David Bowie
iSelectBowie

We do not know if "Reality" (2003) is actually Bowie's last studio work; in any case, that album closes a cycle, a phase that began in the nineties. In the meantime, retrospectives or "The Best Of" of all kinds continue to be released. If the Duke's fans show no interest, just as Bowie himself never quite understood what the idea was behind a myriad of uncontrolled compilations, then, with the release of this iSelect (October 14, 2008), things change. Because here Bowie himself decides!

Initially, it was an attachment to "Mail On Sunday", which sold out in one day, then it was decided to promote it worldwide. Now, we must grasp the importance of this gesture because it is strongly relational, that is, it does not have the sense of a bland "The Best Of" playlist. In this iSelect we can play to hear what are indeed the tracks that the Duke has always loved and from which he has never parted. In this game, every fan should verify something from their Bowie experience, in the close symbiotic relationship -sound and vision- that has always distinguished the atmosphere of those who have loved him with projective identification.

In fact, just start, and you'll be nailed in place, watching time flow, with an indisputable classic Life On Mars?, then move from "Hunky Dory" to the apocalyptic landscapes of "Diamond Dogs" with the tensions of Sweet Thing/Candidate/Sweet Thing. Unexpected and immediately absolute are the burning transitions from The Bewlay Brothers (also "Hunky Dory"), to the immortal Lady Grinning Soul (from "Aladdin Sane") and Win (from "Young Americans"). And while Some Are (discarded from the Berlin Low) is at the edge of dark emotion, to brighten the horizon there is Teenage Wildlife, drawn from that unmatched point of equilibrium that is Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps). We remain at the same heights by going back to draw from the indispensable and adorable Lodger with the krautrock of Repetition and the perfect pop of Fantastic Voyage.

This introspective, zigzagging journey through the memory of the seventies abruptly stops with Loving The Alien ("Tonight") which introduces the decade in which Bowie shed the clothes of the icon-indie. However, Bowie's eighties should not be underestimated! This is demonstrated by the choice of a remix of Time Will Crawl in which he himself is still not convinced by the overall output of "Never Let Me Down" of '87. This work (which was probably conceived as a gigantic revisited glam masterpiece), remains among the albums he would want to completely redo. We do not know if this remix can ever bring him peace, on what music critics have defined as the worst album of his career (usually those who freely launch these criticisms do not know what it means to create music).

And while for "Never Let Me Down", Bowie admits the mistake of having distanced himself, in the eighties, from producing his records; with the final live track of Hang On To Yourself (recorded in Santa Monica in '72), he does not forgive the provincial incompetence of his manager at the time, for having not comprehended the revolution in Rock with Ziggy Stardust and the impact of the Ziggy event, not only in musical and artistic terms but also from sociocultural perspectives [According to the magazine "Out" the album "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust" by David Bowie, is the gayest record of all time (September 9, 2008)]. Unfortunately, continental Europe did not have any Ziggy and the Spiders tour, not even in obvious cities like Paris.

Obviously, this iSelect is aimed at all those who, not knowing David Bowie, can have a more than reliable synthesis in 58 minutes. However, given the introspective tone of the selection and the journey through time carried forward by the Duke himself, this selection should be listened to, in its entirety, at least once, by his "devotees".