Described as an unauthorised audio biography of David Bowie, Maximum Bowie on the Chrome Dreams label (who specialise in this sort of thing) was reportedly released in the US today, though there seems to be some confusion as to the UK release date. Reported elsewhere as having a January release in the UK, the version I bought in the UK last week uses a picture of David and Iman from February in the booklet! Whatever, the uninspired packaging does contain a couple of scarce shots and includes a tiny “poster.”
This outward appearance, though dull, looks professional enough and this belies the shoddy content of the CD itself, an audio cut ‘n’ paste peppered with poor quality archive interview snippets that you’ve probably heard before. An example of the depth of the research here is that the last of the twelve chapters manages to cram most of David’s Nineties output into a compact four minutes!
The narrator, who hasn’t even bothered to learn how to pronounce Bowie, talks over an irritating AOR instrumental track that sounds like a reject from Rock School. “Why give this item space on BowieNet?” you may ask, just to warn you kids to steer clear. There is no Bowie music on this release, which is pointed out on the back cover, albeit in 6pt type. I know the completists among you will buy it anyway…but really, you shouldn’t bother. Finally, the blurb for this release at the Chrome Dreams site concludes: ‘Maximum Bowie’ is “presented in a format Bowie himself would surely approve of.” It’s only my opinion, but I somehow doubt that.
Total Blam Blam (European Correspondent)