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

From what I have heard - so far - NLMD is better. Fair enough, I haven't listened to NLMD for 30 years so my memory might be shaky. But that recording of Karma Man is just appalling.

Again, if that was a Bowie impersonator or cover band doing that, everybody would crucify it. It's right up there as possibly the worst vocal he ever committed to tape. This is one of the best pop singers that ever lived and likely ever will live, and he sounds like that. No wonder the record company dropped it like a cold turd.

As Bowie fans, how can we like that? I get that there is a chunk of fandom that would swoon over a recording of him taking a sh1t, but come on. He's the man who sang Quicksand and Sweet Thing and Joe The Lion. Surely Bowie Fans like something that is Bowie and not generic Smooth FM.

(I don't even think NLMD is Bowie's worst record, I think TM2, Reality and possibly David Bowie are worse)

 

what difference will that make?

 

I like both of 'em.

 

So people are unhappy with unreleased songs?

What a shocker!

Maybe there is a reason why they were scrapped in the first place.

 

This is true, but not always true.

Some unreleased tracks stand amongst some of the best songs he has recorded - Who Can I Be Now for example. Many of the unreleased tracks on the Ryko discs were great.

 

I'd rather listen to an album on my stereo system rather than on YT...but that's just me

 

Haha I really hate to join in with the negativity, but that Karma Man vocal is - on first listen - absolutely appalling! It might grow on me with subsequent listens. I don't really mind the session-man sound - Blackstar aside, that's what Bowie sounded like in the 21st century, so no point complaining now.

 

Seriously ?
I think people who find that vocal appalling are not familiar with Bowie's output at all ! Especially the so-called Berlin trilogy. Those three albums are full of the same kind of voices/singing.

 

I don't have any problems with these new tracks or any of the previously leaked Toy tracks. In fact I very much enjoy them.

But I have generally considered the Toy album to be equivalent of Pin Ups (in fact I think this was the idea), so I tend to take it in the lighthearted spirit that it was intended at the time, rather than as the holy grail.

 

Some people are. You can’t please everyone. I’m glad this is being released although I wish Uncle Floyd and Afraid were included somewhere.

 

Much as I love DB, easily the worst thing about some of his later records was the sense of tasteful, characterless backing that his well paid but unobtrusive musicians provided. To me, DB's best work came when he had a foil to work with - a Garson, Gabrels, or similar, who was unafraid to push back against his more unadventurous leanings. These backing tracks could be recorded by almost anybody.

 

Really loving the new version of Karma Man.
Re: the vocal delivery. For me, it is quite obvious why it sounds sped up during the verses. The lyric is quite wordy, and the music is going by pretty fast. Seems like it was the only way to match both. Then when Bowie slows down (ha!) to sing "A figure sitting cross-legged on the floor" the dramatic effect is quite nice. That part has always been my favorite moment in the song as a matter of fact, so to hear Bowie singing it decades later, is amazing.

I love using "pepper" as a verb so let me say I really like the way Holly and Emm pepper the track with their vocals!

This is already one of my favorite songs from Toy, I've had it on repeat all day and it's bound to become a permanent entry in my Bowie playlist.
I had been curious about this song for YEARS, and I thought we wouldn't get to hear it until the album was released, so getting this early treat is nothing short of magnificent. I'm very, very much looking forward to TOY.

 

I guess we’ll find out in the booklet but it’s still not clear, unless in the uncut article which I’ve not read, what the extent of MP’s work was this time, and to what extent the tracks done in 2000 were ‘finished’, ignoring that some were revisited by TV soon afterwards. I’d quite like to see a track by track breakdown to confirm. Separately, I’m chuffed to bits for MP that he’s got to go back to this, as I think his work for db never really got the credit it deserved. Not least from db.

 

well, that's obvious. But you can still get a very good impression of the song from YT.

It's not going to magically transform from a frog to a prince when you listen to it on a "stereo". Its still a frog.

 

No of course not, the title is Silly Boy Blue, so that's no clue to Tibet if you don't know the lyrics. Do pay attention, okay ?

 

Having played both "Karma Man" and "Silly Boy Blue" about a dozen times since last night, I'll amend my thoughts: "Karma Man" is just as awkward here in 1967, even if it has a better budget this time. I'm getting used to Bowie's vocal choices, at least. "Silly Boy Blue" is much better, if overblown by comparison to the original.

My bigger issue with both songs is that these arrangements are both really overblown, with everything mixed right up front, no subtlety at all. I'll be curious to see if these mixes are vintage (done while Bowie was alive) or new, but either way, they aren't sympathetic and remind me of one of the reasons I never thought Mark Plati was a strong collaborator for DB.

Bowie had the good fortune of working with a lot of sympathetic, collaborative producers: Visconti, Ken Scott, Harry Maslin, Eno, even Nile Rodgers. I can't recall where he found Plati, but I remember first hearing Earthling in 1997 and thinking how squashed it sounded - all of the dynamics on Outside and Buddha and BTWN (to use the most recent examples) were gone. Obviously, the material on Toy is quite different from Earthling, and arranged quite differently, yet the mixes still seem excessively busy and every element is pushed way up in the mix (if that makes sense). When everything is emphasized, nothing really is anymore.

 

sorry, I do try and pay attention, just not to your posts. Will try harder in the future to pay no attention, then no confusion can occur. Sorry.

(and surely, anybody who has listened to Silly Boy Blue more than once knows it was about Tibet and Buddhism (as is Karma Man), and anybody who has read anything about Bowie as a young man got the Chime reference? No?)

 

I put so much fuel in my car this week that I can't get in it.

 

I'm going to have to throw that seriously right back at you, are you seriously comparing the era that gave us "Heroes" (the track), "Joe The Lion", "Fantastic Voyage" (to name a few off the top of my head) to this?...wow

Today I feel like Bowie fans who are old enough to have heard "Tonight" when it was released.....

 

MP was engineering at looking glass when db went there to do earthling, I think that was the initial connexion. But bear in mind that db by that point had been recording for 30 years. If he didn’t rate someone he didn’t have to work with them. MP wrote quite a lot of earthling, along with band members.

 

Yeah, I must concur, karma man sounds ridiculously rushed, as a track/version. It begs the question, 'why?'

Like so many covers (or rerecordings, in this case) you just wonder...why...and I LOVE the Toy bootleg!

 

The vocal on "Karma Man" reminds me of the same type of somewhat rushed attack that Bowie provided on Pin Ups. After all, Toy is "Pin Ups 2" but Bowie covering himself.

 

Silly boy blue in contrast, kind of modernises and updates the original version, and it has a good, strong vocal.

 

An interesting take.....funnily enough I don't like "Pin Ups" either (only 70s album I never bothered to get on CD or Vinyl)