Young Americans Collectors Edition

The zenith of David Bowie’s flat-pack soul period, 1975’s Young Americans is an incredible and frequently overlooked record. No other Bowie album had spelled out its market so cleanly and crisply in its title. This was an album to be bought at a time when young Americans, after years of mobilising, now had a little disposable income and were ready to party. It was all, supposedly, about “emotional drive.” But the album came to represent so much more than that. It is an indirect product of many factors; soul music; politics, both personal and public; sex, drugs and dancing; of downtown New York and uptown Philadelphia.

CD:

1. Young Americans

2. Win

3. Fascination

4. Right

5. Somebody Up There Likes Me

6. Across The Universe

7. Can You Hear Me

8. Fame

Bonus tracks:

9. John, I?m Only Dancing (Again)

10. Who Can I Be Now?

11. It?s Gonna Be Me (with strings) (previously unreleased)

DVD:

NB Tracks 1 to 11 on the DVD are audio only.

New mixes by legendary Bowie producer Tony Visconti available in 5.1 surround sound (DTS 96/24 and Dolby Digital) and stereo (PCM 48kHz/24 bit).

1. Young Americans

2. Win

3. Fascination

4. Right

5. Somebody Up There Likes Me

6. Across The Universe

7. Can You Hear Me

8. Fame

Bonus tracks:

9. John, I?m Only Dancing (Again)

10. Who Can I Be Now?

11. It?s Gonna Be Me (with strings) (previously unreleased)

Video:

Young Americans (from Dick Cavett TV show)

1984 (from Dick Cavett TV show)

Young Americans spent almost a year in the US charts, reaching Number 9 in the process. It was not the album that broke Bowie in America ? that award must go to Diamond Dogs, which had actually made the US Top 5 the previous year – but it was certainly the one that consolidated his American success and allowed him, unlike Bolan and Roxy Music, to join Rod and Elton in the ranks of the Stateside superstars. With Young Americans, Bowie had succeeded in breaking black music into the white mainstream. In the UK, Young Americans’ commercial impact, compared to the creative, was less marked . A Number 2 placing meant that it was Bowie‘s first studio album for three years not to reach the top spot, Yet, the album’s legacy would be profound. For the next decade, white soul boys up and down the land would look to Bowie?s cool version of Americana and revolutionise British pop in the process. Bowie?s soul boy look and haircut, later to be known as ?the wedge?, became the hallmarks of classic clubland cool, not just for the soul boys themselves but also in the New Romantic era.

It is not often that an album has both a musical, cultural and subcultural impact. Young Americans was one of those era-defining records that changed the history of popular music.