Saturday, January 13, 2007

The price of everything and the value of nothing

I'm sitting here listening to 'Hunky Dory' by Dave Bowie out of the Dave Bowie Band. I bought it for £5 in the HMV 'sale' (though, to be accurate, it cost me nothing, as it was purchased using one of their Gift Cards). It was one of the cheapest albums in their 'sale', and one of the few in the entire emporium that interested me. I refuse to pay more than a fiver in that shop now, as I know that Fopp and various on-line retailers do not rip off people the way the little dog does, though £5 is still a lot more than the LP would have cost way back in 1971. I can hear you saying "why buy it in there at all?". Well, as I said, I had a gift card, totally unsolicited and unexpected, and I need to get rid of it somehow.

Anyway, I chose this album, not because of the classic singles 'Changes', 'Oh! You Pretty Things' and 'Life On Mars?', which I have on one of Bowie's singles collections, but because it's the album that features as its last track 'The Bewlay Brothers', a song I heard for the first time a couple of years ago sung by Guy Garvey from Elbow on Marc Riley's Rocket Science, and I've wanted to hear the original ever since. The album also includes 'Andy Warhol' and 'Song For Bob Dylan', plus the song that inspired the name of one of Brighton's more hideous pop bands, 'Kooks'; another track I heard for the first time on Marc Riley's show, and written about the unfortunately named Zowie Bowie, son of David and Angie. The lad changed his name to Joe Bowie at one point, but now prefers to be known as Duncan Jones, which is handy, as it's his real name!

It's easy to listen to old albums by legends such as Bowie through a rose-coloured digital hearing aid and feel overawed, especially when he is one of those artists that no one is meant to criticise (apart from Tin Machine) and even more especially when one was too young to appreciate such a work of genius when it was first released. However, I am not so easily swayed by the opinions of others, and have always sought out good music on my own recommendation or stumbled upon such gems by accident. That's the way it should be. The NME and Zane Lowe need not apply for the post of Master of My Music.

As a footnote, Killers fans may want to listen to 'Queen Bitch' before playing 'Mr. Brightside'.