Like Tigers on Vaseline...

Well hello to you all, I am the other half of this equation, as we surge head on into 2008 picking up Bowie albums along the way, reaching for the prize. Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Simon Rueben, and all being well I am using a different font to Benjamin. Here is a short resume of how all this came about.

So I was musing at work how brilliant David Bowie is. I think quite a few things are brilliant - New Order for example, I think they are great. If I had to go on Mastermind I would make them my specialist subject. I would consider - by virtue of owning all of their albums - that I am a fan.

At work I listened to Ziggy Stardust, and when it finished, flicked on my Ipod to find more Bowie. I soon realised that I had very little to choose from, very little indeed. And, as Ben has previously noted, a quick visit to Wikipedia reveal a career spanning 28 studio albums. I owned 4 of those albums. One album in seven. Clearly something needed to be done to address this imbalance.

And so I have spent most of this week trying to purchase these albums,with a view to listening to them throughout this year (or 2000andBOWIE as I prefer to call it). Most of them have been easy - Play.com have the majority of them for between £3.99 and £4.99. Others I have found on Ebay for wonderful prices. Ben found Black Tie White Noise in a charity shop, the little tinker. Others are proving harder. The Buddha of Suburbia has been the dearest so far, setting me back an alarming £7 on Ebay. And as for Tin Machine II, this is looking like being the golden fleece of this project, as it stands as the only Bowie album to currently be deleted.

But we will not let trifling matters such as this cause us to drop our chins. We must look onwards and upwards. There is a long year ahead, and we will start on Monday with his 1966 debut, before soaring on into the much more agreeable Space Oddity. There is something very exciting about holding an album by an artist you adore, only to look at the track list and see that you hardly know any of the songs. All very inspirational I'm sure you'll agree. Bye for now.