You're the second person now to advise me that it's so obvious about the counterfeits, and let me tell you something: it's not. The *only* thing that clued me in that I may have a counterfeit was the fact that when I opened it originally (it was shrink wrapped and the outer box looks perfect/professional), some of the inner poly bags were crumpled and/or outside of the sleeves. Really, it was like someone had crammed all the interior contents into the box without regard to how it was supposed to go. But upon examining them, everything *looked* good. So I didn't ultimately think much of it. Then I kept reading about the gold discs. My discs are sort of a cloudy silver; they don't look like regular CDs. But they're not exactly gold either. I had to post pictures online (on this forum) to get a confirmation that the real box doesn't look this way. But the box and packaging across the whole thing are absolutely impeccable. I still can't believe how good it looks. And it even copies the matrix numbers...! I bought mine from a Discogs seller who didn't own up to the fact that it was a counterfeit. And to be fair, he probably didn't know.
l took a chance with a seller on LTA and luckily the discs were gold. I got it at a reasonable price for brand new too.
Importcds has the sets up now. Pricing for the CD box is about what I expected, considering the list price. David Bowie Brilliant Adventure (1992-2001) on ImportCDs
I preordered both cd-box and lp-box of "Brilliant Adventure (1992-2001)" from Amazon.fr when these came available. Now they have increased prices on both. Not sure if I need both formats but for the previous 4 sets, I've got both here. Im not sure about "Toy"-set yet, as the album is in the boxset but the extra stuff is on the individual boxset. Im gonna listen to the album first and then make my mind whether I need that individual set. I don't even have "Conversation Piece"-set yet, but I've streamed that one a lot.
I got Who Can I Be Now The Chinese Edition and the CDs are gold. It is definitely a pirate. When it comes to printing, I know what I am looking at and know what to look for.
I meant the cinematography of other shows are sterile. I wasn't commenting on Mick, his performance, his sound, or his looks. I was commenting on the cinematography. Listen to it without sound. There are loads of moments through the film, of Bowie and Mick that are shot just as beautifully. I agree with you about the Serious Moonlight film. It's the second best in my opinion (for filming) even though by far it is the worst for audio. It does catch Bowie at that 80's MTV moment, entering middle age. I just cannot abide those 80s re-arrangements using horns and synths to replicate guitar hooks. Gives me the ****s
Sigh. I'm feeling a bit depressed that this box has arrived and it seems that even now no-one is going to do anything to resurrect Leon and bring it the level of respect it deserves. After 27 years it desperately deserves to be recognised and given its rightful status - it was Bowie pushing the limits as far as he ever did. There's nothing else like it and it shouldn't be just ignored. For everyone who is saying Toy deserved to be released and the record company had no right to refuse to release it, don't forget that the same thing happened with Leon/1.Outside. Bowie was probably told to go away and come back with something else more commercial. At least RCA released Low 'as is' even though they didn't like it. Thank heaven for bootleggers.
For quite some time now, bootleggers have been putting out product that is far better packaged and more interesting than the official stuff. Printing used to be expensive: design, artwork, film, plates, proofs, all that nonsense. Now it's all digital ; a decent designer can knock up a good design in an afternoon, send a pdf to a print shop the other side of the world and the file is straight to plate. That has shrunk costs massively allowing bootleggers to achieve commercial quality printing very cheaply - especially if you get it printed in China and are not too fussy about seeing proofs or somewhat variable printing quality (the record labels don't seem to care either, they are probably doing the same thing). You can get box sets printed for literally pennies per unit.
Do you now have an official copy? If so, compare your "cloudy silver" with the gold discs - I bet they looked obviously different. But as I said, the number one way of knowing is pure and simply that they're too cheap. If you're getting it at half price from a no-name seller, then yeah, it's highly likely to be a bootleg. I'm sure the box was nice and all, but a bootleg is a bootleg, they don't get extra points from me for doing a good job.
yup (apart from Black Tie White Noise which is his Ebony and Ivory). Every Bowie record post-tonight would be massively improved if it was sequenced and edited for vinyl. 35 minutes tops. All the other fluff could go on b-sides or EPs. Bowie didn't know how to edit, and had nobody around him that would say "no". At least in the vinyl era he had no choice but to concentrate his music down to the pure gold.
