Month: February 2014

 

“Don’t you wonder sometimes”

 

Originally a #3 UK hit for Bowie in 1977 when it was released as the first single from the classic Low album, Sound And Vision was unusual in that the lead vocal didn’t appear until half way through the song.

It was also strange that it didn’t precede the album release and considering this and the fact that RCA barely promoted the single in the UK, it’s surprising it did so well on the singles chart there.

Produced by Bowie and Tony Visconti, the song also featured a guest vocal from Mary Hopkin, Visconti’s then wife.

If you’ve not heard Sound And Vision recently, go give it a listen for its thirty seventh birthday along with last year’s beautiful Sonjay Prabhakar remix here.

 

“Switch on the TV we may pick him up on channel two”

 

In the UK 42 years ago this evening, David Bowie was among the people to catch the television debut of an exciting young artist and his new band, Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars, though they weren’t yet billed as such.

Having recorded three tracks for the broadcast the previous day, Bowie and band had been readying themselves for the official start of the Ziggy Stardust tour at the Toby Jug on February 10th.

The show was The Old Grey Whistle Test and the songs recorded were Queen Bitch, Five Years and Oh! You Pretty Things.

Hunky Dory had been released less than two months earlier and the Ziggy Stardust album opener wouldn’t be available to buy for a few months yet.

So of the songs recorded, Oh! You Pretty Things would probably have been the best advert for the tour, in that it was freshest in the public memory, having spent several weeks on the UK singles chart for Peter Noone the previous May and June, when it peaked at #14.

However, in their wisdom, the BBC didn’t broadcast Oh! You Pretty Things for another ten years, probably considering the song a little too mainstream (due to the Noone connection) for the chin-strokingly serious OGWT.

All three tracks were eventually released officially on the Best Of Bowie DVD (including an alternate take of Oh! You Pretty Things) and they still look and sounds as fresh and exciting today as they ever did.

Scroll the images on this page and check out the footage here if you need a reminder of just how good this debut was.

 

“A couple of songs from your old scrapbook”

 

Hot on the heels of their top 500 albums poll, the latest issue of NME (February 8th) has a cover feature titled: The 500 Greatest Songs Of All Time.

David Bowie has a long list of compositions in the poll, with a half page devoted to “Heroes” alone. Here’s the opening paragraph of that particular article:

 

“The list of things that are wrong with “Heroes” is a short one. In summary: those quotation marks. They seem to provide a song of such unrestrained emotion with a get-out-of-jail-free disclaimer of irony. Beyond that, however, there’s nothing you would want to change about the song. If listening to “Heroes” doesn’t move you, doesn’t make you want to punch the air in exultation, doesn’t have the hairs on the back of your neck standing to attention…then you’re quite clearly bereft of some vital component or other. Assuming you have ears, let’s for argument’s sake call it a soul.”

 

Bowie’s contribution to songwriting is represented by an impressive list of fourteen familiar Bowie classics, more songs than any other single composer in the poll.

 

SPOILER ALERT: Here’s the poll with positions.

 

500 Five Years (Bowie)

485 Starman (Bowie)

480 Ziggy Stardust (Bowie)

459 Lust For Life (Bowie/Pop) (recorded by Iggy Pop)

428 Golden Years (Bowie)

295 Fashion (Bowie)

250 Space Oddity (Bowie)

184 Under Pressure (Bowie/Queen) (recorded by Queen and David Bowie)

162 Changes (Bowie)

149 All The Young Dudes (Bowie) (recorded by Mott The Hoople)

62 Young Americans (Bowie)

51 Ashes To Ashes (Bowie)

34 Life On Mars? (Bowie)

15 “Heroes” (Bowie/Eno)

 

There are comments throughout the feature regarding the majority of the songs therein, but if you want to read those observations you’ll be pleased to know that the latest edition of NME is available now in printed and digital formats.