Lazarus Cast Recording including three new Bowie tracks.

Thanx for your first hand feedback. Was afraid the rest of the album would provoke involuntary movements from the digestive system and make me hate the musical genre even more (if possible).
Will wait and find somewhere to buy the three new tracks in best quality and not smear their association of splendor with the karaoke stuff.

 

Really don't want this album just for the three new Bowie songs. The cast probably has what it takes to make it work as a musical on stage but to sit and listen to Michael C. Hall on my stereo, I know the only reason for me to do that is because I bought the record and played it for the three new Bowie tracks.

 

Some people may like it - you've got to hear it for yourselves, but for me this is torture.

 

I love this album. These new versions of the new and old tracks are solid. "When I Met You" (cast version) really hit me during the first listen. Bowie's heart and spirit are in every note.

Disc 2. Wow.

 

I'm probably not going to love every track from the cast album, but I do suspect much of it will grow on me (maybe most of it, eventually).

I am especially excited about the cast-versions of the tunes from The Next Day, and especially Blackstar (plus the cast-versions of the three new tunes). And of the other remaining tunes, there aren't any I'm especially burned out on (thankfully). For instance, thank goodness there isn't anything represented from Ziggy.

So on balance, I'm looking forward to the cast album disc -- not with wild enthusiasm, but with a lot more respect than if it had all been just a rehash of his hits.

 

Decided to pick up the Barnes & Noble edition, with the 3rd LP in white vinyl.

Listening to the soundtrack now. I'm more than open to musicals & interpretations of tracks, but how strange it is to listen to this the first time without David singing the songs!

I will certainly give this album a chance, but its going to take a bit of getting used to!

 

I saw Michael C. Hall perform it on Colbert. It was okay. No excessive drama; no dialogue; just that song. It was okay. It wasn't embarrassing. It was Off Broadway. He had nothing to be ashamed of. (I think it may have been the first time I heard the song.) But I also saw an officially released video from the play - a M/F couple are fighting at home (there's a refrigerator), and I think the song was "Changes".

Now, I'm sure these people are all very nice, but the whole thing was this close to one of those SNL high-school drama club parodies. Painful. The gesturing and vocalizing were really trying to make everything BIG. [shudder]

That said, I decided a $15 CD with Bowie's three final works on it was up my alley, but I'm over 16-bit so went shopping for the hi-res download, and that situation is downright weird. 7Digital is offering 44.1/16 at best. HDTracks wants $27.

$9 a song? Maybe if my behind wasn't still sore from paying for the WCIBN box, but also, HDTracks warning indicates that this 96/24 thing they're selling was really sourced from 48KHz. I appreciate their being upfront. Whole thing is kinda stenchy. It's officially on Sony/Columbia who are sticking to the old industry practice of never breaking up soundtracks.

The CD it is, then.

 

All I know is whatever I put together has to end with I Can't Give Everything Away which is the perfect period to Bowie's life.

 

I hear ya, but I'm tired of "I Can't Give Everything Away" being the last thing I hear listening to Blackstar. Precisely because it IS the perfect ending (and I don't want Bowie to end).

For me, I think the emotional uplift of having MORE after "I Can't Give Everything Away" (and more specifically from the Blackstar sessions) should provide a sense of hope for more yet to be released from his last 25 years with us (I'm a fanatic about nearly everything he did *after* Tin Machine, so what I long for is more 90's and 2000's unreleased Bowie material).

 

Still can count on one hand the number of times I've listened to ICGEA.

ICGEA as the last song on "side one" - of something - would indeed be less distressing. Maybe I'll tack on "Blue Jean" to the end of the Blackstar playlist on my portable.

 

As I mentioned earlier, I acquired the Autorip from Amazon of this release. I just put the Bowie version of Lazarus through Audacity to see how compressed it is. Do you know how Audacity shows clipping by a red line? Well how's about two minutes of solid red? I've got no idea how to post it, but I've never seen anything like it.
Killing a little Time is also badly brickwalled but not to such a ridiculous extreme. When I Met You gets redline brickwalling too.
Haven't bothered with disc 1.

 

Here are all three of the new Bowie tracks, in one place (in sequence). All three are 'fan made' videos...

"No Plan"

 

"Killing A Little Time"

 

Drat, the third one -- "When I Met You" -- seems to have been taken down. (There used to be a fan-made video on vimeo, the last day or two.)

 

Thanks for the warning. I bought this at Best Buy for the Bowie tracks. Currently ripping the CDs to PC so I can listen to it while working. I'm not a big fan of musicals. Essentially paid $16.99 for the Bowie songs on CD2, though I will give CD1 at least one listen.

 

Picking up a copy at Best Buy in the next couple hours.

Just three tracks (with Bowie), I know, but well worth every penny!!

Were the same material exclusive to a pricy Japanese import CD, I'm sure it would have cost way, WAY more than $17. So the way I'm looking at it, the musical cast album is really the "bonus" material.

 

I know what you mean. No big fan of musical theatre either, really, and Sophia's Broadway over-diction really grates at times.

However listening to the arrangement of This Is Not America made me realise what a fantastically beautiful song it is, and the little embellishments to Where Are We Now (almost musically identical to Bowie's version otherwise) actually make it a more rounded listening experience (at least instrumentally) to the under-produced version on The Next Day.

 

you're surprised? this has been Bowie's mastering preference for 20 years. the last audiophile friendly Bowie album was probably Buddha of Suburbia in '93.

 

spare a thought for those of us paying $35 for the Japanese CD.

 

The Man Who Sold the World (Lazarus Cast Recording version)...

Holy crap, this is based on the so-called 'Brian Eno Mix' 1995 live-band arrangement, HOT DAMN!!

 

Not surprised but it's so extreme it almost made me laugh. It's like a comedic parody of brickwalling. Can we say that this is Bowie's doing - do you think he left ghostly instructions to subject any future releases to extreme brickwalling?

 

I thought TINA was a beautiful song in 1985 or whenever it came out - always liked it.

 

here's Brickstar the album... Lazarus is track 3. it's been this way for years with Bowie.

 

can confirm Blackstar and Lazarus (Cast CD2) masters of "Lazarus" are identical.

 

It's like Bowie never left us!