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David Bowie / I Can’t Give Everything Away 2002-2016 box set, reviewed

By David Quantick

By david quantick

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David Bowie / I Can't Give Everything Away 2002-2016

“Welcome to David Bowie’s Mortality Quartet”

Here it is, the final box set – 18 LPs or 13 CDs – in the David Bowie ‘Era’ series: Bowie’s last four studio albums – Heathen, Reality, The Next Day and his final recording, Blackstar – with two live albums (A Reality Tour and a set recorded at the 2002 Montreux Jazz Festival) and Re:Call 6, which gathers up various covers, collaborations, odds and ends. Some people may quibble about missing mixes or unreleased material, but this is an extremely complete collection: and besides, there’s something ironic about demanding completion from a set named after a song called ‘I Can’t Give Everything Away’. Not for Bowie (not here anyway) the early demos or unfinished versions: this collection does what it intends to do – showcases the brilliance, and otherwise, of David Bowie’s final years as the artist intended them to be shown.

Previous ‘Era’ sets have highlighted Bowie’s frequent changes of style and direction: but this one shows a remarkable consistency of tone. There are songs on Heathen which would fit well on The Next Day, and there are moments on Reality which wouldn’t be out of place on Blackstar: the four albums are all different in their own way, but they’re also, if you like, planets which orbit the same sun. Each of them, in their different ways, is about the passage of time, the encroachment of death, and the urge to reflection on the self: none of which is exactly new territory for David Bowie  – as far back as Aladdin Sane’s ‘Time’, Young Americans’ ‘Who Can I Be Now?’, and Scary Monsters’ ‘Ashes To Ashes’, those themes have been part of Bowie’s identity and music, but his 21st century output is almost all about that: understandably, given his age and, later, health, mortality was increasingly on Bowie’s mind.

The four albums are like planets which orbit the same sun.

David Quantick

Welcome then to David Bowie’s Mortality Quartet: four albums produced by his former ally Tony Visconti, Bowie’s old friend and best producer. The two men hadn’t worked together since 1980’s Scary Monsters but Visconti would work on all of Bowie’s remaining studio records.

 And all four of these albums are serious music, but not always depressing music. Heathen, the first of the foursome, often sounds like a man contemplating his future – and in contemplative, dark-hued songs like ‘Sunday’, ‘Slip Away’ and the fantastic ‘Slow Burn’, Bowie isn’t giving the listener much to laugh about – but there are, as is often the case with Bowie, some interesting covers: nobody but David Bowie could cover both 1990s pop-grunge heroes The Pixies (‘Cactus’), 1970s rock icon Neil Young (‘I’ve Been Waiting For You’) and 1960s eccentric Legendary Stardust Cowboy (‘I Took A Trip On A Gemini Spaceship’) on the same album.

Inevitably, Heathen’s successor, 2003’s Reality, was a little bit lighter than its predecessor, and its cover choices – Jonathan Richman’s ‘Pablo Picasso’ and George Harrison’s ‘Try Some Buy Some’ – a bit poppier, and the production brighter to match, but songs like the title track and the excellent ‘The Loneliest Guy’ suggested an older and more melancholy Bowie (although a cover of Sigue Sigue Sputnik’s ‘Love Missile F1-11’ – originally on the ‘New Killer Star’ single and here on Re:Call 6 – indicates that fun was still to be had in Bowieworld). Reality’s thinner sound has not helped it age well, but it’s still a good album, and its songs sounded better (and louder) on the epic live collection A Reality Tour, which is included here in a slightly re-ordered version.

The Reality Tour was Bowie’s last tour, curtailed for health reasons, and the subsequent album/DVD is one of the best documents of Bowie’s career available. Where previous live recordings had suffered from either bad sound (the strife-riddled David Live) or lack of atmosphere (the sterile Stage), A Reality Tour is confident, coherent, emotional – Bowie is having a great time – and covers decades. We get ‘The Man Who Sold The World’ and ‘All The Young Dudes’, ‘Be My Wife’ and ‘Five Years’, ‘Hang On To Yourself’ and ‘The Motel’, as well as songs from Heathen and Reality. Like all great live albums, it’s also a fantastic compilation album (the box set also includes a show from the Montreux Jazz Festival, which is arguably worth the price of the whole set, featuring as it does Bowie and band on top form, performing most of Heathen and all of Low – a set Bowie performed brilliantly at London’s Meltdown Festival) – and even throwing in a jaw-dropping ‘Ziggy Stardust’ for good measure.

