Since David Bowie’s passing in January 2016, the love for the man and his music has continued to grow. People across the internet have continued to debate the merits of his extensive back catalogue with a fervour that’s only really matched by the Beatles and Pink Floyd fans. Albums like ‘Hours…’ have been revisited and reappraised; new remastering of 1977’s ‘Low’ has caused controversy and ‘Blackstar’ has continued to astound and upset with its thinly veiled messages of mortality and dabblings with jazz-rock fusion. Few artists have delivered such a diverse and impressive parting gift.
Over the last three years, David’s archives have been raided for some excellent box sets, making material like 1975’s shelved album ‘The Gouster’ available officially for the first time and more recently presenting an in-depth look at the lengthy demo making process that spawned 1969’s ‘David Bowie’ (aka ‘Space Oddity’) album. David may be gone, but several live and studio recordings from the vaults have very much kept him in the minds of record buyers. This is something that fans hope will continue, with much speculation about if and when the unreleased ‘Toy’ album from 2001 will get an official release.
At the heart of it all, though, are a set of classic albums and David’s 70s output, in particular, represents a body of work that’s more rich and varied than most artists ever manage in an entire lifetime. These are albums that have inspired many musicians and songwriters from all different corners of the rock and pop world. It’s unsurprising, then, that a good proportion of David’s work has been covered by a selection of disparate artists.
Back in 2016, Real Gone presented some of our favourite ever Bowie covers, ranging from the sparse country-folk tinged sounds of Last Town Chorus to the avant-garde metallic manglings of Melvins.
To celebrate David Bowie’s birthday – January 8th – we take another dip into the universe of Bowie covers with something a little more structured. We present a playlist that revisits (most of) the classic ‘Hunky Dory’ and ‘Ziggy Stardust’ albums with tracks reworked, reimagined and covered by different artists. Some of the recordings will be familiar and others not, but we hope you like what you hear.
It seems rather more unlikely we’ll be able to construct a similar project for ‘1. Outside’, ‘Earthling’ and ‘Blackstar’ in decades to come…but there’s always hope.
Read a review of ‘Blackstar’ here.
Check out more Bowie covers here.
January 2020