  |
 David Bowie Quickie Rate...., Results of those Golden Years! |
| Track this thread - Email this thread - Print this thread - Download this thread - Subscribe to this forum |
 Jun 13 2020, 09:17 AM
Post
#1
|
|
 BuzzJack Legend
Joined: 18 July 2012
Posts: 22,812 User: 17,376 
  
|
Well, forcing everyone to just pick 5 has resulted in a bunch of Bowie classics getting nowt at all, not a single point, with half a dozen or so hoovering up a lot of love across the board. The other notable result is a bunch of tracks I don't know and am going to have to research
 For the results, there are quite a few down the lower end on the same points, so to split them, more voters get priority over one voter, and failing that I'm giving priority to older tracks over more recent tracks on the assumption that Time has had an opportunity to judge them better than more recent stuff - trust me, stuff that you loved 50 years ago doesn't always match what you love from that time 50 years later, so it kind of reduces nostalgia as an over-riding influential factor. Plus I get annoyed with charts which have tracks on equal placings. I tried it in my own charts for a while so I could cheat and have two number ones in the same week back in 1976, and am retrospectively splitting them up as I get to them. I feel SO dirty cheating that way! Split them up!  So thanks to everyone for voting, and apologies if these placings slip your loved ones down a place or two! There are only 27 tracks on the rundown, so a quick reminder of a Popchartfreak chart-topper from 1975 that won't be turning up: First off, among those Bowie classics not making an appearance: No Changes, no The Man Who Sold The World, which Bowie improved on himself when he gifted it to Lulu and revived her career, No Oh You Pretty Things which Peter Noone covered successfully, no All The Young Dudes, one of the best records of the 1970's for Mott The Hoople, unbelievably there's no The Jean Genie, nor a couple of 1973 singles I still love - Drive-In Saturday and his cover of Sorrow. Young Americans is absent, not even Luther Vandross helping it in, and moving into the 80's, Scary Monsters and Up The Hill Backwards deserved a mention, Loving The Alien ditto, This Is Not America was fabulous, and I'm surprised his last classic track of that era, Absolute Beginners, is MIA. Unloved by most, but personal tidbits like Never Let You Down missing is not a surprise, and there's not much beyond that period either, no Buddha Of Suburbia, Jump They Say and much of the 90's and 00's releases. So, what IS there? Coming up shortly! |
 |
 
|
|
Jun 13 2020, 09:39 AM
Post
#2
|
|
|
BuzzJack Legend
Joined: 18 July 2012
Posts: 22,812 User: 17,376
|
27. 'Tis A Pity She Was A Whore (2014) 1 point
Released as a single in November 2014, this rocking avante-garde gem was eventually re-recorded in a more jazzy style in keeping with the mood of Bowie's final critically-acclaimed album Blackstar in 2016. During the first recording he was already battling cancer, and during the second he was struggling and using his music to take him in dark-but-creative, sometimes difficult to listen to, musical areas. I really liked this track, the single version is the one I opted for (so apologies Jade if it was the album version you meant!) and it hit 25 in my charts, some way higher then the UK peak of 107 on the official charts. Portugal liked it best - it hit 57 on their charts. Good for them! |
|
|
|
|
Jun 13 2020, 10:05 AM
Post
#3
|
|
|
BuzzJack Platinum Member
Joined: 3 January 2017
Posts: 10,137 User: 23,961
   
|
Absolute Beginners and This Is Not America were two of the songs that just missed my top 5.
|
|
|
|
|
Jun 13 2020, 10:12 AM
Post
#4
|
|
|
BuzzJack Legend
Joined: 18 July 2012
Posts: 22,812 User: 17,376
|
26. Magic Dance (1986) 1 point
Taken from the Soundtrack album to Labyrinth, and a 12" single in some territories like the USA (but not the UK), this one remained unknown to me until recently. I've never seen the film, though I have been aware of Bowie's much-referenced turn as The Goblin King in the Jim-Henson movie - if that sounds incredible, I was pushing 30 at the time and have just never caught it on TV since I mean, I love The Muppets, so there's no reason I wouldn't like it as much as kids retaining a nostalgic affection for it. Dexton rated this one, and one of the things I'm enjoying about the rundown is it allows personal faves a look-in that might otherwise never make any rundown. To my ears, this sounds very 80's in production, but for Bowie quite upbeat and squarely aimed more at kids than the NME. I like it.