After the tour, Bowie took a break so long it was assumed he had retired but then, with a sleight of hand all the more extraordinary because it took place in an era of leaks and unwanted transparency, a single appeared from nowhere: the brilliant, yearning, nostalgic ‘Where Are We Now?’, a song sung in the same weary tones Bowie used in his portrayal of Nikola Tesla in Christopher Nolan’s 2006 film The Prestige and filled with references to his Berlin stay in the late 1970s. It was a worldwide hit, and was immediately followed by The Next Day with its defaced “Heroes” cover and a slew of jagged, insistent songs like the chanted title track, the riffy ‘(You Will) Set The World On Fire’, the discordant disco of ‘Dancing Out In Space’. The lyrics may often be contemplative, but the songs themselves are chunky and exuberant (one exception being ‘Heat’, the last track on the album which, as last tracks on albums often do, points the way to the sound of the next album). And there’s a nice nod to Bowie’s past (a different bit of his past) when ‘You Feel So Lonely You Could Die’ ends with the drum intro to ‘Five Years’.

Finally, there’s Blackstar. If ‘Where Are We Now?’ was an event, then the appearance of the video for ‘Blackstar’, the song, was a milestone. A ten minute video, featuring a dead astronaut (the last appearance of Major Tom, perhaps) and Bowie, bandaged and button-eyed, accompanied the song’s release: the response to Bowie’s second resurrection was overwhelming – as was the resulting wave of sadness after Bowie’s subsequent death. The album itself was full of references to death and endings: Blackstar’s “something happened on the day he died”, Dollar Days’ “I’ll never see the English evergreens I’m running to”, and of course I Can’t Give Everything Away’s entire lyric, from “I know something’s very wrong” to “the skull designs on my shoes.”

Musically it covers a few new bases –  recorded with a different set of musicians schooled in improvisation, Blackstar features incursions into jazz (‘Tis A Pity She Was A Whore, ‘Sue (Or In A Season Of Crime’) and Gothic rock (‘Lazarus’ owes a large debt to The Cure) as well as a more classical Bowie sound on ‘Dollar Days’ and ‘I Can’t Give Everything Away’. It’s still at times a hard listen, the sound of a man who knows he’s dying and is determined to make one final, brilliant statement: but it is a superb album and a beautifully-engineered finale to, honestly, rock music’s most extraordinary career.

Review by David Quantick. I Can’t Give Everything Away 2002-2016 is out now.

