Since his death in early 2016, David Bowie has been the gift that keeps on giving. And taking away.
Bowie completists and uber-fans have been swamped by five enormous, career-covering box sets (each of 10 or 11 CDs), some big collections of demos and live recordings, songs for his intended musical Lazarus, Record Store Day special releases and more.
He just keeps giving and, for some, taking away huge wedges of the credit card. But the career-overview series ends with the 13-CD or 18-LP set I Can’t Give Everything Away (2002-2016), which cover the studio albums Heathen (2002), Reality (2003), The Next Day (2013) and Blackstar (2016).
This was a late-career purple patch for Bowie – The Next Day a global chart-topper – and his final studio album Blackstar, released two days before his death, ranks alongside Low and Heroes as the boldest directional shift of his singular career.
These albums are remastered by producer Tony Visconti, and there are two discs of Bowie live at the 2002 Montreux Jazz Festival, two live from the Reality tour, and much more. Notably, three discs under the heading Re:Call 6 of what we’d call bits and bobs.
There you’ll find Bowie with Lou Reed (Hop Frog from Reed’s Edgar Allen Poe concept album The Raven), Arcade Fire (their Wake Up and his Five Years), David Gilmour (live on Pink Floyd’s early single Arnold Layne) and others.
Want a new mix of Bowie singing Neil Young’s I’ve Been Waiting For You, the Kinks’ Waterloo Sunset and the 2003 remix of Bring Me the Disco King with Tool’s Maynard James Keenan and Red Hot Chili Pepper John Frusciante? Or Bowie covering Sigue Sigue Sputnik’s annoying Love Missile F1-11? Here they are.
Setting aside obviously outstanding songs – the moody original and dramatically overhauled Disco King, the desperate The Stars (Are Out Tonight), Everyone Says Hi, Where Are We Now?, Blackstar and Lazarus, we pull out five very different Bowie songs of the 163 collected that we consider worth investigating:
I’m Afraid of Americans
Live, at the 2002 Montreux Jazz Festival
One of Bowie’s greatest songs – co-written with Brian Eno for 1997’s Earthling – gets a menacing reading by Bowie, who introduces it as “an old 90s song”. With its Golden Years-type 1970s soul-funk elevated a couple of notches, guitarist Earl Slick getting away scouring, claustrophobic noise-core and pianist Mike Garson pounding a single note, it is disorienting, oppressive and impressive.
It’ll make you afraid, too.
The Loneliest Guy
Live, on the 2003 Reality tour
It’s a measure of Bowie’s ability to command a crowd that he could drop this tear-jerker into a crowd-pleasing set of his pop and rock standards. A musically spare ballad in which the character lives in emotional isolation, Bowie’s voice quivers through the denial when he sings, “I’m not the loneliest guy, I’m the luckiest guy.” The crowd in Dublin is hushed. You will be, too.
Everyone Say Hi
A remixed radio edit of the Heathen song
Not many in this huge collection could grab those weaned on dancefloor pop, but this electronica remix by UK’s Metro aims squarely at phone wavers with its steady pulse, glitter-ball dynamic and Bowie’s echoed vocal. Could have been longer for the full light-stick effect, but it neatly leads into the handclap energy of Heathen (The Rays) live in Berlin.
Love is Lost
The Hello Steve Reich remix by James Murphy
This 10-minute remix by LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy will make you smile if you know minimalist composer Steve Reich’s Clapping Music. Murphy opens with random applause, which devolves into Clapping Music, then Bowie’s chugging rock from The Next Day enters in stripped-back fashion. Later, Murphy weaves in subtle samples from Ashes to Ashes and it gets funk-to-funky. From The Next Day Extra EP (so only Bowiephiles heard it).
Sue (Or in a Season of Crime)
The seven minute-plus 2014 version of the Blackstar song
This majestic, cinematic collaboration with a jazz orchestra led by Grammy-winning composer Maria Schneider – originally on 2014’s Nothing Has Changed compilation – was the starting point for Blackstar.
The short, re-recorded version on Blackstar with different musicians is more aggressive and approachable, but this huge, swaying version where the players improvised around Bowie’s vocal hints at where he might have gone if he’d had more time.
However, he probably wouldn’t have taken many with him on the journey.
This set is available digitally and as 12 CDs, 18 vinyl albums with accompanying booklet.
