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Best Bowie Reissues.

Hunky Dory is a stunning recording. Mine is just a mid-run orange RCA and it is a remarkably dynamic record. The guitar on side two on Andy Warhol etc is amazing. I’ve not heard the reissue.
Like Transformer, a great dynaflex record.
 
Like Transformer, a great dynaflex record.

Funnily enough one of my earlier copies of Hunky Dory was a US or Canadian Dynaflex. It was little thicker than a freebie flexidisk, certainly the thinnest LP I’ve ever seen. It sounded superb. I likely made a mistake swapping my current copy for it, I think it possibly had the edge sound-wise, though my current cover is better. I went the other way with Transformer and swapped a very nice UK copy for a Canadian Dynaflex as I felt the latter just had the edge sound-wise. That one isn’t as thin though.
 
I bought a recent pressing of Low and sold it after one play and got a nice early version. The remix/master was very bass heavy.
 
That doesn’t surprise me much. The later period Bowie (1. Outside onwards) is very fat and compressed as part of the aesthetic, pretty much ‘loudness wars’, so no huge surprise the rest of the catalogue has been nudged in this direction. That said I thought the Anniversary issue of Ziggy was superb. Weightier, but well done. His ‘off his box on cocaine’ period in the mid-70s is not the best sounding IMO. Low is good though, but does have a rather odd sound (which is part of the charm). Obviously Bowie’s take on a new-wave meets Krautrock aesthetic.
 
Funnily enough one of my earlier copies of Hunky Dory was a US or Canadian Dynaflex. It was little thicker than a freebie flexidisk, certainly the thinnest LP I’ve ever seen. It sounded superb. I likely made a mistake swapping my current copy for it, I think it possibly had the edge sound-wise, though my current cover is better. I went the other way with Transformer and swapped a very nice UK copy for a Canadian Dynaflex as I felt the latter just had the edge sound-wise. That one isn’t as thin though.
Amongst others, I've got Transformer, Hunky Dory and Rock n Roll animal on North American Dynaflex pressings and they all sound amazing. Great bargains in good Nick - especially the Canadian ones. Probably shouldn't be mentioning it. :)
 
As a rule of thumb, anything prior to Let's Dance, on RCA and sourced from the UK will be more than OK. The early albums are complicated since they were originally released on Philips and Mercury in different covers. Depends how keen you are on originality. So orange is best, green is definitely OK and black may be all there ever was.

I bought "Heroes" at the time, it is a beige label pressing of Italian manufacture. It was cut by Sterling, so probably OK. I think there are a lot of these about. For a long time I simply didn't realise there was an orange label of this. Now of course it is too late because I'm not insane.

I've not noticed any mention of Ziggy Stardust,The Motion Picture which must be the last RCA release, the same year as Let's Dance. Interesting piece of history if nothing else (not played it since the 80s)
 
I've not noticed any mention of Ziggy Stardust,The Motion Picture which must be the last RCA release, the same year as Let's Dance. Interesting piece of history if nothing else (not played it since the 80s)

For some reason I’ve never had a copy. I didn’t buy it at the time as everything (including Bowie) had moved on and it just seemed old-news, plus money was tight and there was so much new music to buy. Whenever I’ve seen them since they have been trashed so I never bought one. No opinion at all on that one other than the movie is certainly worth a watch.

PS I got into Bowie at Low, that was my first album of his bought with paper-round money. It wasn’t until the mid-80s I really started to back-catalogue.
 
People do forget though, in a career spanning fifty years, the classic periods were limited. Did he release anything of lasting value between 1984 - 2012? That's a big chunk.
 
Did he release anything of lasting value between 1984 - 2012? That's a big chunk.

Yes, absolutely! I’d recommend everything from 1. Outside right through to Blackstar, though Earthling has maybe not aged too well (his take on drum ‘n’ bass).
 
Not in the same class as Hunky, Ziggy and Aladdin though I should imagine.

I really like 1. Outside and Heathen, they are really good albums. The good thing with Bowie is he never stayed still, so in no way is anything that came after Ziggy or Aladdin Sane is even remotely similar. He did them and moved on to the white soul of Young Americans and Station To Station, the new-wave Krautrock experimentation of the Berlin trilogy etc. Then Scary Monsters was something else, as was Lets Dance. the run from 1. Outside through to The Next Day can possibly be viewed as a block with Blackstar as the final masterpiece and maybe even a whole career high (yes, I really rate it that highly!). My problem with this period is the mastering, I have the CD box set that has extra discs of remixes etc (Discogs) and it is a very late-90s brickwalled aesthetic that gets more extreme album to album. Musically there is a great deal of value here. It wasn’t a weak period despite him being out of the public eye.
 
Maybe it's not without merit, it's just not relevant. He was once setting the trend, post Let's Dance he was following.
 
People do forget though, in a career spanning fifty years, the classic periods were limited. Did he release anything of lasting value between 1984 - 2012? That's a big chunk.

Yes, everything from Outside to Blackstar has as much 'lasting value' as his work from the late 60's to the early of mid eighties IMHO, I'm not so fussed on the Tin Machine or Black tie/White noise.
 
The hole in my collection is everything after Lets Dance and before 1. Outside. I’ve got the rest aside from a couple of soundtracks. To be honest I’ve no real interest in filling that gap.

PS I’d argue the RSD live albums are well worth having too, especially Welcome To The Blackout and I’m Only Dancing. The former being a much better Stage in complete gig form, the latter a 1974 transition into the soul period which is very interesting as it is very different to David Live.
 
MFSL - Ziggy and EMI 100 - Hunk Dory, both great.

Simply Vinyl - Man Who Sold The World, haven’t got anything to compare this with but accept it for what it is.
 


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