David Bowie Estate: Catalog Reissue of Five Albums- listen 2 unreleased trackArchival live performance footage to be livestreamed in 360 Reality Audio in conjunction with CES 2022 today at 4pm PST/7pm ES
According to Visconti, the pop star who died in 2016 “absolutely loved” the 360 Reality Audio format “because it’s spatial.” He said the new versions of Reality and Heathune are true to the original 5.1 mix made while Bowie was still alive. But he said the version of Bowie’s final album saw the biggest change.
“When you listen to Blackstar on 360, it sounds radically different from the stereo version because you don’t have to stuff everything in the foreground. It’s a very dense album,” he said.
Both the YouTube livestream and the Artist Connection viewing experiences will be available to the general public. (americanbluesscene)
The David Bowie Estate today announced a series of releases from David Bowie’s catalog that have been remixed and reimagined exclusively in 360 Reality Audio, a new immersive music experience driven by Sony’s spatial sound technology. The content is the latest David Bowie music to be mixed in 360 Reality Audio, following Space Oddity, which is currently available on 360 Reality Audio-supported streaming platforms.
Additionally, the David Bowie Estate and Sony are making available four archival live performance recordings that have been mixed and reimagined in 360 Reality Audio (which makes it possible to create a lifelike music experience, giving listeners the feeling that they are in a live concert setting). The four songs are from David Bowie’s A Reality Tour, featuring live audio and video from Bowie’s final concert tour, to be livestreamed in 360 Reality Audio today, January 6th at 4:00 pm PST / 7:00 pm EST on the Online Platform “Sony Square” (via David Bowie’s YouTube channel). Listeners everywhere can use any set of headphones to hear the music in 360 Reality Audio.
In conjunction with the ongoing Bowie 75 – an extended celebration of David Bowie’s 75th birthday on January 8th, 2022 featuring two physical pop up locations in NYC and London equipped with 360 Reality Audio listening experiences at each location – longtime Bowie producer Tony Visconti crafted 360 Reality Audio mixes of Heathen, Reality, A Reality Tour (Live), The Next Day, and ★ (pronounced “Blackstar”). The albums will be available for streaming in 360 Reality Audio beginning January 21st on Amazon Music Unlimited, Deezer, and TIDAL.
On December 17, 1071, Hunky Dory was released -Hunky Dory 50th Anniversary Picture Disk Vinyl Due Out January 7 via Parlophone.
Inside making of album that Bowie said "reflected my newfound enthusiasm for this new continent that had been opened up to me" His first three albums had tanked, and he didn't have a record deal.(Undertheradarmag.)
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of David Bowie’s fourth studio album, Hunky Dory, Parlophone has announced a picture disk vinyl reissue, which will be out on January 7, 2022. To mark the announcement, an alternative mix of album opener “Changes,” mixed by Hunky Dory producer Ken Scott, has been released. Listen below.
In a press release, Scott states: “The new version of ‘Changes’ is a fresh look at Bowie’s classic. When listening to the original multi-track I discovered a few things that I had eliminated from the original mix and also a completely different sax solo at the end. It was those things that led me to try a new mix, trying for a slightly harder, more contemporary edge to it.”
The reissue will feature the 2015 vinyl remaster as well as a poster featuring the annotated back cover image of the album.
When David Bowie began writing songs for Hunky Dory, in 1970, he had little to show for the six years he spent trying to make it as a singer. His first three albums had tanked, and he didn't have a record deal. (excerpt from Rolling Stone)
Then, in January 1971, Bowie arrived in the United States for a three-week promotional tour, a journey that broadened his universe and inspired his first great artistic statement.
"The whole Hunky Dory album reflected my newfound enthusiasm for this new continent that had been opened up to me," Bowie said in 1999. "That was the first time a real outside situation affected me so 100 percent that it changed my way of writing and the way I look at things." Traveling by bus from Washington, D.C., to California,
Bowie fell in love with the country and penned tributes to some of its most iconic artists: "Andy Warhol," "Song for Bob Dylan" and the Lou Reed-inspired "Queen Bitch." Inspired by folkie singer-songwriters like James Taylor and Cat Stevens, who were dominating the U.S. charts at the time, Bowie began composing pretty acoustic tunes with surreal lyrics like "Mickey Mouse has grown up a cow."
"When we were rehearsing songs for Hunky Dory, David was playing by himself at folk clubs in London to, like, 50 people," said Hunky Dory bassist Trevor Bolder, who also played on Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane. "He had long hair and looked like a folkie."
Bowie assembled a band – including guitarist Mick Ronson and future Yes keyboardist Rick Wakeman – that could amplify his folk tunes into glammy, grandiose rockers. "We went into the studio, and I had total freedom to do whatever I liked," Wakeman said. "I still rate it as the finest collection of songs on one album."
The album was recorded in just two weeks, with the group averaging one song per day. The band shacked up in Bowie's London apartment, crashing in sleeping bags on the balcony. "Dave would drive us and all the gear into central London in the morning," said Bolder. "Afterward, we'd all go down to the pub and drink. Nobody really knew who David was at that point."
Hunky Dory wasn't a commercial success at first, but it paved the way for Ziggy Stardust and everything that would come after it. "It provided me, for the first time, with an actual audience," Bowie later said. "I mean, people actually coming up to me and saying, 'Good album, good songs.' That hadn't happened to me before."
