Month: January 2014

“You got your head all tangled up”

OK, if you’ve been following this over the past few days you’ll know that this is your chance to win a specially pressed single-sided vinyl 45 of David Bowie’s Farewell Speech/Rock ’N’ Roll Suicide.

This unique pressing was created for this exclusive DavidBowie.com contest, which we originally announced in 2013, and David very kindly offered to sign copies just for us.

2013 was the 40th anniversary of Ziggy and The Spiders final show on the evening of July 3rd 1973, at Hammersmith Odeon in London, as captured on Ziggy Stardust The Motion Picture Soundtrack.

We asked three questions on the theme of three and you can find each of those in the three previous news items here on DavidBowie.com.

You have until midnight EST on Friday, January 31st, 2014, to email your three answers here.

We will announce the winners here on Monday, February 3rd. Good luck!

If the email link above isn’t working for you, email your answers to dbcontests@davidbowie.com with a subject line of: Ziggy Farewell vinyl 45

 

“I ran to the street, looking for information”

 

As you know by now, we have a handful of signed, specially pressed single-sided vinyl 45s of David Bowie’s Farwell Speech/Rock ’N’ Roll Suicide to give away here on DavidBowie.com.

Today we’re asking the last of three questions on the theme of three and here it is…

 

Not including the intro music of the Wendy Carlos interpretation of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Ode To Joy, from the Clockwork Orange soundtrack, what was the third actual Bowie song played by Ziggy and The Spiders on the evening of July 3rd 1973, as captured on Ziggy Stardust The Motion Picture Soundtrack?

 

Stay tuned for instructions on what to do with your three answers tomorrow.

 

“Battle cries and champagne”

 

As mentioned yesterday, we have a handful of signed, specially pressed single-sided vinyl 45s of David Bowie’s Farwell Speech/Rock ’N’ Roll Suicide to give away here on DavidBowie.com.

Today we’re asking the second of three questions on the theme of three over three days. You don’t need to do anything just yet, aside from ponder the questions until further instructed.

On to question number two…

 

The title track of Aladdin Sane was listed with three dates in brackets after the title. What were those three dates?

 

Stay tuned for the remaining question tomorrow.

 

“Not only is it the last show of the tour”

 

So this is the contest we mentioned in our ’David Bowie and the beauty of three’ item recently.

We have a handful of signed, specially pressed single-sided vinyl 45s of David Bowie’s Farwell Speech/Rock ’N’ Roll Suicide, which is pictured top left in our montage.

The audio is from the final date of the Aladdin Sane UK tour which took place at Hammersmith Odeon on July 3rd, 1973, and was immortalised for the Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars Motion Picture.

We’ll be asking three questions on the theme of three over three days. The first of them is below, but you don’t need to do anything aside from ponder until further instructed.

So here’s that first question…

 

David Bowie’s backing band had been considerably expanded by the time of the Hammersmith Odeon show on July 3rd, 1973.

But what were the real names of the three original Spiders From Mars who backed David Bowie? You can include nicknames if you like.

 

Stay tuned for the remaining questions and instructions on how to enter over the next couple of days.

 

“But still The Next Day seems the same”

 

While we’re on the subject of TND cover appropriation, you can see from our illustration that there have been many since the artwork was first revealed almost a year ago, on David’s 66th birthday, January 8th, 2013.

Barnbrook’s design definitely divided people, but nobody could deny the campaign itself was a masterstroke that will be remembered and referenced for a long time to come.

First off the blocks was the brilliant Nicholas Currie’s Momus who not only ran with the sleeve idea by obscuring his own Tender Pervert album, but was the first to cover a song from The Next Day when he released his version of Where Are We Now? on the same day as the Bowie version! Check it out here.

He also pre-covered The Stars (Are Out Tonight) before anybody (including Currie himself) had even heard the song. The only point of reference for Momus being the title and a life of Bowie worship.

The TND cover spoof idea quickly caught on via BuzzFeed’s Make Your Own David Bowie Album Cover, the first Velvet Underground album being the example illustrated here.

In October Belfast band, Girls Names, released their 12″ EP, The Next Life, also pictured here.

A year later you can find cover versions of every song on The Next Day on YouTube and the notion of dropping an album on the public unannounced has also been borrowed by the likes of My Bloody Valentine right through to Beyoncé most recently.

There have been other nods to The Next Day sleeve, right up to a piece in The Independent Magazine in the UK last weekend in their round up of 2013. And flattery in the form of imitation is unlikely to end there.

 

“And the next day, And the next, And another day”

 

Congratulations are due to David Bowie with the news that his The Next Day LP was the most purchased album in the UK’s independent record shops during 2013, according to the Official Charts Company’s year-end sales data.

The chart has had a bit of a shuffle since we posted it back in October, but one thing has remained constant and that’s David Bowie’s position at the top of it.

As well as The Next Day finishing at Number 1 on The Official Record Store Chart Top 40, it also placed at Number 23 on the overall Official Biggest Selling Albums Of 2013 Top 40.

Unlike the Official Albums Chart however, The Official Record Store Chart is compiled exclusively from sales in independent record shops who participate in Record Store Day.

 

Here’s the final Official Record Store Chart Top 10 Of 2013

 

01. David Bowie ‘The Next Day’

02. Arctic Monkeys ‘AM’

03. Daft Punk ‘Random Access Memories’

04. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds ‘Push The Sky Away’

05. Queens Of The Stone Age ‘Like Clockwork’

06. The National ‘Trouble Will Find Me’

07. Boards Of Canada ‘Tomorrow’s Harvest’

08. Mumford & Sons ‘Babel’

09. Jake Bug ‘Jake Bugg’

10. Vampire Weekend ‘Modern Vampires Of The City’

 

Read the full item over on officialcharts.com 

 

“Come to the show tonight”

 

For those of you in the Chicago area tonight that can’t wait till September to get your Bowie fix, why not head over to Berlin for a bit of a Bowie bash…that’s Berlin the club, not the German city.

Full details here.

 

“Drink, drink, drain your glass, raise your glass high”

 

A very happy 2014 to everybody reading this from everybody here at DavidBowie.com.

Thank you for your incredible support over 2013, it has been hugely appreciated.

While we’re in celebratory mood, here’s to David Bowie’s 50th year as a recording artist and here’s to many more. Cheers!

(Apologies to Barnbrook for the crude appropriation of the TND cover)