Here you go, January 2016: Eno: “About a year ago we started talking about Outside… we both liked that album a lot and felt that it had fallen through the cracks. We talked about revisiting it, taking it somewhere new. I was looking forward to that.." The final message David Bowie sent to Brian Eno is incredibly poignant
Brian I am free to help I will happily sit and listen through all the sessions and demos, make coffee, butties for lunch, compile the booklet. Hey I'll even throw in a QC session or two and you'll not get a better offer from Parlophone on that front.
"they will never rot" that can be said of the Eno Trilogy and Outside. The master tapes may rot, but you can't erase history. Those records left a mark.
I was in a real state of Bowie ecstacy 1994-95. I loved The Buddha of Suburbia album and was still playing it to death all the time when up he popped on BBC2 TV to tease Outside with a blistering early (or even first?) performance of Hallo Spaceboy with a fantastic band featuring Dorsey, Alomar et al. Then of course I was playing Outside to death all the time. I blew up some good KEF speakers while listening to Spaceboy that year, I kid you not.
All of this would make more sense if they’d talked about their “correction” before the box was released, as I believe others have pointed out. As an example, EMI was very clear that Please Please Me was from a second generation tape, prepared for the mono vinyl box, because the master tape had issues with the glue coating the tape heads during playback, so they could only play one song at a time.
I still play Outside constantly. CONSTANTLY. It's an adventure. And it's epic! No pruning needed. Unlike other modern albums that are genuinely overlong (drop three songs from "The Next Day" and it's a new classic), Outside is just right. Don't touch it! Don't lay a finger on it! It's perfection, dammit!
I'm in full agreement, but it's always cool to see what people consider the "proper" track listing for a given album. I was more into prog at the point I found Outside, so it's absurd high concept trappings just sucked me in. Why not make it an 8 album set?!
But the Leon Suites was the originally intended LP. The reason it isn't is because the record company chickened out and made Bowie make it more commercial. That was like burning books imo, but still, Bowie wanted to release at least a double cd. I think Outside is his best album since Scar...er Lodger. David Bowie 1994 The Leon Suites (1. Outside Outtakes) SQ 9 | www.DavidBowieWorld.nl
I would rather wait for ten years for a decent organisation to release any more Bowie material than feel the urge to buy the sort of remasters Parlo are churning out. They make Rykodisc look like they knew what they were doing in comparison.
I play it at least once a month and have done for years. One of my favourite periods of music in general. I loved 1995/96 and Outside was a massive part of that.
I had a friend since the late 1980s who was a fan of Cindy Sherman, who creates and features in photgraphs made as stills "from films which don't exist". He showed me her books, photos etc, and 5 or 6 years later when Outside came out, I thought of Cindy Sherman again after that gap, and for me the album is some kind of movie OST or virtual reality soundtrack for a thing which doesn't exist. Sounds OTT but it was only a simple thing in my head, and felt quite logical at the time. Not that I needed any help to love the music; I loved it all and still do.
One of my other old favourites also did a very, very good album for me that year, come to think of it. An absolute stonker in their vast catalogue. Pere Ubu (Ray Gun Suitcase).
Yep. Had enough. They're not getting another penny from me for Bowie or anything else. (There have been some not so awful moments, but for this fan at least, it shouldn't IMO be such a struggle to locate and embrace them. Enough is enough for me).
“Heroes” wise ( just when we’ve sort of moved on) Not sure if the image will upload correctly.. 2 C18 B402 F713 4 A8 B BDB2 8 E0 E14 C48 BF1
I always thought the title track was playing penguins in the background to the chanting maybe I was high. Awesome album, Vacuum in My Head and Folly of Youth are awesome. I've not listened in a while but I always found the guitar very Nirvana-like (back then anyway).
I know what you mean. I love Outside as it is, but since I heard the Leon sessions I have an even greater admiration for Bowie. He was so adventurous and when he released Outside he was 49. You've just got to admire what he was trying to do. There's no-one else to compare with what he did over his career IMO.
