It’s David Bowie’s birthday January 8th and isn’t this a lovely birthday surprise! It’s been announced that ‘ChangesNowBowie’ will be released on Record Store Day on April 18th, 2020, my birthday!! And beginning today six previously unreleased rarities from David’s archive called “Is It Any Wonder?” will be released in the coming weeks beginning tonight (January 8th in England) with ‘The Man Who Sold The World (ChangesNowBowie Version)’. The next one will be January 17th and weekly after that! I’ll update this post each week with details. WOOOT! New music… yay!
Links to the complete EP on Spotify are at the bottom!
January 8, 2020: The Man Who Sold The World (ChangesNowBowie Version)
Here’s the first of six songs, previously unreleased, that will be streamed over the coming weeks, this song will feature on the upcoming release ChangesNowBowie to be released for Record Store Day April 18, 2020. This is an amazing version of ‘The Man Who Sold The World’ recorded for radio and broadcast by the BBC on David’s 50th birthday on 8th January, 1997.
You’re face to face with the man who sold the world!
January 17, 2020: I Can’t Read ’97
Here’s the second instalment of David Bowie’s ‘IS IT ANY WONDER?’ EP of six unreleased and rare tracks being released once a week. ‘I Can’t Read’ was originally on the first album by Tin Machine in 1989, this version was re-recorded as a solo piece for the Earthling album in 1996 but was cut at the last minute. The song was recorded again for the Ang Lee film ‘Ice Storm’ and released as a single and on the soundtrack. This version however is the first solo version, and was David’s preferred version.
Can I see the family smile, can I reach tomorrow…
January 24, 2020: Stay ’97
You gotta LOVE getting new Bowie music in 2020!!!! So, here’s the third instalment released today of David Bowie’s ‘IS IT ANY WONDER?’ EP of six unreleased and rare tracks being released once a week. ‘Stay’ comes from the ‘Station to Station’ album released in 1976, but this version was recorded in 1997 while David was working on old material during rehearsals for his tour that year so that it would fit right in with the Outside/Earthling material they would be playing! This version really rocks!!
I guess there’s always some change in the weather
This time I know we could get it together
January 31, 2020: Baby Universal ‘97
And the new Bowie music for 2020 continues Baby!! So, here’s the fourth instalment released today of David Bowie’s ‘IS IT ANY WONDER?’ EP of six unreleased and rare tracks being released once a week. ‘Baby Universal’ was initially recorded by Tin Machine for Tin Machine II. This new version was recorded in 1997 to be included on the ‘Earthling’ album, but it was removed before release. This is a very cool version, and it’s exciting to hear these reworked versions of Tin Machine songs, this is the second in this 6 song EP. Take a close listen to the opening… anyone else hear a nod to Prince, and even more cool, a nod to T.Rex?
Hallo humans nothing starts tomorrow
February 7, 2020: Nuts
New Bowie music in 2020? This is… NUTS!! No, really this is the fifth instalment, ‘Nuts’, released today from David Bowie’s ‘IS IT ANY WONDER?’ EP of six unreleased and rare tracks being released once a week. ‘Nuts’ is an instrumental piece that was recorded in 1996, it was going to be a bonus track included on the ‘Earthling’ album, but it was switched out at the last minute and is now being heard for the first time. I’ve always been a fan of Bowie’s instrumental stuff and this one doesn’t disappoint. So appropriately recorded in Philip Glass’s “Looking Glass Studios”! Earthling was Bowie’s “Drum and Bass”, “Jungle music” album, and this instrumental is all that and more! Love it! “Please enter your password!”
What… would you rather be doing?
February 14, 2020: The Man Who Sold the World (Live Eno Mix)
The sixth and final instalment released today from David Bowie’s ‘IS IT ANY WONDER?’ EP of six unreleased and rare tracks being released once a week ends with ‘The Man Who Sold The World (Live Eno Mix)’, originally released as the B side of a single in 1995, with Strangers When We Meet. “The Live Eno Mix version of this classic song is based on the fairly radical trip-hop reworking performed on the Outside World Tour. Longtime Bowie collaborator Brian Eno reshaped, overdubbed and mixed this live recording of the song at Westside Studios in London on 30th October, 1995, recalling the session in his diaries: “I added some backing vocals and a sonar blip and sculpted the piece a little so that there was more contour to it.”.”
It was decided that the Is It Any Wonder? EP will also be released on 12” vinyl and CD on Friday 20th March, with the CHANGESNOWBOWIE version of The Man Who Sold The World replaced by Fun (Clownboy Mix). ‘FUN’ (CLOWNBOY MIX) originated as a modern revamp of the Bowie classic ‘Fame’, performed under the name ‘Is It Any Wonder?’ during David’s ‘club set’ on the Earthling tour. The song further developed lyrically and musically and, by the time the Clownboy mix was created in May 1998, it was a completely new piece of work written by David and Reeves Gabrels and featuring no elements of ‘Fame’.
I’m going to miss these weekly Bowie releases…!
I laughed and shook his hand and made my way back home!
