David Bowie The 100 Greatest Songs (7cd) (2015)

It was probably David Bowie's record-company affiliation difficulties that kept the 1993 Buddha of Suburbia soundtrack to a British TV miniseries from being released in the U.S. until 1995, when it was slipped out in the wake of his new album, Outside. That's too bad, because The Buddha of Suburbia is an often engaging collection of songs and instrumental passages that recalls many previous Bowie albums, including such disparate efforts as The Man Who Sold the World, Aladdin Sane, and Low. It's not a major effort by any means, but in another context songs like "Strangers When We Meet" easily could become Bowie favorites.

This 3CD set contains all the FM Broadcast recordings made on the US leg of David Bowie s 1995 Outside tour, which featured then nu-industrial superstars Nine Inch Nails as support. With both artists trailing new, ground-breaking albums and - despite their generational differences - with their similarity of outlook and mutual respect, it was inevitable that a mix of the Bowie/NIN sound would ensue. So with each show including full sets from the Dame and his protgs, it was the mid-concert coming together of these two far reaching acts which stole the show night after night. Including concerts recorded at The Riverport Amphitheater, Maryland Heights, St Louis, MO, on 11th October 1995 and at The Shoreline Amphitheater, Mountain View, CA, on 21st October 1995, this set features the very best of one of the most challenging and futuristic tours of the past 30 years.

"Of all David Bowie's many distinctive personae, none have done more to lodge this most ingenious of British artists in the world's consciousness than his 1972 amalgam of the alien visitor and Christ-like rock star: Ziggy Stardust. Cheap glamour, spacemen and ambiguous sexuality surface throughout the loosely conceptualised collection that is The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. If its premise sounds faintly ludicrous, then inspired and dramatic songs such as "Starman" and "Five Years" dispel all doubts about Bowie's genius, and the theatrically tragic "Rock 'n' Roll Suicide" brings the album and it's fictional protagonist to a close. As a cultural and musical signpost, Ziggy Stardust points simultaneously backwards to early rock & roll and forward to the simpler, tougher inclinations of late-1970s punk and New Wave rock. As one of the defining rock albums of the 20th century, its influence is immeasurable."

"Of all David Bowie's many distinctive personae, none have done more to lodge this most ingenious of British artists in the world's consciousness than his 1972 amalgam of the alien visitor and Christ-like rock star: Ziggy Stardust. Cheap glamour, spacemen and ambiguous sexuality surface throughout the loosely conceptualised collection that is The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. If its premise sounds faintly ludicrous, then inspired and dramatic songs such as "Starman" and "Five Years" dispel all doubts about Bowie's genius, and the theatrically tragic "Rock 'n' Roll Suicide" brings the album and it's fictional protagonist to a close. As a cultural and musical signpost, Ziggy Stardust points simultaneously backwards to early rock & roll and forward to the simpler, tougher inclinations of late-1970s punk and New Wave rock. As one of the defining rock albums of the 20th century, its influence is immeasurable."

DVD1 - INSIDE BOWIE 1969/72: long awaited critical review of the music of David Bowie and the Spiders From Mars during the crucial period from 1969 to 1972 when Bowie rose from obscurity to superstardom. DVD2 INSIDE BOWIE 1972/74: We pick up with the Ziggy Stardust album and review the work of Bowie on Aladdin Sane through the break up of the Spiders, Pin Ups and on to the Diamond Dogs album.; DVD3 A CLASSICAL TRIBUTE: The greatest music in the history of rock like youve never heard it before. The Classic Rock Chamber Suites is a major new series featuring challenging new arrangements of the very best music produced by some of the greatest names in the history of rock.