|
|
|
|
|
Jun 13 2020, 10:27 AM
Post
#5
|
|
|
BuzzJack Legend
Joined: 18 July 2012
Posts: 22,812 User: 17,376
|
25. Blue Jean (1984) 1 point
There's a great video (Grammy-award-winning) to this lead track off Tonight, the critically-slated follow-up to the massive commercial success of Let's Dance. I'm not showing it though cos it's at the wrong speed to my ears. This is a problem with US-to-UK formats on films and used to drive me mad. It's why, when I eventually saw TV show Star Trek on video transferred from the US masters at the right speed Captain Kirk sounded so wrong - we'd only ever watched the speeded-up version on UK TV and films were especially affected by this when they had music featured. Anyway, I digress, Blue Jean arrived with a massive bang, and then generally fizzed-out despite being a rock'n'roll-style commercial thumper. I always liked it more than the critics did, and it did pretty well across the world anyway, peaking at 6 in the UK, 1 in Spain, and 8 in the USA, even if I preferred Loving The Alien a bit more in retrospect, a later single off the album. Bigwif also likes it more than the critics did! |
|
|
|
|
Jun 13 2020, 10:45 AM
Post
#6
|
|
|
BuzzJack Legend
Joined: 18 July 2012
Posts: 22,812 User: 17,376
|
24. Cat People (Putting Out Fire) (1982) 1 point
A single from the soundtrack to Cat People (which I've never seen) , this full-on Giorgio Moroder-rock-mode production was a fab forgotten gem until it got used in more recent movies like Atomic Blonde and Inglourious Basterds. Annoyingly I still don't have the original superior version as it's never cropped-up on any Bowie compilations and I never got hold of a copy in the bargain bins over the years. Instead I have to make-do with the lesser, if thumping, Nile Rodgers remake on Let's Dance. Under-rated-much in the UK and US (peaking at 26 and 67) it appears to at least have been loved in Finland, New Zealand, Norway and Sweden where it topped the charts. Appreciated by Callum on here. Quite right too! |
|
|
|
|
Jun 13 2020, 06:42 PM
Post
#7
|
|
|
BuzzJack Legend
Joined: 18 July 2012
Posts: 22,812 User: 17,376
|
23. Peace On Earth - Little Drummer Boy (with Bing Crosby) (1977) 1 point
In 1977 Bowie was cursed - he appeared on Marc Bolan's TV show with him, and weeks later Bolan was killed in a car crash, then he appeared on Bing Crosby's Xmas special - and within weeks Crosby was also dead. If that wasn't weird enough, the notion that Bowie would appear with veteran Bing singing Chistmas carols, and in a duet was highly unlikely! And yet there you go (thanks to Bowie's mum liking Bing Crosby)....the result was rather lovely, an unexpected live recording mash-up (or sung Counterpoint as they use to say) of two great songs with the original Crooner which was belatedly released for Xmas 1982, a huge hit, and a subsequent Xmas standard in the UK. Bizarrely it only was created because Bowie hated Little Drummer Boy and didn't want to sing it, so the songwriters wrote Peace On Earth for Bowie, he learned it in an hour and boom off they went to record it. Unlike most over-played Xmas perennials, this one still warms the cockles of the heart, unlike, say, Crosby's White Christmas which I just want to scream over whenever it crops up after 50-odd years of listening to the bloody thing. I mean, it was dull to begin with, and I don't like any version of the song, but that's just torture! Steve is also a fan of this one, hooray! The record peaked at 3 in the UK, and again it did the same in 2008. |
|
|
|
|
Jun 13 2020, 07:30 PM
Post
#8
|
|
 Right in front of my salad?!
Pronouns: he/him
Joined: 7 March 2006 Posts: 82,468 User: 12
            
|
Argh! I forgot this Christmas classic
|
|
|
|
|
Jun 14 2020, 12:46 AM
Post
#9
|
|
 Shakin Stevens
Joined: 29 December 2007
Posts: 46,139 User: 5,138
|
Bowies only venture into the Christmas compilations after he didn't turn up to the Band Aid recording(although he did have a quick part to the Snowman of course)!
