David Bowie - Brilliant Adventure (1992-2001) [Box set #5]

I'm up to "Nite Flights", and so far the tracks from the Black Tie White Noise 2021 remaster on Tidal sound like they have considerably more low-midrange and top end than the 2003 remaster did (which has Peter Mew's signature clatter in the upper mids all over it). This choice adds some pleasant grit back to the the lead guitars, and Bowie's alto sax. I can hear Reeves Gabrels' guitar on "You've Been Around" with much greater clarity, for example, and the sax & guitar battle with Ronson at the end of "I Feel Free" is also more audible as a result. Unfortunately, this comes at the cost of extra compression. The heavy limiting saps the drums of their breath and liveliness. This gives the album more of an industrial-pop sound, emphasizing the layers of programmed elements in the mix bubbling under the lead voices. I'm curious how this will all sound on vinyl... more later as I keep listening to other tracks

 

That is disappointing. The only gatefolds are the single lps. I know Earthling had that flimsy thin front on the "gatefold" originally. But all the double lps get shoved in. They could have done better than that, I think.

 

More thoughts from this unexpected and unannounced early Tidal release of (some) tracks from the digital box:

This 2021 remaster of The Buddha of Suburbia sounds very similar to the previous edition of the album (has there ever been a mastering engineer credited before? Or did Bowie/Richards do it entirely in-house?)... perhaps they added a touch more bass and some peak limiting, bringing the more "pop-leaning" tracks to life a bit, but not a dramatic difference across the board

"Seven Years in Tibet" is similarly tweaked: the verses do pop a bit more, due to some light midrange compression that lets the kick drum stand out more, and drives the rock-out chorus to quite a face-stomping crescendo

I can't tell if "Shadow Man" or "Let Me Sleep Beside You" on Toy are different to the versions included on Nothing Has Changed. Probably very similar. The Re:Call 5 edits and B-sides are also pretty close — again probably just subjected to a little tweak in EQ and limiter settings, compared to previous releases. The "New Angels of Promise (Omikron...)" version still has the 'suspicious minds' vocal

I'm not hearing a night-and-day difference here yet (which is perhaps a good thing); presumably the more compressed remaster for Black Tie is Nile Rodgers' decision, since he is credited for mastering assistance

 

He really didn’t want that rose, eh?

 

This is good news, it looks much sharper than the few songs released at the time with a very soft effect creating a pretty bad halo.

Another full pro shot gig waiting in a can somewhere...

 

David Bowie Film, Based on ‘Thousands’ of Hours of Rare Footage, Coming From Director Brett Morgen.

Brett Morgen, the freewheeling director behind “Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck,” “Jane” and “The Kid Stays in the Picture,” is finalizing a top-secret David Bowie project based on thousands of hours of rare performance footage of the musician, most of it previously uncirculated, sources confirm to Variety.

Morgen has been at work on the Bowie film, for which an official title has not been disclosed, for the last four years. A source close to the production cryptically describes it as “neither documentary nor biography, but an immersive cinematic experience built, in part, upon thousands of hours of never before seen material.”

Sources say live concert footage plays a central role in the film, and that Morgen is eyeing an IMAX release. The filmmaker wears a number of hats on the project, taking on editing, writing and producing duties, in addition to directing.

A Sundance Film Festival premiere in late January could be in the cards. The Park City fest — which will have a significant in-person presence this year after the pandemic forced the 2021 event to go largely virtual — falls just after the six-year anniversary of Bowie’s death on Jan. 10, 2016.

The musician’s long-time producer Tony Visconti is adding his bona fides to the film, serving as music producer. Meanwhile, the Oscar-winning sound team behind “Bohemian Rhapsody” is also mixing and designing the project. Re-recording mixers are Oscar winner Paul Massey and David Giammarco (“Ford v Ferrari”), while the sound design team includes John Warhurst and Nina Hartstone, both of whom picked up Academy Awards for the Freddie Mercury biopic.

Morgen acquired the rights to the material himself, and BMG and Live Nation are financiers as well as producers, alongside the director’s own production banner, Public Road.

Crucially, the pic’s been made with the support and cooperation of the David Bowie estate. Bowie’s widow, the model Iman, recently told Variety that the family is firmly against authorizing a biopic of Bowie’s life: “It’s always a no. We always ask each other, ‘Would he do it?’ He wouldn’t,” as evidenced by Todd Haynes’ 1998 film “Velvet Goldmine,” which has a clearly Bowie-like figure at the center and is named after one of his songs, but for which Bowie declined to license his music. But clearly, the family was more amenable to a live concert-oriented documentary about the singer, particularly from someone with Morgen’s track record.

