BOWIE VS. DYLAN

I’m Charlie and I like Bowie.

For the last three consecutive years, Parlophone has released a big fat archival Bowie box set in September. The sets have been announced in late June or July. This leads a large number of Bowie fans at this time of year to make ill-informed, hastily constructed speculations as to what the next set will contain. Who am I to do any different?

Here’s what we can generally expect: the last three box sets covered 1969-1973, 1974-1976, and 1977-1982 respectively. So we’re starting at 1983 and going to at least 1987. I could see things going up to 1990 at the outside. The last three sets have all been exactly 13 LPs worth of material (which has equalled 11 or 12 CDs) so I’m just going to speculate away until I fill up that quota.

The last three sets have all been named after a track from one of the albums. None of the titles have been from singles and they’ve turned out to be pretty literal in their descriptions of the music (Five Years, Who Can I Be Now, A New Career in a New Town). With that in mind, I’m predicting the ridiculous but appropriate title, Dancing with the Big Boys.

Here’s what I think is likely along with how likely I think it is. Feel free to use these percentages for any Vegas-style betting. Cut me in if you win.

 

    

100% Chance - Let’s Dance, Tonight, & Never Let Me Down
The 80’s brought on Bowie’s much maligned “dance” period. These are the three official studio albums from the period; there’s no way they aren’t making the cut.

 

100% Chance - Re:Call 4
The last three sets have included a compilation of single edits, soundtrack appearances, b-sides, and non-album singles. This one will too. A quick look through makes me think we’re probably looking at 2 LPs here, not counting remixed singles. More thoughts on remixes below.

 

95% Chance - Glass Spider Live
Released as a bonus 2-CD album with the special edition of the 2007 DVD release of Bowie’s live video of the same name (did you catch all that?). It’s out of print and quite rare and would be good collector bait (I’m going to admit right now that I don’t actually own it). Plus, Live Nassau Coliseum ‘76 was released with the 74-76 set in spite of previously only being bonus discs on a Station to Station reissue so there’s a precedent. Double plus, it’s Bowie’s only officially released live album from the 80’s and Parlophone will want something live in there. Given the length, expect 3 LPs.

 

90% Chance - Never Let Me Down (Original LP Version)
Why would they stick in a second copy of what is usually considered Bowie’s worst album? Because it exists. In 1987, NLMD (acronyms are faster to type) was released in two versions: a CD/tape version and an LP version. They both contained the same 11 tracks, but on vinyl 7 of them had been edited down because of LP time constraints. These box sets love edits and why would they stick 7 separate songs from one album on a Re:Call release? It makes more sense to keep them together. Another thought: NLMD originally had a track called “Too Dizzy” that was removed by Bowie after the first pressings (apparently it was too bad even for this stinker of an album). It’s never been re-released, not even digitally, and would again, make good collector bait. I’m predicting a 10-track standard mainstream version without the edits (which should fit on 1 LP with “Too Dizzy” missing) and an 11-track box set exclusive version with “Too Dizzy” and the 7 edits.

 

80% Chance - Labyrinth Original Soundtrack
The only reason this is slightly low is because there are rumors of weird rights issues with the movie producers. I find this unlikely to be a problem. “Underground” has shown up on a couple of best of comps; they’ll make it happen. A more interesting question to me is what this release will look like. Half the tracks are by Trevor Jones with no input from Bowie. Plus, the full soundtrack was just rereleased on vinyl last year. My guess is this will be released sans Trevor Jones as an EP or perhaps with remixes attached (or maybe even tracks from his other big 1986 movie, Absolute Beginners, but that feels unlikely).

 

70% Chance - Various Single Remixes
Starting with 1984’s Tonight and going through 1999’s hours…, Bowie released an absurd number of dance, dub, and otherwise usually unnecessary remixes. How will these be treated? I really doubt this will be completist. If all the remixes from the 80’s were released, we would probably be looking at 5-6 LPs worth. No one wants that, least of all Parlophone. Will they all be left off entirely? I doubt that too… remixes were a big part of what Bowie was doing at the time. Plus, getting into the 90’s, some of his official single releases were the remixes (including “Hallo Spaceboy” and “I’m Afraid of Americans”). I’m guessing we’ll be looking at a curated ‘best of the remixes’ type disc (Re:Mix?), probably attached to Re:Call.

 

60% Chance - Dance
Little known fun fact: Bowie very nearly released an all remix album in 1985. The unoriginal title? Dance. The ridiculous album artwork? Ridiculous. The contents? 7 remixed tracks from Let’s Dance and Tonight, most of which had already been released. It’s unclear why it never came out at the time, but this seems like excellent, low energy collector-bait along the lines of The Gouster from the second set.

 

50% Chance - Remixed album
The three previous sets have all included a studio album completely remixed by the original producer. While we’re most likely already getting the alternate LP version of NLMD, it’s hard to say if a fully remixed album will be included too as one doesn’t currently exist. If they commissioned a new one, the most obvious choice to me is Let’s Dance. It’s the best of the three dance albums and the producer Niles Rodgers was apparently in the studio recently mixing that “Let’s Dance” demo single that came out in January. It could mean he was working on the album at the same time.

 

40% Chance - Serious Moonlight
Bowie has released 5 major live videos and this is the only one that doesn’t yet have a corresponding album release. I have no doubt that it’s coming pretty soon… I just think it’s more likely to be next year’s big Record Store Day live album following in the footsteps of Cracked Actor and Welcome to the Blackout.

 

10% Chance - Tin Machine
A surprising number of people seem to think this box set will include the first Tin Machine album from 1989. This makes very little sense to me. There’s a huge stylistic jump between NLMD and Tin Machine, plus why would it be separated from the other Tin Machine studio album and the 1992 live album? Plus, the Bowie camp usually tries to emphasize the “band” aspect of Tin Machine (hence why they don’t show up on Bowie best of compilations). I sort of expect them to just skip Tin Machine in the current box set/reissue campaign. If they are included, I say Tin Machine is getting its own box set or it isn’t getting one at all.

 

So, my ultimate guess for a 13 LP 4th box set (with set exclusive albums starred) is:

 

Dancing with the Big Boys
Let’s Dance (1 LP)
*Let’s Dance [Niles Rodgers Remix] (1 LP)
Tonight (1 LP)
*Dance (1 LP)
*Labyrinth EP (1 EP)
Never Let Me Down (1 LP)
*Never Let Me Down [Original LP Version] (1 LP)
Glass Spider Live (3 LP)
*Re:Call (2 LP)
*Re:Mix (1 LP)

Join me in a month or so when we find out just how wrong I am!