MBJ: I checked my emails on New Years Eve and found one sitting in my in box from my good buddy Rueben with this promising heading:
‘BOWIE!’
Here’s a little extract for you:
‘I want to talk Bowie
its New Years and I’m listening to my ipod. I’m listening to Bowie, just Bowie.
I have reached the conclusion that if you don’t like David Bowie,
if you are a person that says:
“you know, to be honest I don’t really like David Bowie all that much, I just don’t like his music”,
then I think there must be something seriously wrong with you
– you should go for a cat-scan or take a test of some sorts.
I can appreciate that out there in this big wide world there are people who don’t like the Beatles and Pink Floyd,
heck, even people who don’t like Pop Will Eat Itself (the fools).
But for someone to not like Bowie they must have a screw loose or something.
I am listening to Ashes to Ashes now and it is just a perfect pop record;
intelligent lyrics, incredible music, that brilliant “twing/twong” guitar, the slap bass,
there is not a thing wrong with it.
And now Fashion has just come on, oh boy.
“beep beep”.’
MBJ: As somebody who can always be relied on to get slightly cared away,
I sent back this subdued response:
‘Yay Baby! THAT’S WHAT I’M FREAKIN’ TALKING ABOUT! BOWIE BABY, BOWIE.’
3 days later Rueb’s emailed me some more Bowie love. Here’s an extract:
‘Ok, so Bowie Zowie Bowie.
Just been over on Wikipedia – guess how many studio albums Mr Bowie has had – answer is… 28 albums, including Tin Machine and also soundtrack albums. Here they are here:
1. David Bowie (1967, Did Not Chart)
2. David Bowie (1969, rereleased in 1972 as Space Oddity, when it reached UK #17, US #16)
3. The Man Who Sold the World (1970, UK #26, US #105)
4. Hunky Dory (1971, UK #3, US #93)
5. The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972, UK #5, US #75)
6. Aladdin Sane (1973, UK #1, US #17)
7. Pin Ups (1973, UK #1, US #23)
8. Diamond Dogs (1974, UK #1, US #5)
9. Young Americans (1975, UK #2, US #9)
10. Station to Station (1976, UK #5, US #3)
11. Low (1977, UK #2, US #11)
12. "Heroes" (1977, UK #3, US #35)
13. Lodger (1979, UK #4, US #20)
14. Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) (1980, UK #1, US #12)
15. Christiane F.(film soundtrack) (1981, US #135)
16. Let's Dance (1983, UK #1, US #4)
17. Tonight (1984, UK #1, US #11)
18. Labyrinth (film soundtrack) (1986, Did Not Chart)
19. Never Let Me Down (1987, UK #6, US #34)
20. Tin Machine (with Tin Machine) (1989, UK #3, US #28)
21. Tin Machine II (with Tin Machine) (1991, UK #23, US #126)
22. Black Tie White Noise (1993, UK #1, US #39)
23. The Buddha of Suburbia (1993, UK #87)
24. Outside (1995, UK #8, US #21)
25. Earthling (1997, UK #6, US #39)
26. 'hours...' (1999, UK #5, US #47)
27. Heathen (2002, UK #5, US #14)
28. Reality (2003, UK #3, US #29)
I feel a plan lumbering ahead of me here,
and it this – basically, each fortnight of this year will have one of the Bowie albums as my focus music-wise - and listen to each album at least say twice during “its” fortnight.
So spring will see me in Berlin with Iggy Pop,
by the summer I should be trucking through Let’s Dance era Bowie,
Autumn I will be groaning under the weight of Tin Machine
and come Christmas 2008 I will be buzzing to Electro-Bowie.
“But Rueben, 28 albums and only 26 fortnights, how will you do it?”
– easy, the albums I know well will just get a week each,
freeing up a spare fortnight for, I dunno, the soundtrack to Labyrinth.
And then as the year goes on I will see the career of Mr Bowie unravel in front of me with all its highs and lows, kind of like his career in microcosm.
And I can record what I liked and didn’t like and I guess give it a score on the old Bowie-o-meter (marked from 1-100 ziggy’s I guess).
Do you want to take my hand and take this odyssey with me?’
MBJ: What kind of chump would say ‘No’ to a challenge like that?
Welcome to ‘2000 and BOWIE’.
Come back every fortnight to follow our freaky-far out treck past the ‘best of’ collections and into the unknown regions of the Bowie-Sphere.
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