Absolute Beginners - David Bowie appreciation thread

Good start! I'd add another 10-15 tracks to my own 80s Bowie list.

I thought he had a great run during that period and only started to dial back with the Tin Machine project.

Edit: And Absolute Beginners (the song) has gotten even better with time.

 

There’s a lot more I like, but that list of songs I particularly love and would defend to the end

 

Definitely one of my favourite Bowie songs. I tend to like the ones that are more laid-back, where he doesn't ''try'' to force a melody; Heroes, Ashes to Ashes, Absolute Beginners. One of my highlights from the 80's. I still have the 45rpm of this; in fact, it's the only version I have.

 

Haven’t we done a thread about songs that are better than the movie where it’s from? .. or something like that.

 

Great song. One of my favourite Bowie tracks.

 

The soundtrack version of Cat People is easily one of my all time favorite Bowie tracks. It’s so full of menace and atmosphere. Bowie’s vocal is unreal.

 

This would be my 80's Bowie list as well but I would swap out Loving the Alien for Julie

 

Great track that I have only truly appreciated in the past 2 years since his death. I definitely think it gets lost in his 80s output. Very underrated.

 

'Absolute Beginners' by The Jam released five years before Bowie's..Totally different songs but both brilliant.

 

Yup.

 

Not the entire 80's just the mid 80's as mentioned in my OP. 80 -83 Bowie (especially Scary Monsters) is mostly great.

 

Beautiful song, brilliant video, pretty good movie too.

 

Now just skip the mostly and you're there.

 

Shocking - I knew there was a delta, just not that large!

 

I'll stick with mostly. The title track to Let's Dance is great but for me the album is not. A big drop off from Scary Monsters

 

I think you're pretty unlucky with vinyl. I got one of the green ones and although it's a digitally edited transfer it is flat as a pancake and really quiet. It's a nice looking reissue, but I wish they hadn't chopped up Magic Dance.

I don't have the Absolute Beginners ost. On Saturday I saw an old VG vinyl Just A Gigolo going for a fiver in Brick Lane, but I didn't bother.

 

You could always get the US 12", for the cover photo alone ; if you enjoyed the Shake It 12" ..

 

The only place you'll find 'David Bowie's Revolutionary Song'. Should have been on the last Re:Call, IMO.

 

Is he on the Gigolo record or just the cover? I never bought The Hunger LP even when I used to see it for pence as he isn’t on it, just the cover.

You mean green vinyl? My Labyrinth is black. I’ve had terrible luck since getting my turntable fixed. I had a few Eno reissue freebies to play, and some HMV credit to use up, so far since getting the TT fixed I bought, all new:

Iggy The Idiot silver vinyl: whooshing sound on last track’s fade out / vinyl ugly grey not silver. £22. Returned.

Pink Floyd Meddle: nipple like pressing fault bump at the start of side 1, audible but tolerable as it’s over quickly. Another nipple in the middle of Echoes, intolerable but I’ve lost the receipt, £19.

Popol Vuh Spirit of Peace: pops, crackles, paper shreds all over the vinyl, very quiet music, useless on vinyl, shouldn’t have bothered. £25. Returned.

Labyrinth: warped, loud pops. £12. Kept as it’s nice to have next to my old Absolute Beginners LP.

 

I don't actually like Magic Dance - I just wish they didn't chop it up. There's no reason for it.

Saying that, they could chop up Without You if they liked and I wouldn't mind. I would help them do it.

 

This is Bowie's best post-1980 80's song, for sure. Amazing track, it's a shame it was kind of wasted on a soundtrack. It definitely would've bolstered Never Let Me Down.

 

Revolutionary Song is on there, but it's just La La Las. It was a single in Japan.


THE REBELS - DAVID BOWIE'S REVOLUTIONARY SONG - 1979 JAPANESE 7" P/S EX/EX | eBay

 

I must have known about that as a kid ploughing through anything Bowie related, or at least via the Nicholas Pegg song A-Z, but at this point I had no knowldge of its existence. Or memory, zilch.

 

I think he was paid a lot of money to write and record it. It was a commission from the Absolute Beginners film people / film company, part of his contract to act in it IIRC, quite a while before Never Let Me Down.