Proud I've got this into the chart 😀 |
|
|
|
|
Jun 15 2020, 05:56 PM
Post
#10
|
|
|
BuzzJack Legend
Joined: 18 July 2012
Posts: 22,812 User: 17,376
|
22. Where Are We Now? (2013) 2 points
It had been a decade since Bowie had released anything, and I can't speak for anyone else but I was assuming he wouldn't release anything again. Then on his 66th birthday this just turned up, ahead of a new album The Next Day, and suddenly we all remembered again how great he was. Understated, touching, and clearly an ageing Bowie, this was a huge success worldwide, his first UK top 10 in 20 years, and Portugal again loved it most, topping the chart. Now we know what was going on, it's obvious that Bowie was following the well-worn path a lot of creative people take when they get a terminal illness or tragedy - using it as a way to stay busy, remain relevant, get creative, keep going. Steve picked this as his 4th fave Bowie track, making sure Bowie's last creative phase is well represented in the rundown. |
|
|
|
|
Jun 15 2020, 06:14 PM
Post
#11
|
|
|
BuzzJack Legend
Joined: 18 July 2012
Posts: 22,812 User: 17,376
|
21. Everyone Says 'Hi' (2002) 2 points
My fave Bowie track of the noughties, this also sounded fab in the Claudia Brucken version, which Bowie took the time to Say 'Hi" to on her Youtube video. Still able to get a UK chart hit (at 20) by 2002 - and nowhere else - this under-appreciated minor gem made my top 10, the final one if his lifetime, and leaving him only one more top to come with new material posthumously in 2016 (Lazarus). Taken from the album Heathen, marking the return of his classic-period-producer Tony Visconti (he of T.Rex's golden period too), who also stuck around for later stuff while Bowie was ill, a welcome development for me as I'd not always gone for some of his more avant-garde phases of the 80's and 90's, notably Tin Machine. On the list thanks to AH Gold, who I know is also a fan of the Claudia Brucken version - cheers AH! |
|
|
|
|
Jun 16 2020, 02:54 PM
Post
#12
|
|
|
rip in peace Dickston
Joined: 29 January 2017
Posts: 9,517 User: 25,045
    
|
Magic Dance is so good
 The movie is an absolute classic too, I fully recommend it to everyone who is either a fan of Bowie or of Jim Henson projects. I'm a fan of both... so it's a movie just for me |
|
|
|
|
Jun 16 2020, 05:24 PM
Post
#13
|
|
|
Shakin Stevens
Joined: 29 December 2007
Posts: 46,139 User: 5,138
|
Great to see 'Where Are We Now' making it in, loved that chart appearance as it was so unexpected!
|
|
|
|
|
Jun 17 2020, 06:48 PM
Post
#14
|
|
|
BuzzJack Legend
Joined: 18 July 2012
Posts: 22,812 User: 17,376
|
20. China Girl (1983) 2 points
Bowie was huge in 1983 following his cash-injected switch from RCA to EMI, and he delivered his new label with a massive selling album in Let's Dance, a Nile Rodgers dance-stormer chock full of big singles, such as this UK number 2, US 10. Originally written by Bowie & Iggy Pop during his Berlin-phase in 1977, and recorded by Iggy Pop, Bowie's cover was a catchy pop delight, loved the synth-bop, the oriental-instrumental touches, loved the anti-stereotype video, and loved that it gave Iggy Pop a nice little nest-egg for the rest of his life with the co-write income, and a bigger profile. Topped my chart as the second of a hat-trick, to boot, in the year that I still regard as the peak of the Music Video as an art form while it was fresh, ground-breaking, and taking British music across the globe, conquering the USA in a way it hadn't done since the early 60's. Here thanks to the good taste of Ready For It... |
|
|
|
|
Jun 17 2020, 07:09 PM
Post
#15
|
|
|
BuzzJack Legend
Joined: 18 July 2012
Posts: 22,812 User: 17,376
|
19. Moonage Daydream (1972) 2 points
The album that turned Bowie into a teen-idol space-age glamrock superstar was The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars, as he morphed into the character of Ziggy, a bisexual alien, in pure performance art-as-album-and-stage-persona, before wisely killing him off in 1973 and moving on. Moonage Daydream is a track I know, but don't know as well as I should, cos, errr, I've never bought the album! That's a shock I know! Loved Bowie, but I was a singles teenager, I rarely bought artist albums, and being 14 I had little disposable income, and what I had went on DC Comics and singles mostly. I bought Aladdin Sane. I bought the Sound+Vision super-CD box set with many of the Ziggy tracks on it (including this one). I've just never got round to buying the original album. This is good, I mean it's classic-era Bowie, Mick Ronson on guitar, and it's a statement-of-introduction of Ziggy. What's not to like!? Not a lot of people know it was a 1971 single in an earlier recording from Bowie under the name Arnold Corns. Having a laugh, or what! Callum gave this critically-acclaimed track the 2 points. Maybe it needs to be a single at last in 2021 for the 50th anniversary of the original single version.... |
