well, i suppose after writing about (or of) Bowie at least once a month for just north of two years it might have been predictable that i would find it tricky to give up doing so, look you see. and so this has proven to be, but at least i do so with sort of a good reason.
if you are wondering as to whether or not this all relates to some sort of indulgence buy, or other such "it is shiny, i want it" acquisition. the answer is yes. a fairly or otherwise relatively recent browse on that modern day car boot sale, ebay, led me to finding something that i already had (strictly speaking twice over), but in a different format. which was good enough to secure a purchase.
yes, indeed. above are, or is, the celebrated original issue of David Bowie's Sound & Vision retrospective box set. in audio cassette, or if you will tape, format. this originally came out way back in late 1989, and was for some reason limited in release to the USA and Canada.
what, exactly, is it? something of a, if not for Bowie then the music industry at the time, defining moment. this was a compilation which for Bowie kick-started a proper re-release of his 69 - 80 albums on CD, but did so in a way that was anything but a lazy or cheap "best of" cash-in. on a very rough, best guess measurement, somewhere around half of the tracks on the original set were "non-standard", as in they were different versions of songs, unreleased numbers, live selections and what have you.
although Crossroads by Eric Clapton, which was released a year earlier, is generally considered as the start of the phenomenon known as the CD box set, it was Sound & Vision which charted the path to take. Clapton's most excellent set was just that, but it was virtually all "previously released" stuff. the Bowie spin on it, giving fans stuff that they had probably not had any means or opportunity to get before, proved popular, with north of 200,000 copies of this (at the time) very expensive set selling.
yes, indeed, also a quite beautiful set, although my efforts in trying to take an image of the quasi "hologram" picture of Bowie on the box patently do not do it justice.
why was this original version not released in the UK? i actually have no idea. could be on Bowie's orders, maybe as he felt it would be too expensive or otherwise damage sales of the Changesbowie (more traditional) best of. or limit the sales of the ambitious album re-release plans, where if i remember right 2 or 3 albums were re-released every two or three months. most likely, though, perhaps it all had something to do with publishing, rights, the deal signed with Ryko, etc.
but, despite it not being available (or at the least not released) in the UK, did i happen to have this, the original release of Sound & Vision? why, yes.
it is all due to, or down to, my Dad's frequent international business travel that i was able to take ownership of it on CD. he happened to be off to the USA for work related stuff, i asked if he could possibly get this set for me, and indeed he did. nice one Dad, thanks again.
would i have been able to get it if not for my Dad? probably not, no. whereas now one with an internet connection can pretty much get anything from anywhere, then there was no such system. perhaps i could have got HMV, or Our Price, or similar, to order it in for me, or for that matter someone advertising in NME or Melody Maker may have imported it. although i can't say for certain, i suspect such an approach would have seen a cost around or north of £100, so absolutely not.
this CD version, and yes i will get back on to the newly obtained tape version eventually, came with something of an oddity. whereas you may think that Sound & Vision was called such just as a reference to one of Bowie's songs, it was more relevant to this particular variation. there were three CDs proper, to be sure, and then a "plus" or bonus disc, featuring some live tunes and the video for Ashes To Ashes on something called a CD Video.
from what i recall CD Video was a most unpopular format, filling the gap between laserdisc and the eventual rise of DVD. i don't think the system sold particularly well, probably due to the space and size limitations as to what you could get on the disc. yes, i did get to watch the Ashes To Ashes video off this disc, once. due to a strange quirk in multi-platform compatibility, this CD Video played perfectly well on a laserdisc machine a good friend had.
please don't hold me to this, but if i recall right the three live songs on here - Changes, The Supermen and John I'm Only Dancing recorded in Boston - eventually turned up on the Aladdin Sane 2 CD set which was released for some anniversary or another. no, the live songs were not included on the tape version of Sound & Vision and no, you didn't get a VHS or Beta with it.
which, i suppose, lets me return very nicely to this, the tape version of it that i recently obtained.
how much did i pay to take ownership of this cassette variation? one does have to be careful when engaging in these "auction" things on ebay, for when your magpie eyes are hungry for the prize you can forget all sense of budget or value. such a fate did not happen to me here.
in total, which is to say including postage and what have you, the fee brokered, bid and duly paid was north of £10 but south of £15. as point of fact a figure reasonably central to those two poles that i have placed for measurement. obviously it is always nicer to get something cheaper, but the budget i set out was "no more than a special edition CD down HMV", and so it was a most happy day to have it come in at less than that.
ooops, no, i have not given much in the way of details of what the set contains, other than rarities. well, in this original version it has lovely bookends, commencing with an early demo of Space Oddity and ending with Ashes To Ashes. in regards of the former, it begins with a lovely, innocent pitch from the young Bowie, with a message to the record label executives he hoped would hear that particular recording.
yes, indeed, that is inside one of the tapes for you. i would say that i selected tape two entirely at random, but as discussed before in the days of random bowie posts, that's my favourite look and era.
for what reason did i wish to own these tapes? i mean, was it just to gather more Bowie stuff, or burn of excess cash, or to actually play? somewhere across all three, i think. we, as humans, are aesthetic and tactile creatures. to see and to touch, as well as to hear, tend to be what makes us who we are. all this "streaming", be it music or movies, is lovely and convenient, and yet in doing that we miss the sheer beauty, the wonderful sense, of being able to touch, to hold, to feel.
the last sentiment is one i have mentioned before, and could well be something i touch on again. presently i have a bit of an itch to look at something which feels absurd yet makes perfect sense, namely the "VHS revival" quietly going on. but, i am not sure i am qualified to speak of it, or if there is much to say about it. we shall see.
it might well be that you guessed this, but above is a gander at some of the things what were in the early 2000s (i think 2002?) re-issue of the Sound & Vision box set. an expanded version, somewhat, too, with all of the 80s and up to (i think) the Black Tie White Noise album being covered. so yes, you lost the Major Tom bookends, but you gained some lovely extras. like, in particular, the proper film version of Cat People (Putting Out Fire). prior to this release it was tricky to get that one on CD.
yes, it probably was that song in particular which persuaded me to part with substantial cash for this CD revamped reissue. no, no real regrets, although obviously it was not too pleasing to see the CDs simply housed in plastic sleeves, nice though the fancy printing on them is. and indeed there was a further re-release, in the early 2010s i think, featuring the same material as in this early 2000s variation but in a smaller box. thus far i have not been tempted to get it.
any further justification or vindication i would like to throw out for purchasing this set? well, yes, certainly. as you can see clearly below, when you like the cassette version up it creates an entirely different picture to the one which happens when you line the CD version up.
right, well, that's about that. indeed yes, this post could be interpreted as "showing off". but why would i not do such on my own blog? hopefully, though, it has all been of interest to someone out there somewhere.
my thanks, as ever, for stopping by to have a bit of a gander and a slight read.
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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