« Rock 'n' Roll Mega Bowl Surf Rider | Home | Stacked Black Cooling Rack »
June 25, 2006
'Best of Bowie' — Not good enough
I figured what with "Space Oddity" being one of my very most favorite songs, spending time with 38 of David Bowie's greatest hits would be endless fun.
Wrong-o.
The only other song at all interesting to me (read play repeatedly 10, 20, 30 times or more) was "Let's Dance."
And even then it's on the second of two CD's, so I'm limited to one decent song when I'm out running with my CD player.
Sure, there're lots of famous songs on this album: "Ziggy Stardust," "The Jean Genie," "Rebel Rebel," "Golden Years," "China Girl," and "Absolute Beginners" were all huge hits.
Sure, there are all sorts of funky sound effects, percussion up the wazoo, electronica and what-not, but give me The Who's "Mary Anne With The Shaky Hands" any day of the week.
What a waste of $22.98 (at Amazon).
June 25, 2006 at 12:01 PM | Permalink
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
https://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d8341c5dea53ef00d8349b3e5753ef
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference 'Best of Bowie' — Not good enough:
Comments
Oops! Ya right Skip. It does have Life on Mars. Not sure how I overlooked it.
Posted by: Cory Capron | Jun 26, 2006 10:58:57 AM
But but but but - it's got Life on Mars. It's got Diamond Dogs. It's got Rebel, Rebel, Golden Years, it's got - well actually there's not a long on the second CD to make me rush out and buy it, but I'd have a good go at wearing out CD1.
Posted by: Skipweasel | Jun 25, 2006 2:21:17 PM
Blender magazine recently finished a 2-part Bowie album review (first part: 60s and 70s, second part: 80s and onward) which would be helpful to look at to compare which genre of Bowie fits which album. Being the chameleon he is it's hard to be a casual fan. I really like Blender's album surveys - they do them each issue with a different artist. I've seen Kinks, Who, Bowie, and Rolling Stones. I guess you have to have a big back catalogue to get in. Anyhow. Check it out when you're around a newsstand, it's in the latest issue & the one before.
Posted by: KJ | Jun 25, 2006 1:31:48 PM
Don't take this the wrong way, but are you even a fan of Bowie? Was there something you were expecting that you didn't find? I mean, what album background did you have going into this? Were there songs you wanted that didn't make the cut?
As a fan, I'm not very impressed by this lineup as a "Best Of." Perhaps a Greatest Hits, but not a BEST OF. "Queen Bitch" and "Life on Mars" are just two of many songs from Hunky Dory that are better than "Changes". I like the song "Heroes" but from the Eno co-written album of the same name, it's one of the weakest songs... though the easiest to make sense of perhaps.
Still, I agree there are a lot of good (by more than their hit status) Bowie songs on this mix. I'm just getting the vibe from your review that you're not really a fan to begin with, so it wouldn't have mattered what lineup they gave you.
Oh and 22.98 is a bloody rip off! Next time, shop around man. I'm sure I've seen it for less in the local stores.
Posted by: Cory Capron | Jun 25, 2006 1:14:54 PM
The comments to this entry are closed.