Absences are abundant, some of them puzzling from the vantage of 2016. “Starman,” his 1972 breakthrough, is absent, as are “Drive~In Saturday,” “Life On Mars?” and “Sorrow,” all singles that peaked at three on the British charts; the Top 10 “Knock On Wood” from 1974’s David Live is MIA, too. Nothing from Pin Ups is here, nor is there anything from The Man Who Sold The World, not even the title track which is a modern~day standard thanks to Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged In New York rendition in 1994.
⦿        Yet, as this economical compilation plays, none of these tunes are missed. There’s an elegance to the structure of Changesonebowie, with its near chronological sequencing lending the album a narrative: it is the story of Bowie’s metamorphosis from a quizzical folkie to a conquering colossus. As Changesonebowie progresses, the music expands: the brawny glam turns ornate on the second side and then slides into soul, with the funky rhythms supplying an artful ascendance. “Golden Years” ends the compilation on a note of triumph: it plays as a celebration of the self~reinvention showcased on Changesonebowie.
⦿        This moment of triumph didn’t last long. He traded celebrity for art in 1977, throwing himself off the populist path Changesonebowie carves. But the record itself endured, as records do. Audiences who never found much patience of the cubist synths and uneasy aural pools of the Berlin years would find solace with the songs on Changesonebowie, whether they were heard on this old LP, a new hits collection or, most likely, on the classic rock radio that embraced these songs for the very reason they were included on the comp in the first place: these are the tracks that present Bowie at his hardest and straightest. Collected, they provide a summation of his peak as a rock star and, in some ways, remain an excellent introduction to his work: it doesn’t tell you everything you need to know, but it captures Bowie’s essence and repackages it as a roaring good time. That’s reason enough for Changesonebowie to be back in circulation.   ⦿      https://pitchfork.com/
David Bowie
★•★       David Robert Jones was born in Brixton on January 8, 1947. At age 13, inspired by the jazz of the London West End, he picked up the saxophone and called up Ronnie Ross for lessons. Early bands he played with ~ The Kon~Rads, The King Bees, the Mannish Boys and the Lower Third ~ provided him with an introduction into the showy worlds of pop and mod, and by 1966 he was David Bowie, with long hair and aspirations of stardom rustling about his head. Kenneth Pitt signed on as his manager, and his career began with a handful of mostly forgotten singles and a head full of ideas. It was not until 1969 that the splash onto the charts would begin, with the legendary Space Oddity (which peaked at  #5 in the UK). Amidst his musical wanderings in the late ‘60s, the young Bowie experimented with mixed media, cinema, mime, Tibetan Buddhism, acting and love. A first rock album, originally titled David Bowie then subsequently re~titled Man of Words, Man of Music and again as Space Oddity, paid homage to the kaleidoscopic influences of the London artistic scene, while hinting at a songwriting talent that was about to yield some of rock n roll’s finest and most distinctive work~even if it would take the rest of the world a few years to catch up.
★•★       ...   On January 10, 2016, David Bowie died peacefully surrounded by his family after a courageous 18~month battle with cancer. His body of work, multi~generational influence and legacy of fearless innovation and endless reinvention will live on forever.Changestwobowie (13 April 2018)
Album released: November 1981 / 13 April 2018
Recorded: 1971~1980
Genre: Art rock glam rock funk rock soul new wave
Duration: 44:14
Record Label: RCA Records / PLG UK Catalog
Charts:
⦿      1982 UK Albums Chart     #27
⦿      1982 Billboard Pop Albums     #68
Certifications:
⦿      BPI ~ UK     Gold 12 January 1982
Tracks:
01 Aladdin Sane (2013 Remastered Version)     5:10  
02 Oh! You Pretty Things (2015 Remastered Version)     3:14  
03 Starman (2012 Remastered Version)     4:14  
04 1984 (2016 Remastered Version)     3:28  
05 Ashes to Ashes (Single Version) [2017 Remastered Version]     3:37  
06 Sound and Vision (2017 Remastered Version)     3:03  
07 Fashion (Single Version) [2017 Remastered Version]    3:25  
08 Wild Is The Wind (2016 Remastered Version)     6:03  
09 John, I’m Only Dancing (Again) [2016 Remastered Version]     6:59  
10 D.J. (Single Version) [2017 Remastered Version]     3:25
Description:
⦿        David Bowie’s 1981 compilation CHANGESTWOBOWIE will be reissued on CD and vinyl in April, along with a limited silver vinyl pressing of Aladdin Sane, the latter celebrating its 45th anniversary.
⦿        CHANGESTWOBOWIE was issued in 1981 as the follow~up to CHANGESONEBOWIE (from 1976) although it’s a rather weird compilation if truth be told because RCA didn’t have the courage to simply ‘carry on’ post ‘76 and felt the need to dip back into the early days. Hence it includes the title track of Aladdin Sane, Oh! You Pretty Things from Hunky Dory, Starman from the Ziggy Stardust album and 1984 from Diamond Dogs.
⦿        As a reminder how long it took for “Heroes” to be regarded as classic Bowie, the title track isn’t considered worthy of inclusion and in fact there’s nothing from the 1977 album at all, although D.J. from Lodger is featured, along with Wild Is The Wind from Station to Station. David’s two big hits from Scary Monsters are present and correct and John, I’m Only Dancing Again is a nod to the Young Americans period and links the two compilations since the original track is on CHANGESONEBOWIE. The remasterings are all the latest versions, but that does vary, and details are in the track listing above.
⦿        CHANGESTWOBOWIE was only ever released on CD by RCA in the mid~eighties for a fairly short period and has since never been part of any of the reissue programs (including the Rykodisc one from the early nineties), so this release is welcome.
⦿        On CD it will come in a ‘digipak’ sleeve, but when it comes to the vinyl Parlophone don’t seem to have heard fan feedback from the 2016 release of the first compilation, which was available ‘randomly’ as black or clear vinyl. That was not a popular concept but it is now repeated for CHANGESTWOBOWIE which is “available randomly on its initial limited manufacturing run in black and blue vinyl before reverting solely to black vinyl”. Anyone fancy buying a car that will be delivered in a random colour? Thought not.   ⦿        http://www.superdeluxeedition.com/
Website: https://www.davidbowie.com/news/
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David Bowie

Changesonebowie (21 May 1976 / 13 April 2018)

Changestwobowie (November 1981 / 13 April 2018)

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