Brain Splats

I’ve enjoyed Bowie’s music for years and owned the double disc DVD of his Best Of collection for about five. From radio plays during long family drives to my Nan’s house to the occasional music video on TV, he’s always been there on the outskirts of my music radar. I recall my sister getting scared of his role in Labyrinth, a documentary on Linford Christie’s running outfits to a theme tune of Fashion, getting home stoned and tripping out to The Man Who Fell to Earth and reading about Marilyn Manson’s contact lenses tribute during my brief goth phase.

But the artist really catapulted towards the core of my radar this month after a chat with a colleague about how cool the man is. That night I downloaded the CD equivalent of the DVD I’d owned for years and have been immersing myself in the two solid and varied discs every day since, whilst I get dressed for work in the week, stroll over Tower Bridge on my lunch breaks or run the treadmill in the gym.

There are moods for all occasion:

Space Oddity – 101 Hollywood blockbusters and US dramas about extraterrestrials and space later, a strength of this track is it’s ability to challenge the boundaries of imagination, even in the age where everything seems possible, at least when it’s engraved with an Apple logo. A great one to open up the box around your brain in a morning, munching a bowl of corn flakes and bolting a door shut for the day ahead is rarely as inspired.

Modern Love – A happy and bouncy tune that’s ideal for walking out of your office at the end of the day. It’s one of many examples that show how unlike say, Stevie Wonder’s I Just Called To Say I Love You or Paul McCartney’s Give My Regards To Broad Street, Bowie’s 80s output remained current to it’s time without over cheesing it.

China Girl – Another 80s effort that avoids the pitfalls of the decade’s dry drum machines and cold synthesisers thanks to Bowie’s intriguing lyrics and their softly, almost spoken execution, muting the familiar hums of traffic and curry house touts for this number can put a fun, rhythmic, anticipatory and swaggering screen over your walk out to a night of drinks and chatter.

Heroes – When your head’s split in two, you wake up brewing over an argument the night before or have just had a long lay in on a lazy Sunday morning, the goose bumps one listen and welling up eyes of the next that this song can conjure up tells you you’re listening to a pretty special thing. The simplicity of the ostinato, escalating passion and strain of the vocal and statement of the lyric are elements that bread track review acclaims such as ‘life affirming’ and ‘all time classic’.

I’ve always been a little too proud or obsessive to begin exploring an artist’s back catalogue with a greatest hits collection though the Best Of Bowie is a useful tool for an artist of such material and direction. It’s helped me to start digging deeper, from the surprisingly folk collection of his Space Oddity album to the very considered electronic efforts of Low such as Always Crashing In The Same Car

The Youtube crawl:

• Thursday’s Child music video
• Extras guest appearance
• The society for the prevention of cruelty to long haired men interview
• I’m a collector interview

My Best of his Best of: Last.fm playlist

• The final scene of Gangs Of New York where the NYC landscape evolves.
• The rat crawling across the screen as The Departed concludes.
• The lighthouse shot that ends Shutter Island, incase you don’t guess what happened next.