Episodes
Sunday Dec 30, 2018
Future Legend: What to Expect from Bowie in 2019
Sunday Dec 30, 2018
Sunday Dec 30, 2018
As 2018 draws to a gentle close, the world examines its myriad lives, searching for a way to move forward as a society, a community, as humanity, a way to make the next year better for all.
Part of that is probably buying a bunch of David Bowie stuff, right? You know, to improve the world?
Read on for confirmed releases, safe bets, and wild speculation of what to expect in 2019 from the Bowie camp.
July 6, 2019 Update: If you want some newer info on all this business, check out my new post here.
Confirmed Releases
First up, let's look at what has already been announced for 2019. There's not much.
David Bowie Is... Virtual
Set for release on January 8 (what would have been Bowie's 72nd birthday), this brand new app is an augmented reality version of the famed David Bowie Is... museum exhibition, which ended its run in New York last July. If, like me, you weren't able to go because you don't live close enough to any of the cities that hosted it, this should be an exciting release. Plus, let's be honest, Bowie would have loved diving into augmented and virtual reality. More info here.
Lodger Symphony
Renowned minimalist composer Philip Glass has already done two symphonies based on Bowie's work, 1992's Symphony No. 1 based on Low and 1996's Symphony No. 4 based on "Heroes". Low and "Heroes" being the first two parts of Bowie's famed "Berlin Trilogy" in collaboration with Brian Eno, it was only a matter of time before Glass made his way to the final album, Lodger. Symphony No. 12 is set to premier on January 10 in Los Angeles. Interestingly, Glass has stated that it won't be based on the music of Lodger but rather the lyrics. No news on an album release, but probably sometime in 2019 or 2020.
Safe Bets
Based on the last few years of Bowie releases, we can pretty safely guess what's to come in a few areas, even though they haven't been officially announced.
40th Anniversary Picture Discs
The last several years have seen Bowie's singles reissued on overpriced vinyl picture discs for their respective 40th anniversaries, backed with rare or exclusive tracks. 1979 marked the release of Lodger and a bunch of accompanying singles. We'll likely see re-releases for "Boys Keep Swinging", "DJ", "Yassassin", "Look Back in Anger" and the non-album single originally recorded for Young Americans in 1974, "John, I'm Only Dancing (Again)".
A Big Fat Box Set (But Which One?)
The last four years the Bowie camp have released chronological big fat box sets. This year will probably be the same. The big question is what era it will cover. Last year's Loving the Alien brought us up to 1988, but 1989 started Bowie's side project, a hard rock band by the name of Tin Machine, with his solo career not really beginning in earnest again until late 1992. Some fans are expecting an amalgam of the two periods in the next set, but this seems really unlikely to me. Stylistically, the periods are extremely different. Plus, Bowie shares rights to the Tin Machine albums with the other members of the band (one of which, Reeves Gabrels, suggested recently that he thinks Tin Machine warrants its own box set). Anyway, I could see a 1989-1992 Tin Machine box set (smaller than the rest), a 1992-1998ish electronic period box set, or possibly (gasp) both.
Archival Live Albums
The last two years on Record Store Day we've been treated to an archival live album related to the previous year's big fat box set. 2018's set covered 1983-1988. The most likely choice would be an alternate performance from 1983's Serious Moonlight tour, probably the July 13 Montreal show. Another solid (and exciting) choice would be a show from the 1990 Sound and Vision greatest hits tour, which was smack dab in the middle of the Tin Machine period but really doesn't belong with the music on either side. It's especially interesting because no live albums have been released from it yet.
With that said, 2018 also brought us the completely unexpected release of Glastonbury 2000, which wasn't connected to any other releases from the year. So, who knows what else might come out?
Wild Speculation
Finally, we've got our moonshots... our hopes and dreams... our certainly plausible, but not at all confirmed possibilities.
50th Anniversaries... GO!
Everybody making money off of legacy musical acts (like Bowie) love anniversaries. 2019 marks the 50th anniversary of Bowie's second album, now usually known as Space Oddity. The Bowie camp completely owns all of Bowie's material from 1969 on and Bowie himself usually ignored his career from before this point (including in the big fat box sets). So what can we expect? Hard to say. A super deluxe edition of Space Oddity to kick off a new campaign? Some kind of 1969 archives/rarities release with material like the long-bootlegged Bowie & Hutch demos? Who knows. But it could be exciting. And it seems unlikely they'll ignore the anniversary.
Lazarus Home Release
In late 2015, mere week's before his death, Bowie's first musical, Lazarus, opened to fantastic reviews. Since then, we've seen the release of the script and the original cast album. What we haven't seen is a movie version. There was a crazy-sounding, live-scored, one-off event in May featuring a film version, but that's it so far. Expect a DVD/Blu-Ray release at some point, but who knows when. The show was also presented in virtual reality back in 2017 so there's always the chance of a VR version at some point too.
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