Right as this all about box #5 was only talked, predicted and such before the announcement, I would have hoped to see the full Leon/1.Outside and the full liveshow of NIN/Bowie. Are they saving these for some other anniversary or boxset or will they just be forgotten?
With Toy (and Low), we know there was a final, mixed LP ready to go. I don't think Leon ever got that far - from everything I know, a decision was made after the initial sessions to do a second set of sessions of slightly more "traditional" material, and a combination of the two became the Outside album. Even Reeves has said that the circulating Leon tapes were assembled by bootleggers. It's not even clear that Bowie himself ever had a final vision/plan for how to edit/release the Leon material. (If I'm wrong, and he did, I'd be interested to read his thoughts on it!) So I think a lot of people are underestimating the work required to make Leon "release-ready" - tons of artistic/editing choices will need to be made, a decision about "how much is too much" will need to be made, etc. Even on the Leon tapes, it's often unclear where "songs" begin and end, for example. This isn't like Visconti fiddling with the knobs on the Lodger multitracks or even McNulty taking a few risks with reworking Never Let Me Down, finishing a project we know Bowie himself endorsed in his lifetime. It's trying to complete an incomplete vision. To give the project credibility, you'd probably need one of the original three producers to return, and Brian Eno is the only one still with us, and he's not known as someone who revisits his old work regularly. With the possible exception of Reeves, I don't know which of the other original Outside players the Estate would feel comfortable trying to re-create/dictate DB's vision to the best of their ability. Some will say "well then just release all of the session tapes!", but unless the Estate takes a very different approach than they have in the past - I can't think of any raw sessions tapes they've ever released, before or after Bowie's death - I don't think that will happen either. Don't get me wrong, I'd love get a deluxe Leon/Outside box - that album came out at the peak of my initial Bowie fanaticism and will always be near to my heart - but I definitely wasn't expecting it on one of these big boxes, or anytime soon. If there are big boxes focused on individual LPs coming, like Conversation Piece, they are far more likely to feature better-known "classic" Bowie albums, and easier to assemble (original album, relevant BBC sessions, relevant demos and alternate mixes), and not require tons of editing/mixing decisions just to get started.
, My initial excitement for box 5 was because 95-97 is one of my favorite Bowie era’s, but there is nothing really new or exciting from that era included…no live show, no Leon, no alternate Earthling…can’t help but feel that time frame was slighted in this set. Of course the 95-97 era saw a bunch of limited release stuff come out over the last couple years, which is all now already out of print and a pain to track down…some of that stuff would have been much better served to appear in this set instead of that limited availability it received.
Leon will happen. But part of the reason why it is not in this box may be that rather than simply releasing the originally submitted album, there’s the possibility that Eno may want to tinker with the recordings. Whether that rumor means he wants to master the completed album (which was the last to leak), or work on new mixes of outtakes (which were the first to leak), we don’t know, but they probably want to be thorough and so allotted this project more time and more discs.
The CD price has remained constant throughout the whole campaign. As for vinyl, the price of albums has gone through the roof, also the box has more slabs of vinyl than any of the other sets. As for lack of content, it's not much different to all the other sets. Horses for courses.
Eno does lots of work with installations doesn’t he?I’d imagine during the pandemic these commissions would have dried up; if he was willing to take it on as a project (also agree a fee) and Parlo could give him the tapes it could have been completed already. The question is as has rightly already been said, there would be many creative decisions due to the volume of recordings. Does it end up more like side 2 of Low or Heroes or do they use what could really be considered as rough take vocals and lyrics from DB. There’s apparently so much to go through. It could even come out as a Bowie/Eno project because of how much input Eno needs to put in.
Unless there is a completed album, or enough completed outtake tracks, and/or recorded Bowie vocals for tracks that are almost ready, with instructions I don't see it happening. Under the David Bowie name I don't see Eno work on - what was it - 50+ hours of improvisations by the musicians on something that will never get DB's final approval.
Even the replacement “Heroes” disc they sent out was gold. The stand alone issues of the albums were all on silver discs.
Eno could reasonably demand a seven-figure fee to complete Leon so I very much doubt it will ever happen
Huh? Where did that come from? Imagine all the $$ Visconti has been pocketing from the last few years of projects he was hired for. Why would this all of a sudden be an issue with Eno? What do you think those empty BLA boxes are paying for…