Five Years / Changes / “Heroes” / Breaking Glass / Ziggy Stardust / Look Back in Anger / Fashion / Modern Love / Panic in Detroit / Rebel Rebel / China Girl / A New Career in a New Town / Life on Mars? / Beauty and the Beast / Sound and Vision / Let’s Dance / John, I’m Only Dancing (Saxophone Version) / Space Oddity / Ashes to Ashes / Subterraneans
Station to Station / Under Pressure (w/Queen) / I’m Afraid of Americans (V1) (w/Nine Inch Nails) / Joe the Lion / Oh! You Pretty Things / Young Americans / Moonage Daydream / Blue Jean / Always Crashing in the Same Car / Be My Wife / Dead Man Walking / Time / Fame / 5:15 The Angels Have Gone / Suffragette City / Stay / Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide
Recently I discovered that a friend of mine who’d been enjoying the mixes I’d been posting had as close to zero exposure to or knowledge of David Bowie as you can get in contemporary society. I think the only Bowie song he knew that he knew (there are known knowns and unknown knowns, after all) was “Changes.” Per his request, and per my own Bowie fixation, I made the two-part mix you see above.
I’m not going to even pretend to be disinterested or objective or discerning when it comes to Bowie–I love virtually everything he’s ever done to pieces. So making a mix was tough, particularly because I couldn’t just take the big hits as read since my buddy had never heard them, or at least never put them all together with Bowie. But nor did I just want to reproduce the many Best Of collections that already exist. (I personally recommend the three-part series that spans 1969-1974, 1974-1979, and 1980-1987–strong selections and lovely art direction.) So this ended up being a combination of a goodly number of Bowie’s giant, monstrous, undeniable singles with a selection of my own personal favorites. It’s not a crate-diving project by any stretch of the imagination–no B-sides, no live recordings, a grand total of just four tracks post-Let’s Dance (including a paltry three from his immensely enjoyable ’90s/’00s altrock-god renaissance) and merely one pre-Hunky Dory, and no Tin Machine whatsoever–but I think it’s an enjoyable blend of rock-radio staples and interesting album cuts that will hopefully make my friend fall in love with David Bowie.
8 Responses to Seanmix – Oh no, love, you’re not alone: The Best of David Bowie