David Bowie (1967 self-named debut album/Deluxe Edition CD Set/Deram/Universal
Music)
Sound:
B Music: B-
For most
people, they first knew David Bowie for his earliest hit, Space Oddity, a 1969 single that recharted higher in 1973 (even
when he started, he was a few years ahead of just about everyone else) thanks
to Stanley Kubrick hit films 2001: A
Space Odyssey & A Clockwork
Orange, plus his own rising popularity.
However, his actual start as David Bowie happened in 1967. Originally going around as Davy Jones, the
co-lead singer of The Monkees made
him change that to the name we know now and a self-titled debut album David Bowie was issued by Deram. Universal has issued it in another one of
their ace Deluxe Edition CD sets.
This side
label of Decca Records was also known for music of The Moody Blues and this
album has some material that sounds like Blues-tinged British Invasion music of
the time, but the 14-track release has some very interesting material. Even though Bowie had not found his sound yet, you can
hear his articulation, ideas and approach even starting to form here in the
following tracks:
1)
Uncle Arthur
2)
Sell Me A Goat
3)
Rubber Band
4)
Love You Till Tuesday
5)
There Is A Happy Land
6)
We Are Hungry Men
7)
When I Live My Dream
8)
Little Bombardier
9)
Silly Blue Boy
10) Come And Buy My Toys
11) Join The Gang
12) She’s Got Medals
13) Maid Of Bond Street
14) Please Mr. Gravedigger
CD 1
offers the album in Stereo and Mono mixes, interesting in comparison in that
the mixing can sound can be more different than just sound imaging. It suggests a Bowie just finding his way, pushing the music
styles he was trying to do, but still staying within them; something he would
soon defy. Still, it is better than the
overly commercial product he was releasing in the early 1980s like Let’s Dance and Day In, Day Out because it is more ambitious and honest; not overly
polished like the sound that almost killed him artistically two decades later. This is the first time the Mono versions have
been officially issued on CD.
CD 2 has
25 more tracks that are the result of meticulous research from some very smart,
caring people at Universal searching the archive. Besides further, additional alternate cuts of
the album tracks, we get his novelty record The
Laughing Gnome in two versions, some B-sides to the few singles that Deram
issued off of the album, the rare London
Bye Ta-Ta version of the also-included In
The Heat Of The Morning, Karma Man
in two versions and five songs recorded for a BBC Radio program.
Over both
discs, the sound is definitely 1967, but the ideas seem to be trying to push
beyond that and sometime start to get there.
Bowie’s
voice is identifiable even then and he was already finding ways to form the
phrasing that would eventually make his vocals stand out against what was soon
to be many imitators and many more endlessly influenced to this day. The result is a solid first chapter of one of
the most important performers in music history and reminds us how priceless key
albums like key films that are not discussed enough can be, but the Deluxe
Edition series has been Universal’s music CD equivalent of The Criterion
Collection and it is another great installment.
The PCM
16/44.1 2.0 Stereo and Mono are as good for their age as they are going to get
in this format, though I had wished that these had SA-CD layers so we could
really hear how good the masters are.
Mono is mono, while the Stereo comes from the original 4-track
masters. Once again, a rich, informative
booklet with an essay and all kinds of technical facts, historic information
and illustrations is included.
For more
on Bowie, here
is our coverage of the excellent DVD The
Berlin Years at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/6293/David+Bowie+%E2%80%93+The+Berli
- Nicholas Sheffo
