And so the time had come once more for another David Bowie box. For the fifth time the David Bowie Archive had collected his recordings from a certain era of his career – {1992-2001} in this case. The set with the ghastly amateurish self portrait was duly bought, and over the following year or so I listened to it, examined and enjoyed the book, the side projects, the extra discs… compared and reacquainted myself with some tracks, and put together playlists with different themes for outside listening. You all know the music, but what about the box and its content?
So what have we got? Is it any good? And what went wrong this time?
In the accompanying book the writing and recording process of the main albums – BLACK TIE WHITE NOISE, BUDDAH OF SUBURBIA, OUTSIDE, EARTHLING and HOURS – is explained at length in essays by the respective producers, and this is fascinating reading. It was new to me that Bowie didn’t »write« a single song in these ten years: he merely commissioned loops, rhythms and chord progressions from his musical directors (mainly Reeves Gabrels and Mark Plati, with Nile Rodgers in 1992/1993), which he then chopped up, re-assembled and augmented with harmonies until they got a rough structure to fine-tune with lyrics. Even the HOURS album (seen at the time as his return to »standard songwriting«) was constructed this way. And the whole of the OUTSIDE material – nearly two hours of music – was based on a single studio jam, recorded one day when the musicians prepared for the arrival of Brian Eno. It’s stories and context like this that Super Deluxe sets were invented for. And it raises the first question mark: where’s »The Leon Suites«, the first draft of the OUTSIDE album that was rejected by the label (but subsequently appeared as a temporary download on Bowie’s subscriber-only website)?
Similar questions could be asked about the inclusion of the rejected TOY album: a multi-disc reissue had been released a couple of months earlier just in time for Record Store Day; so why does this box just repeat the twelve tracks from the first disc of that set? The book here has a lengthy article about the gestation and recording of those songs, so they obviously thought about giving more background to the project (the »Toy Box« had no liner notes, just horrible design…). So why not present the complete 16 track version of the album here (again, this was leaked in the past through Bowie.Net)? We’ll probably have to wait until 2042 when it’s time for a thorough »40th Anniversary Bits & Pieces From 1999/2000« box. With reprinted WalMart shopping lists from the Bowie archive, probably.
As we’re merrily complaining it has to be said that the whole effort looks absolutely fantastic: The hardcover book has lots of pictures of ads, posters, single sleeves and tape covers, the reprinted reviews are shown in recreated page layouts of the original magazines, and there’s many outtakes from the famous photo sessions. The 90s albums were of course originally created as compact discs, so it’s a bit absurd that they’re presented here as replicated vinyl albums – in glorious gatefold covers, with impossible-to-read inner sleeves, of course. Nevertheless, the multi-page CD booklets from OUTSIDE and HOURS are included – but some bright spark has decided to tinker with the design and layout: full page pictures are now quarter-page, and vice versa. To make it even worse they used different typefaces, and thus lose all the period charm of these publications. The mid-nineties were the early days of desktop publishing, and as a designer you could clearly see which software update or new version of Kai’s Power Tools was on Bowie’s or the designer’s Mac. For EARTHLING they also fiddled with the artwork – the »endless« leporello-style CD inlay has been chopped up into lame double-page spreads.
The »Re:call« discs raise more serious questions. The (very loose) concept of this series of boxes seems to be to build a collection of all recordings from a certain era, as they were released at the time (so we don’t get any of the outtakes from the Ryko reissues, but plenty of single edits in mono…). But as we’ve reached »BowieBox 5« now, someone obviously couldn’t be bothered anymore. Somewhere in the book there’s a tiny note that Bowie’s collaboration with Massive Attack »wasn’t available due to licensing restrictions« – wait: the Bowie Archive couldn’t license one of their own tracks?? His recordings with Nine Inch Nails are represented by a 3-minute edit, and there’s not a trace whatsoever of the tracks he recorded (lead vocals mostly) with Mick Ronson, Reeves Gabrels, Tricky and Placebo. Oh yes, lots of »Radio Edits« are included; but as these are mostly the album version with a fade at 3:40, it’s not exactly collector’s gold. And the one genuine single version from this era (the Third Floor US Radio Mix of »Black Tie White Noise«) is missing. (By the way, »Real Cool World« on »Re:call 5« isn’t the version from the soundtrack album as stated in the liner notes, but a completely different mix as heard in the actual movie.)
You can check the list of missing tracks via the link below. (OK, OK, who would want to listen to multiple clumsy dancefloor-friendly versions of »Miracle Goodnight«, the Worst Song Ever Recorded, according to my husband…)
And one more thing – that nice book has a big list of dozens of people who worked on and contributed to this set. But none of them seems to have been interested enough to actually READ anything in this book – there’s typos (is the album really called »Earttling«?) and mixed-up sentences on nearly every page! (This probably isn’t a problem for people used to mobile phone and Twitter spell-checks, but it drives me crazy – especially as I’m currently employed to do the fifth (!) proof-read for a 360-page book in a Memphis Blues box…) Surely no surprise here: the Bowie Box series got off to a suspicious start with a »Forward« from Ray Davies, hur hur. And remember, this is no record label rush-job on a budget – these boxes were in preparation for nearly ten years, and are curated at the David Bowie Archive by people who previously worked for institutions like the V&A Museum. But maybe they get sidetracked by all those picture discs they have to churn out for Record Store Day.
https://chickswithdisks.wordpress.com/2023/01/01/brilliant-adventure-the-missing-tracks/
I think he wrote songs, just a different method of doing it.
I have this one which maybe contains some of the missing stuff
https://www.discogs.com/release/1532436-David-Bowie-Outside-Earthling-Hours-Heathen-Reality
All the major albums from the Adventures box (Black Tie White Noise, Outside, Earthling, Hours) had their 10th Anniversary 2-CD edition, which collected the B-sides with way more effort than the »Re:call 5« discs. As I said above, seven additional discs of Mixes is understandably too much for the marketing department, but why do a »Big« box if you don’t go the whole way? (If Bill Monroe recorded 13 versions of »Faded Love«, then they were included in the Bear Family box set. You don’t have to enjoy them, but they belong there…)
Great review.
He was trying in this phase. (I’ll say ) But trying is good. Perhaps the problem was he was seen as a stellar entertainer with a killer back catalogue, whereas this was now an albatross as he wanted to be an artiste, and, as all do, with age and success, the sensibilities and choices change, as does the context. If Bowie is seen as an arty song-and-dance man, does it diminish him? I don’t think so.
Top notch review, Fatima!
I share your frustration about the shoddiness of the proofreading. They go to all the trouble of producing this mega-box but can’t even spell the names of the albums correctly!
Have they no respect for Daved Buwey??
I’ve never been clear on the rationale for the Re:Call discs. I do know outtakes have never been considered until the inclusion of Toy here. Personally, I’m grateful that the Leon Suites remain in the vault and I love demanding music.
I’d have had a Dance collection as they did on Loving The Alien and left Toy until the next box. It is the beginnings of Heathen, after all, and I suspect they will struggle to fill eleven CDs with the material left. We shall see.
Have to agree about the proof reading.
I haven’t seen this many boxes since all those Man In A Suitcase episodes where McGill finds himself with the enemy in a warehouse and a monumental fight ensues in which McGill and his foes punch each other directly onto empty cardboard boxes.
The Sainted Dave’s gone cardboard-box-tastic. Maybe I should get the cat one?
Superb theme tune