The latest in the series of career overview boxed sets for The Dame has been announced. I have to say I am a bit underwhelmed at the unreleased extras which come along with the reissues of his last 4 albums.
New Bowie boxed set – “I Can’t Give Everything Away” September 2025
I was happy to finally see this getting announced – four years after the last one. The first of these sets came out when Bowie was alive. It’s worth pointing out that these sets are never really about the unreleased material, so this one is par for the course – a new and exclusive live recording and the Re:Call sets never have unreleased stuff. I have the other five of these, so I’ll be seeing what happens in terms of a price drop… fingers crossed.
I have one set on vinyl, one set on CD, one set on dodgy CDs and one on download, so maybe I will stream this one
They’ve decided for some reason – or maybe he has – not to work with Jonathan Barnbrook again on the design. And it shows. Compared to the beautifully presented Barnbrook-designed earlier boxes, this looks like cheap and perfunctory – that typeface! – as if it was slapped together in five minutes, despite having been presumably in the works for years.
The selection is as @DrJ says, nothing more than gathering up all the key releases and their attendant b-sides, remixes etc. The Montreaux live is much bootlegged but will be nice to have. Remarkably, there is no sign of the Blackstar outtake ‘Blaze’ that I was very much hoping for.
This box represents a creative renaissance. Three of these albums are among his best and the other is a lot of fun. Live, his band was astonishing and had a huge selection of songs to pick from. The Reality Tour was wonderful, arguably his best ever!
£120 for the CD version is cheaper than I expected. Of course, like DrJ, I will be completing my “collection”. No remix this time, I notice.
Well put. When other acts of a similar vintage might have been winding down, the Dame came up with The Next Day, which is very good, and then Blackstar, which is my second-place pick, after 1.Outside.
Maybe he knew it was time to look back at his life, but there’s an elegiac sound to some of the songs in this set that I find really appealing: the nostalgia-fest Where Are They Now?, Days (off Reality), etc. For me, it makes listening to these albums today a more interesting proposition than some of the 70s classics that are usually held up as peak Bowie. Late-period Leonard Cohen albums have the same vibe: a performer with a long life, well lived, looking back at their adventures.
My feelings about this period of DB’s career are probably coloured by the fact that he was one of the few celebs whose death really, really moved me. In the years since, I’ve often found myself thinking what a shame it is that he’s gone, especially at such a relatively young age and when he clearly had more to say and do, having already done so much. There can’t be many other performers around today whose career could be compiled in six substantial box sets and still have fans moaning about all the missing material.
Ten years this coming January 😥
I checked and I paid between £50 and £65 for the other boxes (on CD), so I’m going to take the risk and wait.
»I checked…«
So, you have these beautiful sets on your shelf – and you couldn’t be bothered to remove the price tags, probably handwritten ones from your local record emporium? 😉
I don’t know what happened to glue since the early 1990s when I switched to CD and the mid-2010s when I switched back again, but modern price labels seem to be welded on. I’ve given up trying to remove them.
I recall Our Price labels varied, some easy peel, some coming off in 3 layers, others (like on my copy of Tull’s Crest For A Knave) best left alone after a seemingly successful peel followed by a slight tearing sound.