oh. wow. right. no, sorry, that's not the start, i am just a bit puzzled. after quite a few years they have gone done changed the way that one creates these posts for these blogs, look you see. this is my first time doing one with this "new way", so bear with me. yes, the writing off of me shall forever be truly appalling, but i do like to try and make the pictures look smart.
so, with a sense of the unexpected and a disproportionate level of fanfare, the "complete" soundtrack for the dire, indeed woeful film Absolute Beginners has been released for the first time on CD in a "full" version. if they say so, that's fine. i'd not bothered even looking for a CD of it before, to be sure, but presumably some sort of variation of it existed.
indeed, yes, it is so that if it were not for the presence of (ahem) three (kind of) Bowie songs on this set, there is every chance i would have precisely zero interest in owning either this fancy new release, or any such release, except the one i already had. maybe. from what i recall, and i could well be mistaken, the mix of Have You Ever Had It Blue? by The Style Council is unique to the soundtrack. or it could have been out on a 12" at some stage, but anyway i don't have it beyond the soundtrack.
above (if i have somehow fluked to clock how this new formatting all works) is my tape copy of the soundtrack, then, next to the shiny new still sealed CD. i have had the tape for somewhere north of 30 years, during which time i have kept it in perfect condition and mostly ignored it. as in, seldom if ever feeling obliged to play it. very much the same fate awaits this CD incarnation of it all, except i probably do not have 30 years left for this world. but, you get the idea.
let the record reflect that yes, this post counts towards me not writing something of Bowie every month, at least once a month, which i said i would not do no more after doing all of his albums month by month for a while. a lot of month in that last sentence.
yes, i feel harsh and cruel to say it, but a brutal truth is that Bowie's title song is just about the only thing one can salvage from anything pertaining to the film Absolute Beginners. this sprawling, sweeping, beautiful elegant work of wonder is one of the strongest of many examples of genius (no matter what Charlie Watts says) that mocks the common myth of how Bowie "just did rubbish" in the 80s. from what i recall, it was only the fiddly 3" CD single you could get the full version of the song in a digital format, so the release of the soundtrack entire is welcome, since the CD single generally changes hands for a lot more than the cost of this set.
and the cost of this set? a moderate south of £10 price helped sway me to buy it. had i waited a few days, though, i could probably have got it for even more south, as the price of it has fallen very quickly indeed. too late, it seems, have people clocked that there is an extremely limited market for this release. i would imagine they will be even more disappointed if they attempted to re-release the actual film in any format, and find that even less ("fewer") people than was so at the time are even curious.
should that picture come out clear, well, that's a comparison of the tape release to this "full" CD release. from what i can work out, the "extras" are one joined up bit being split into two, and then one extra "moment" of Absolute Beginners, not performed by Bowie. no hidden gems lurked to make the set at all attractive, then.
what about the two Bowie songs on the Absolute Beginners soundtrack what are not called Absolute Beginners? they are not very good, at all. first off, That's Motivation probably works marginally better in the context of watching the film, being sung as it was (or is) with Bowie jumping around on a massive typerwriter (i did say the film was bad). Volare is a kind of interesting vocal off of him, but also it does sound very much like the sort of thing you would reasonable expect to hear on that album they unwisely and inexplicably let Peter Wyngarde record.
gathering all of Bowie's legally available recordings in an actual, non-downloaded format is a bit expensive. as in, no one has enough kidneys or similar organs to sell to fund it. should you be determined to get them all, well, these are two tracks which only (so far as i am aware) exist on this record, and here they are for south of £10. but i would be rather baffled to learn of anyone wishing to hear either of them more than just the once. maybe a second time to make sure that it was all that it seemed to be on the first play.
how about i give in to temptation and spend a little time sh!tting on the film? ok. a lot have suggested that this film somehow "destroyed" what little there was of the British film industry in the 80s, for it swallowed up all the money and made none. that's harsh and unfair, for many excellent films, be they entertaining or of artistic merit (or both) were indeed made, and made money. what the issue is, i think, in retrospect, was just how vehemently this film was rammed down everyone's throats. all of the media was you should watch this and you should appreciate it and you should like it, no matter how bad it was. and it really, really was bloody awful. whatever merits the original novel had were lost in the film.
bizarre decisions surrounded the film. up front, at some point they had a choice. either they could make an accessible, entertaining film with artistic merit and social commentary, or they could hire Julien Temple to turn it all into some Julien Temple thing. they went with the latter, of course. casting people who apparently could not act was not an inspired move, either. it's not even remotely an interesting step on watching the actress-singer-multiple rock star wife trajectory of Patsy Kensit's career, either. my abiding memory is that the first ten or so minutes, a big "opening number" thing, is so headache inducing that you are reluctant to watch more than that.
and Bowie's part? just about ten minutes, and seems to do what he was asked and leaves it there. very much an instantly forgettable screen part. Bowie's mid-80s film choices were fascinating. he was "too busy" to play Zorin in A View To A Kill, but was magically available for this, and Labyrinth, two films where he got to sang and retained the all important licensing rights to the songs what he done in them. history would have been different if someone had thought to make a James Bond film with a singing and dancing villain in it.
one piece of rock legend is that when Bowie recorded the song Absolute Beginners, he asked the musicians assembled to hold on, as "Mick was coming by", and he recorded Dancing In The Street with him (and the musicians), ahead of Live Aid. unsure if it is true or not, but i would rather spend my life believing that it is, as that's just excellent.
so, Absolute Beginners features one classic Bowie track, two obscure Bowie songs, a great number from The Style Council and some "not really their best or reflective of their stuff" material from Ray Davies and Sade. there is also the small matter of Patsy Kensit singing on it. for me it was worth getting, but knowing that i am highly unlikely ever to play it again (certainly never in full), i am a bit stuck when it comes to suggesting anyone else may wish to consider doing similar. wisely, as hinted at here, they have loaded the booklet up with images of Bowie rather than, say, any of the film cast or too many of the other artists. at least them what put this together are quite aware of the only strong selling point the release has.
well, dig what you dig, and it would be an interesting surprise if any of this has been of any use to anyone. but, bonus if some of it was surprisingly interesting.
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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