Recorded: November 1996
Producers: David Bowie, Reeves Gabrels, Mark Plati
Released: 29 August 2020
Personnel
David Bowie: vocals
Reeves Gabrels: guitar
Gail Ann Dorsey: vocals, bass guitar
Mark Plati: keyboards, programming
Tracklisting
- ‘The Man Who Sold The World’
- ‘Aladdin Sane’
- ‘White Light/White Heat’
- ‘Shopping For Girls’
- ‘Lady Stardust’
- ‘The Supermen’
- ‘Repetition’
- ‘Andy Warhol’
- ‘Quicksand’
ChangesNowBowie is a collection of nine studio recordings made by David Bowie in November 1996. It was issued on compact disc and vinyl on 29 August 2020, as part of Record Store Day.
The album contains nine songs. Two – ‘The Man Who Sold The World’ and ‘The Supermen’ – were originally released on 1970’s The Man Who Sold The World, while ‘Andy Warhol’ and ‘Quicksand’ were first heard on the following year’s Hunky Dory.
There was one song apiece from 1972’s The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars (‘Lady Stardust’) and 1973’s Aladdin Sane (the title track).
1979’s Lodger was represented by the song ‘Repetition’, while ‘Shopping For Girls’ was originally heard on 1991’s Tin Machine II.
The only non-Bowie composition was the Velvet Underground’s 1968 song ‘White Light/White Heat’. Bowie often covered the song live, with versions previously released on Ziggy Stardust: The Motion Picture, Serious Moonlight (Live ’83), and Bowie At The Beeb.
In the studio
The mostly acoustic recordings were made and mixed at Philip Glass’s Looking Glass Studios in New York City, during preparations for Bowie’s 50th birthday concert, which was held at Madison Square Garden on 9 January 1997.
We began working on the Birthday Show right after the album [Earthling] was mixed. We created several new arrangements of songs. This was an amazing thing to work on for me technically as I hadn’t done much work with video. Some things were incredible – everyone involved know that this was something special…Before the Birthday Concert we recorded several acoustic versions of older songs for a BBC special. This was an amazing session. We did most of the songs in a day – David, Reeves, and Gail together live. I added some strings and keys after the fact. David did six lead vocal tracks in two hours.
Interview for Strange Fascination, David Buckley
Strange that this is a “limited” release,….only because it’s such a strong set. The whole set plays through as a comment on how society is twisted and ends on a very cool note with the song “Quicksand” sounding like something he could have recorded just before his passing. As I listened I kept thinking how “dark times’ make for great releases….except this wasn’t recorded “now”!
I totally agree – these versions are awesome