Time: 76:42
Size: 175.6 MB
Styles: Album rock, Dance rock
Year: 2007
Art: Front
[4:04] 1. Let's Dance
[3:35] 2. Ashes To Ashes
[4:02] 3. Under Pressure
[3:25] 4. Fashion
[3:57] 5. Modern Love
[4:14] 6. China Girl
[3:32] 7. Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)
[3:13] 8. Up The Hill Backwards
[3:51] 9. Alabama Song
[2:25] 10. Drowned Girl
[4:10] 11. Cat People (Putting Out Fire)
[3:51] 12. This Is Not America
[7:06] 13. Loving The Alien
[5:35] 14. Absolute Beginners
[3:35] 15. When The Wind Blows
[3:09] 16. Blue Jean
[4:09] 17. Day-In Day-Out
[4:16] 18. Time Will Crawl
[4:24] 19. Underground
The '80s were a curious time for David Bowie. Never had he sold more records, had bigger hits, his influence was everywhere, and yet, the music he made often fell a little flat, especially after his commercial high-water mark of 1983's Let's Dance. The 2007 compilation Best of David Bowie 1980/1987 deals with that drop-off in quality in an admirable fashion, perhaps the only appropriate fashion: it ignores it. There are two tracks from 1984's Tonight, and two from its 1987 sequel Never Let Me Down, while there are four apiece from Let's Dance and Scary Monsters -- a skewed ratio that is nevertheless an accurate barometer of the worth of the albums. It also makes for a better listen as a compilation, since the hit singles from these records are surrounded by non-LP cuts and soundtrack contributions like "This Is Not America" and "Absolute Beginners," a move that's not only helpful as a clearinghouse of relative oddities, but also helps make this Best of David Bowie 1980/1987 a truly representative collection of the best music of some patchy years, which is a more worthwhile endeavor than having this be truly representative of the decade as a whole. For some Bowie fans, this may be all they need from that decade (although they'd be well-advised not to ignore the truly masterful Scary Monsters, and use that as a supplement to this excellent disc). ~Stephen Thomas Erlewine
The Best Of 1980-1987