Changesbowie - Bowie, David (CD 1990)

Since the dawn of Rock N Roll, there have been numerous icons like Elvis Presley, The Beatles, James Brown, Bob Dylan, and more. Another rock icon that came into the scene in 1967 was a young South London man who would not only reinvent himself musically but also with his own image from time to time. That man is David Bowie. Born David Robert Jones in January 8, 1947, Bowie has been known for making new styles of music and genres throughout the 1970s and helped pave the way for such artists like Boy George, Psychedelic Furs, London Suede, Marilyn Manson, Nine Inch Nails, Nirvana, and pop icon Madonna who credited Bowie as her first love. Bowie also helped give notice to such influential artists such as Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Brian Eno, Roxy Music, and Kraftwerk. In 1990, David Bowie released a compilation titled Changesbowie which eighteen of his classic tunes including a remix of one of his classic songs.

The first song on the compilation is his spaced-out acoustic track Space Oddity from his second album of the same name that tells the tale of a man cutting himself from Earth. In 1971 after the release of his third album The Man Who Sold The World in which he wore a dress on the album cover, Bowie released his first masterpiece titled
Hunky Dory which features the classic piano pop-rock tune of Changes that features an excellent pop rhythm with Bowie s brilliant vocals. One year later, Bowie transformed himself into an alien called Ziggy Stardust who is a rock star from Mars. The album The Rise & Fall of Ziggy Stardust & the Spiders of Mars featured two classic songs which would pave the way for glam rock like the power rock of Ziggy Stardust and the full-on glam rock assault of Suffragette City which both features the awesome guitar work of his Spiders of Mars guitarist Mick Ronson.

After the success of the Ziggy Stardust album, Bowie became a star in the U.K. and was becoming a cult phenomenon in America where was especially big in New York City. Around that time, he wrote a hit song for the band Mott The Hoople titled All The Young Dudes , produced Lou Reed s 1972 masterpiece Transformer which featured the hit Walk On The Wild Side and mixed Iggy Pop and his group, the Stooges 1973 masterpiece Raw Power which paved the way for punk rock. Around that same time, Bowie created another alter ego for his next album Aladdin Sane which featured the blues-rock romp Jean Genie that featured cool harmonica sounds and beautiful pop hooks. In July of 1973, Bowie retired his Ziggy Stardust character after a period of exhaustion and announced on his final gig of the Ziggy Stardust tour that it was his final show he and the Spiders of Mars would do which shocked his fans.

After the Ziggy Stardust period, Bowie was planning to make a musical on the George Orwell novel 1984 which never materialized except into a few songs from his 1974 album Diamond Dogs which saw Bowie experimenting the cut-up styles of Beat writer William S. Burroughs for songs like We Are The Dead and Sweet Thing . Two songs from the Diamond Dogs album on this compilation are the glam-rock raunchy of Diamond Dogs and the pulsating guitar attack of his most beloved song Rebel Rebel . The tour for Diamond Dogs featured a Broadway-like production filled with a cherry picker, a constructed background set, and Bowie French-kissing a skull. Midway through the tour, Bowie stopped in Philadelphia were he was fascinated by the R&B scene and changed his tour set from a Broadway-like production to a full-on R&B production that featured two unknown artists like jazz saxophonist David Sanborn and R&B singer Luther Vandross. After the tour, Bowie returned to Philadelphia to finish his new R&B album titled Young Americans which featured the soulful title track filled with saxophone wailings from David Sanborn and gospel-like backup vocals that featured Luther Vandross. Another track from that album is collaboration between Bowie and John Lennon who had met earlier during Lennon s lost weekend period of late 1973 and most of 1974. The song Fame was Bowie s first number one single in America and in this compilation features a new remix of the song by John Gass that features heavier drum tracks, louder guitar hooks, and powerful vocals from Bowie.

After the success of Young Americans , Bowie starred in his first starring role in the 1976 Nicholas Roeg cult classic The Man Who Fell To Earth and was working on what is considered his best album, Station To Station . The album was filled with the soul of Young Americans in mixed with the avant-garde touch of Europe, which featured the classic funky single Golden Years . Around that time, Bowie was doing cocaine and had already reinvented himself to another character, the Thin White Duke. His cocaine use would cause through a lot of paranoia and after his Station To Station tour, Bowie moved to Berlin with his pal Iggy Pop. Around that time, the two met former Roxy Music keyboardist Brian Eno who was working on new musicals landscapes known as ambient music. Impressed by Eno s work and the new music of techno pioneers Kraftwerk, Bowie released a trilogy of albums with Eno and producer from 1977 through 1979 which were Low , Heroes , and Lodger and produced two seminal albums by Iggy Pop The Idiot and Lust For Life . One single from that era was the song Heroes which Bowie said was a letting go of the 1970s and a time to start a new future. Around that time, Bowie had cleaned himself up and divorced his wife Angela, who was going through a bad period of insanity and drug abuse, and won custody of their son Duncan. After the Berlin period, Bowie and his son moved to New York City where he played the title role of The Elephant Man on Broadway and released the album Scary Monsters which featured the synth-rock of Fashion and the synthesizer track of Ashes To Ashes which is the sequel to his 1969 hit Space Oddity .

After Scary Monsters , Bowie took a break from music and focused himself on raising his son and his acting career where he appeared in the cult classic The Hunger and the World War II drama Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence which won him rave reviews. In 1983, Bowie signed a new deal with EMI and released the album Let s Dance which was his biggest seller. The album features three classic tracks like the dance-pop of Let s Dance , the funky pop of Modern Love and the lovely pop song co-written with Iggy Pop in 1977 China Girl which featured wonderful production from Chic s Nile Rodgers and guitar work from Stevie Ray Vaughn. After the successful Let s Dance , Bowie released what is considered his worst album Tonight that spawned the hit single Blue Jeans which is a wonderful dance-pop gem in an album full of old songs and covers. Throughout the rest of the 80s, Bowie would sink himself badly into mediocrity and would suffer a decline of album sales and a lack of inspiration. In 1989, Bowie formed Tin Machine with guitarist Reeves Gabrels and the Sales brothers Hunt and Tony. Tin Machine would destroy Bowie s career as a pop artist but did give him a chance to become inspired again. In the 1990s, Bowie would release a series of critically acclaimed albums that would help him return to his own form and make a small impact in the music scene.

Changesbowie is a wonderful compilation filled with the wonderful work of David Bowie. Currently, this album is now released as an import release. Though it s a pricey album, it well worth it to showcase the wonderful career of one of rock s most influential artists.