THE BEST OF BOWIE

I think David Bowie is one of the definitive names in the history of music videos. This 47-track package covering over three decades is a notable evidence. My generation who witnessed the hayday of MTV remembers many fine videos from the early 80's, such as 'Ashes To Ashes', 'China Girl' or 'Blue Jean', but what's so great about this DVD is that it has so much to offer from all phases of Bowie's long career. I'm not into his later works, and the second disc finds its way much more rarely into my player than the first one, even if some of the videos from the 90's are actually pretty good. David Mallet is perhaps the most frequent director for Bowie. I'd like to mention Mark Romanek (e.g. 'Jump They Say') whose rather clinical visual style you may have seen also in the film One Hour Photo.

Naturally the early videos like 'Space Oddity' or 'Life on Mars?' are quite simple, concentrating solely on Bowie, but nevertheless they are pretty good ones, whether you estimate them from the nostalgic point of view or against the artistic level of music videos of the time - which usually were simply live-in-the- studio, and often appearances on TV programmes such as The Old Grey Whistle Test ('Five Years') or Top Of The Pops ('Starman'). At least the technical quality remains surprisingly good all the way. If you have seen several compilation DVD's you know it's not for granted.

As is the case with singles collection CD's, the track list is not - and can't be - your ideal Bowie track list; I would prefer for example 'Changes' or 'Time' instead of boring rock songs like 'Jean Genie' or 'Rebel Rebel', and I wonder why the film songs 'When The Wind Blows' and 'This Is Not America' are not included. Last but not least, the edition (I'm referring to menu sections) is excellent and user-friendly. You hear extracts from 'Sound + Vision' and some instrumental Eno collaboration (I can't spot the exact track right now). 3½ stars rounded up.

Videos and more videos!

David Bowie is one of those artists whose music must be listened by anyone who considers itself a person who likes music, it is mandatory to listen to his albums, but if you are not that keen about gettin hisstudio albums, then you might acquire this compillation, you could find both the 2CD or the 2DVD version of The Best of Bowie and then you could decide if the singles or succesful hits played here are enough to be interested on the artist.

I always suggest listening first to the studio albums, it is the best way of getting to know a band or artist, but sometimes i suggest this kind of best of, or compillations to those people who just want to know the artist, though the best of may feature the most popular songs, it doesn't mean the music is necessarily the most representartive of the artist himself.

A month ago or so, while visiting my girlfriend we watched her DVD The Best of Bowie because i told her i had been listening a lot to him, so we wanted to spend a couple of hours watching his single videos.

What we found here, is a full catalogue of his career musical videos since the early 70s to the 00s, so as you can imagine this 2DVD set offers his different musical directions, his rockish, his experimental, his poppish and his electronic moments, so it is a good way to know what David Bowie has done over the years. Here you will find his better known songs and though i would recommend more watching a live concert mainly his 70s concerts rather than this video clips DVD, this is also a worth watching.

Just to mention some of my favourite songsand videos here, in order to let you know what you may find here are: Five Years, Space Oddity, Life on Mars?, Starman, Ashes to Ashes, Ziggy Stardust or China Girl on DVD 1, which features more than 25 clips. And in DVD 2 being my leats favourite of both you will find videos such as As the Worlf Falls Down, Never let me Down, Buddha of Suburbia, Dead Man Walking and Thursday's Child among others.

Best of are easier to review than a studio or live albums, so what i can also say is that if you want to spend some hours with Bowie's videoclips, youbetter get this DVD set and have a nice time.

My grade is 3 stars, good but non-essential, because there are some tracks that i dont like and prefer skipping.

Enjoy it!