The David Bowie Archive recently loaned one of the early Ziggy Stardust costumes made by Freddie Burretti to The British Music Experience. The permanent exhibit will be using their displays to demonstrate how British music has shaped the past six decades of British popular culture. It will open in 2009 in the O2 Arena in London.

Posted in News | Comments Off on Ziggy Stardust Costume Will Be Displayed by The British Music Experience

I know we bitch a lot on this site about the seemingly never-ending stream of David Bowie covers…either that or we ignore them like the latest Cat Power cover. However, the newest cover will be featured on the album Heroes being released on November 24 by the charity War Child. So I don’t even have the urge to bitch about it since it is for a good cause. The concept of the album is that music legends such as David Bowie, Paul McCartney, and The Clash will choose younger artists to cover one of their signature songs. No word yet as to what Bowie song will be included, but one of the songs will be Joy Division’s “Transmission” covered by Hot Chip. That makes me squee with delight – I love that song! I can’t wait to find out what the Bowie song will be and who he will choose to cover it.

Posted in More To Own, News | Comments Off on Another David Bowie Cover, But This Time For A Good Cause

A wistful David Bowie anniversary has come and gone – Reality was released five years ago on September 15, 2003.  I can hardly believe that five years has come and gone with not a peep about a new album.  *sigh*  A lot has happened in those five years, but one of those things was not a new David Bowie album.  David, please record a new album!  Don’t make me beg.  It won’t be pretty.

Posted in News | 4 Comments »

It’s always a pleasant surprise when a commercial I expect to be grating and annoying turns to sweetness with a few notes from a David Bowie song.  The latest commercials to use Bowie’s music are the new bubble one from Rhapsody, the new one from Royal Caribbean, and one from Marks and Spencer.  The Rhapsody commercial is rather pleasant as commercials go (I mean, how pleasant can an advert interrupting an interesting TV show really be?) with a few seconds of Sound and Vision playing.  The one from Marks and Spencer is fun as well.  It features Let’s Dance, but sadly no one in the commercial puts on shoes of any shade of red nor does any bluesy sort of dance.

The Royal Caribbean commercial is just puzzling.  The commercial shows an attractive young couple having good, clean fun while Fame plays in the background.  Royal Caribbean has gone from advertising family vacations to the theme of the narcotic-loving Lust For Life to pushing romantic getaways with a song about the debauchery of fame.  Someone in their marketing department needs to bust out with a lyric sheet and some headphones before they pick more completely inappropriate songs to advertise their vacations. (Unfortunately, the video has been pulled from YouTube so you’ll just have to use your imagination.)

Here is the Rhapsody commercial:

You can view the Marks and Spencer commercial via their website.

Posted in News | Comments Off on Commercial Round-up: Found David Bowie

Out Magazine recently took a poll of 100 gay musicians, performance artists, actors, comedians, writers, critics, label reps, and DJs and asked them what albums had the biggest impact on their lives. The number one album on the list is, of course, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars. The list of the Top 100 does not just include albums by gay artists, but also albums that had relevance to the people who voted and to the gay community. The full list can be found at Out.com.

Posted in News | Comments Off on David Bowie’s “Ziggy Stardust” Voted Gayest Album

A rare early recording of David Bowie singing and playing saxophone with his first band, the Konrads, has surfaced. The track called “Mockingbird” is one of 5,000 recordings made by British music producer Joe Meek. All 1,850 master tapes from Meek’s personal collection are on sale as part of the Fame Bureau’s “It’s More Than Rock ‘n’ Roll” auction at the Idea Generation Gallery in London.

Last.fm has an 18 second clip of the song.

The full set of recordings are estimated to go for £300,000 but the highest bid is £125,000 on eBay at the time of this writing. The auction ends tomorrow at 9am Pacific.

Posted in News | Comments Off on Rare Early David Bowie Song Discovered