The film is Morgen’s first major feature effort since the release of his celebrated Nat Geo documentary about primatologist Jane Goodall. The all-archive “Jane” won two Primetime Emmy Awards in 2017 and a host of other prizes during awards season. Its exclusion as an Oscar nominee (Netflix’s Russian doping scandal film “Icarus” picked up the documentary Oscar that year) was seen by many in the non-fiction world as a major upset.

Prior to “Jane,” Morgen won plaudits for the Sundance-premiering “Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck,” which chronicled the Nirvana frontman’s life through to his suicide in 1994. Much more than a straight biopic, the film incorporated animation and Cobain’s own artwork and sound collages to paint a more nuanced portrait of the troubled musician.

Morgen was Oscar nominated alongside co-director Nanette Burstein for 1999 documentary “On the Ropes,” which turned on three young boxers and their coach. His other musical documentary efforts include VH1 series “Say It Loud: A Celebration of Black Music in America” and “Crossfire Hurricane.”

The latter 2012 documentary about The Rolling Stones marked their 50th year together as a band, and followed the group’s early years through to 1981, layering audio interviews with the band on top of archival footage.

Morgen’s Bowie offering is the latest in a series of documentaries about the singer.

British director Francis Whately made a trilogy of films about the musician, beginning with “David Bowie: Five Years” (2013), about his five seminal albums, followed by “David Bowie: The Last Five Years” (2017), covering the final two records, and most recently, an exploration of the early years in “David Bowie: Finding Fame” (2019).

There are also famous early works about the singer, notably Alan Yentob’s “Cracked Actor” (1975) for the BBC, which followed Bowie while he was struggling with cocaine addiction in 1974, as well as documentary legend D. A. Pennebaker’s concert film “Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars” (1983), from footage of the July 1973 concert where Bowie retired the film’s namesake character.

Bowie’s estate and Warner Music Group recently announced a global partnership to bring his vast recorded-music catalog from 1968 through 2016 under the Warner umbrella. The new deal sees Bowie’s albums from 2000 through 2016, which were originally released via Sony Music, joining his 1968-1999 catalog at Warner.

 

Maybe I am just a cynic but all of that corporate backing makes me feel this film is bound to disappoint. But we shall see.

 

I dunno, Brett Morgen does have good track record. I wasn’t a big fan of Nirvana prior to seeing his Montage of Heck doc on Kurt Cobain, but that doc was so well made in my opinion I have no doubt about his tackling of Bowie as a subject. Glad it’s him and not someone else doing the same old beat by beat documentary. Morgen’s one of the few documentary directors who are creative in their content. If this Bowie doc will be anything like the Cobain doc, I’ll be happy.

 

Could very well be the case; there's the danger of them editing priceless footage to hundreds of tiny pieces or make it a restless mess like the Reality Tour dvd. Whately's documentaries suffered from excessive cut up techniques, probably to save a few quid on royalties.

Maybe that's a good thing to begin with, or a sign that a lot of cash has to be made at release.

 

Really enjoying the new "Can't Help Thinking About Me". Not dramatically different from the live versions, but the ending is neat - reminiscent of the Toy version "You've Got a Habit of Leaving", except this time the false ending really is the ending!

Also prefer this mix to "Karma Man" - it's more subtle/measured. I wondered if the fact that it's a recent mix made the difference. (In Uncut, Plati says this track didn't get a proper mix until they were preparing the upcoming box).

BTW, it's quite nice that they've released the only two genuinely unheard Toy tracks (disregarding alternate mixes etc) in advance of the BA box.

 

Ah, thanks for that! I was wondering how recent(ly) any of these tracks were mixed, and now I know for one! That makes me wonder about them all, honestly...

 

This is the only track specifically named as needing a mix for the box (although we know all of the "acoustic" versions are newly mixed, too). From Uncut: "Plati began preparing mixes for the official released of Toy in 2021, tidying up loose ends at his home studio, Alice's Kitchen in New York. This included mixing "Can't Help Thinking About Me" - the song that had kicked of the entire enterprise but hadn't actually been finished back in 2000."

In terms of mixes, I'll be curious to see how everything compares to the 2011 MP3 leak version, as well as the b-sides we got back in 2002 and material on Nothing Has Changed in 2014.