|
|
|
|
Jun 17 2020, 07:10 PM
Post
#16
|
|
|
Shakin Stevens
Joined: 29 December 2007
Posts: 46,139 User: 5,138
|
'China Girl' was a fantastic track
|
|
|
|
|
Jun 18 2020, 04:27 PM
Post
#17
|
|
|
BuzzJack Legend
Joined: 18 July 2012
Posts: 22,812 User: 17,376
|
18. SLOW BURN (2002) 2 points (2 voters)
Leww and dandy both voted for this one, and I have to admit I'd forgotten I knew it, taken from Heathen as the lead single prior Everyone Says 'Hi", except in the UK where it remained an album track, it sneaked into my charts at 68 for 2 weeks, so I must have heard it somewhere. Pete Townsend on guitar (Who?!), and an unreleased video which is now available to view (see it above!), it's a grower though not an obvious single - probably why the best it could muster was 16 in Italy. Good classic Bowie vocals and Tony Visconti give it a horn-based, guitar-driven Ziggy-period feel, so I guess you might say it's the last time we see that side of David. Completely unrelated to this, but talking classic-period Bowie, in 1973 I had the only ever haircut based on a pop star in my life - the hairdresser asked me if I fancied a Bowie-cut, then all-the-rage, a sort of layered feather-cut - and I said OK. Bearing in mind my new school had told me to get a haircut (my old school didn't care too much about shoulder-length hair, this one very much did), that was about as close to "cool" as I got.... |
|
|
|
|
Jun 18 2020, 06:38 PM
Post
#18
|
|
|
BuzzJack Legend
Joined: 18 July 2012
Posts: 22,812 User: 17,376
|
17. HALLO SPACEBOY (with Pet Shop Boys) (1996) 4 points
The third Major Tom song of Bowie's career, every one of them brilliant, and my first top 5 track on the list. It was inevitable I would rate it - my fave pop stars of the 80's and 90's combining with the 70's icon on a sci-fi-related track bringing back Major Tom for a third unique chart-topper featuring a fictional spaceman. I mean, it had "ME!!!" written all over it in huge neon flashing lights. An industrial Nine Inch Nails-styled track on his 1995 album Outside, Chris and Neil got their mitts on a re-recorded version and gave it the PSB treatment, dance drum n bass and all, with a hugely exciting single which gave Bowie a near-top-10 in the UK and a chart-topper in Israel. The Major Tom bits were all Pet Shop Boys, intentionally creating the third and final instalment of the 1969 classic Space Oddity - Bowie was hesitant when they told him over the phone, but liked it when he heard the result. Quite rightly, it's far and away my fave thing he did in the 90's, topped my charts for weeks, and gave Bowie his first track to do that since 1985, and his 9th and final one with current material - though loads as oldies have topped my chart. Let's not mention the previous one was the Live Aid charity single, it was for a good cause, even if This Is Not America should have been the one to top my chart. Bizarrely the video isn't available on Youtube, but at least there's this 1996 TOTP appearance to compensate....and note the stilettos 25 years before a certain other popstar made a song n dance about wearing them oblivious to Bowie having paved the full-on ambiguous pathway half a century ago. |
|
|
|
|
Jun 18 2020, 06:49 PM
Post
#19
|
|
|
Shakin Stevens
Joined: 29 December 2007
Posts: 46,139 User: 5,138
|
Pretty cool Bowie appeared on totp in 1996 for this, must have been his first performance since when...1974/5?
I always like 'Dancing In The Street' mainly due to the two performers lol. |
|
|
|
|
Jun 18 2020, 07:07 PM
Post
#20
|
|
|
BuzzJack Legend
Joined: 18 July 2012
Posts: 22,812 User: 17,376
|
good question I had to look it up! It was his 10th appearance:
1969 Space Oddity (now lost) 1971 Oh You Pretty Things 1972 Starman 1973 The Jean Genie 1977 'Heroes' 1987 Time Will Crawl - unbelievably never broadcast, just a clip at christmas! 1987 Never Let Me Down 1991 You Belong In Rock 'n' Roll (Tin Machine) 1991 Baby Universal (Tin Machine) 1996 Hallo Spaceboy 1997 Dead Man Walking everything after that was pre-recorded stuff in the USA and doesn't count anymore than a music video does. Seems when he could do no wrong sales-wise, with the exception of Jean Genie (prob trying to knock Little Jimmy Osmond off the top to grab a number one) and Heroes (when he wasnt guaranteed big hits anymore) he didn't feel the need to do TOTP, and when his sales were struggling he was more willing. |
|
|
|
|
| Time is now: 18th April 2024 - 11:36 PM |
Copyright © 2006 - 2024 BuzzJack.com
About | Contact | Advertise | Privacy Policy | Terms of Service
