Bowie - The '80s

David Bowie started off the '80s with one of his best albums... and ended it with one of his worst. And in between those two points, he catapulted into international superstardom, mainstream success, and creative confusion. He'd rebound, though.

David Bowie - 2010s and beyond

 

 

When he reappeared with a new album in 2013, something was clearly amiss. We now know the unfortunate reasons behind it all and were lucky enough to be graced with the last couple years of material. And there have been, and will continue to be, releases posthumously.

Bowie - The 2000s

Still producing some of the best music of his career, there was an unfortunate decade-long pause in new material after he suffered a heart attack during a concert in 2004.

Bowie - The '90s

The 1990s were another period of rabid creativity in Bowie's career. He started off the decade with Tin Machine, then made a pseudo-R&B album (Black Tie White Noise), then reunited with Eno for Outside, toured with Nine Inch Nails, played Andy Warhol in the movie"Basquiat," then went into drum 'n bass territory (Earthling) and finished off the decade with the first in a new trilogy of albums (Hours). That is more than most have done in a career; just another decade for db.

Bowie - The '70s

Warning: If you're a casual Bowie fan, you should turn and run now. Go get yourself a copy of the Best Of and be done with it.

Starting in 1989, EMI (Rykodisc in the US) began a campaign of reissuing Bowie's catalog. All his albums were remastered with bonus tracks and there was an odds 'n sods box set collection, Sound & Vision. This was basically the first big Remaster campaign, which since has become quite common. Some people still swear by these 1990-1992 versions of the albums as being the definitive versions.

In 1999, his catalog went to Virgin, who began their own remaster campaign, issuing all the albums, newly remastered, but sans bonus tracks.

In 2007-2009 his albums were released on SHM-CD in Japan. In 2013, many of his albums were mastered for HD digital. And recently, posthumous box sets have been released with yet new remasters.

Does it all really matter? Don't they basically sound the same? Well, not really. I'm not a collector (good luck finding all 200+ versions of Ziggy Stardust), but I am a bit of an audiophile and after being a fan for so long, I've just acquired different versions of the same albums over time.

So, you have choices... although, I don't think you can go wrong with the EMI/Rykodisc versions from '90-'92.

As to the music itself, maybe no one has gone through so many different styles and incarnations, alter egos and sounds in one single decade than Bowie in the 1970s.

David Bowie - The '60s

Who knew this fresh-faced young lad would become the greatest British pop musician of all time? [according to BBC voters]  I have an embarrassingly large collection, which I will try to group by decade. So, stay tuned...