 

Same. Once these boxes (and the next one, I suppose) come out, I plan on making my own little exploration of Toy and Heathen.

As it stands, the tracks I've compared have either been pretty different or not that different at all; I think the 2001/2002-era Visconti mixes (including stuff from NHC?) are the "previously released" mixes on the second disc of the Toy:Box, but I suppose we'll see in a couple months.

 

I want to wait for a price drop, but I am wondering if fewer of these sets will be made than the others. Vinyl pressing plant issues, supply chain issues, the last box went for incredibly cheap on Amazon at times. Guess I may order it…

 

Gone kinda quiet on here, so here's Bowie covering Elvis to wake things up a little! I feel so bad/One night (2002, Seattle)

 

Well I finally committed on the cd box. Got it for 103 us dollars from import cds. They have a 10% off coupon now that wipes out the shippong and tax cost. Not bad. I figure it won't go much lower than that so... And I ruled out the vinyl set for me at these prices. I will pick up some individual albums that way next year probably.

 

CD Box 78 EUR + 12 EUR shipping to EU (free shipping to Polnad)

Brilliant Adventure (1992-2001) (11 CD)

 

The BA book includes a photo of the tentative BTWN track list, some tracks are very easy to tell even though they have alternate titles, but there's some interesting stuff there:

Mysterious Way
Someday
War Brother
Back Into The Night
Don't Blame Mexico
Disco King

 

I imagine Someday is the Morrissey cover, and we know Disco King from later... I wonder if anyone knows more about the rest. Maybe working titles that got changed?

 

I'm going into Brilliant Adventure having never heard any of the 90s albums. I'm a "newer" fan, only discovering Bowie's music with the release of these Parlophone boxes. I've just been taking them one at a time since they've come out and tried to ignore the future albums until their turn for a box set. I know I'm depriving myself...probably a dumb plan. But the bottom line is I'm going into the 90s era with fresh ears.

Anyway, I've been looking at various album rankings that I found on google, and it seems like most or all of the 90s albums are ranked poorly in comparison to his other albums.

Just wondering where actual fans would rank the albums on Brilliant Adventure? I know it's all subjective, but are they really that bad or mixed in quality?




And just for fun, here's how I would rank the albums I've heard:

17. Never Let Me Down
16. David Bowie (1967)
15. Tonight
14. Pin-Ups
13. David Bowie/Space Oddity
12. Let's Dance
11. The Man Who Sold the World
10. "Heroes"
9. Lodger
8. Young Americans
7. Diamond Dogs
6. Hunky Dory
5. Station to Station
4. Low
3. Aladdin Sane
2. Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)
1. The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars

 

For me, the albums on Brilliant Adventures rank all over the place for DB. I think Hours is one of his least interesting albums, way down at the bottom of the list, but Outside and Buddha are both quite strong and I've returned to them regularly since they were released.

Black Tie White Noise is lesser Bowie for me - good but flawed. For me, it's better than Let's Dance but a far cry from anything he did between 1974-1980.

The key thing about the 90s for Bowie is that bare minimum, every album has a few outright classics, even if (as a whole) those LPs don't match the heights of his top 10. (Earthling is another example - I don't love it as a whole, but it has a few outstanding tracks. Similar to BTWN).

(Also, I tend to really enjoy the Toy material - I know this is not a universally shared opinion! Definitely less essential Bowie, a la Pin Ups perhaps, but really enjoyable nonetheless).

 

I just relistened to Buddha the other night. Incredible, incredible album. It’s one of my go-to late-night, sit alone in the dark, close-eyes type of album for me. Always adored “The Mysteries.” That song comes alive listening to it in a setting like I often do. I think “Untitled No. 1” is one of his unsung masterpieces. Top 10 track for me. Goes to show Bowie (or any artist really) is at their best experimenting and not being so rigid in expectations for the album.

 

Well I have been listening to Bowie since I was born I guess. I was born between the time of Lodger and Scary Monsters, but my teen parents were big on the 70s Bowie. More Ziggy for my mum, more YA and STS for my crazy dad. But Lets Dance was big for me as a tot. I got back into Bowie with Outside in a big way.

I think that the 90s albums are not as widely regarded as highly because he was more on the margins of pop culture then. The critics mostly look at the 1970s stuff only. And most of the older fans identify with that stuff more.

For me, the run from Station to Station through Scary Monsters is his absolute peak, but the run from Black Tie White Noise through Earthling would be his second most interesting period of work to me.