Tracklisting

David Bowie / I Can't Give Everything Away 2002-2016

Era Box 6 David Bowie / 13CD box set

    • CD 1: Heathen
      1. Sunday
      2. Cactus
      3. Slip Away
      4. Slow Burn
      5. Afraid
      6. Iʼve Been Waiting For You
      7. I Would Be Your Slave
      8. I Took A Trip On A Gemini Spaceship
      9. 5:15 The Angels Have Gone
      10. Everyone Says ʻHiʼ
      11. A Better Future
      12. Heathen (The Rays)
    • CD 2: Montreux Jazz Festival
      1. Sunday
      2. Life On Mars?
      3. Ashes To Ashes
      4. Cactus
      5. Slip Away
      6. China Girl
      7. Starman
      8. I Would Be Your Slave
      9. I’ve Been Waiting For You
      10. Stay
      11. Changes
      12. Fashion
      13. Fame
      14. I’m Afraid Of Americans
      15. 5:15 The Angels Have Gone
    • CD 3: Montreux Jazz Festival
      1. ‟Heroes”
      2. Heathen (The Rays)
      3. Everyone Says ‟Hi”
      4. Hallo Spaceboy
      5. Let’s Dance
      6. Ziggy Stardust
      7. Warszawa
      8. Speed Of Life
      9. Breaking Glass
      10. What In The World
      11. Sound And Vision
      12. Art Decade
      13. Always Crashing In The Same Car
      14. Be My Wife
      15. A New Career In A New Town
      16. Subterraneans
    • CD 4: Reality
      1. New Killer Star
      2. Pablo Picasso
      3. Never Get Old
      4. The Loneliest Guy
      5. Looking For Water
      6. She’ll Drive The Big Car
      7. Days
      8. Fall Dog Bombs The Moon
      9. Try Some, Buy Some
      10. Reality
      11. Bring Me The Disco King
    • CD 5: A Reality Tour
      1. Rebel Rebel
      2. New Killer Star
      3. Reality
      4. Fame
      5. Cactus
      6. Sister Midnight
      7. Afraid
      8. All The Young Dudes
      9. Be My Wife
      10. China Girl
      11. The Loneliest Guy
      12. The Man Who Sold The World
      13. Fantastic Voyage
      14. Hallo Spaceboy
      15. Sunday
      16. Under Pressure
      17. Life On Mars?
      18. Battle For Britain (The Letter)
    • CD 6: A Reality Tour
      1. Fall Dog Bombs The Moon
      2. Ashes To Ashes
      3. The Motel
      4. Loving The Alien
      5. Breaking Glass
      6. Never Get Old
      7. Changes
      8. I’m Afraid Of Americans
      9. ‟Heroes”
      10. Bring Me The Disco King
      11. Slip Away
      12. Heathen (The Rays)
      13. Five Years
      14. Hang On To Yourself
      15. Ziggy Stardust
    • CD 7: The Next Day
      1. The Next Day
      2. Dirty Boys
      3. The Stars (Are Out Tonight)
      4. Love Is Lost
      5. Where Are We Now?
      6. Valentine’s Day
      7. If You Can See Me
      8. I’d Rather Be High
      9. Boss Of Me
      10. Dancing Out In Space
      11. How Does The Grass Grow?
      12. (You Will) Set The World On Fire
      13. You Feel So Lonely You Could Die
      14. Heat
    • CD 8: The Next Day Extra E.P.
      1. Atomica
      2. Love Is Lost (Hello Steve Reich Mix By James Murphy For The DFA)
      3. Plan
      4. The Informer
      5. I’d Rather Be High (Venetian Mix)
      6. Like A Rocket Man
      7. Born In A UFO
      8. I’ll Take You There
      9. God Bless The Girl
      10. So She
    • CD 9: ★ (Blackstar)
      1. ★(Blackstar)
      2. ’Tis A Pity She Was A Whore
      3. Lazarus
      4. Sue (Or In A Season Of Crime)
      5. Girl Loves Me
      6. Dollar Days
      7. I Can’t Give Everything Away
    • CD 10: No Plan E.P.
      1. Lazarus
      2. No Plan
      3. Killing A Little Time
      4. When I Met You
    • CD 11: Re:Call 6
      1. Slow Burn (Single Edit)
      2. Wood Jackson
      3. When The Boys Come Marching Home
      4. Safe
      5. Sunday (Moby Remix)
      6. A Better Future (Remix By Air)
      7. Slip Away (SACD Mix)
      8. Slow Burn (SACD Mix)
      9. I’ve Been Waiting For You (SACD Mix)
      10. 5:15 The Angels Have Gone (SACD Mix)
      11. A Better Future (SACD Mix)
      12. Safe (SACD Mix)
      13. Everyone Says ‘Hi’ (Radio Edit)
    • CD 12: Re:Call 6
      1. Sunday (Tony Visconti Mix)
      2. Everyone Says ‘Hi’ (Metro Remix Radio Edit)
      3. Heathen (The Rays) (Live In Berlin, 22/09/02)
      4. Hop Frog — Lou Reed Featuring David Bowie
      5. Saviour — Kristeen Young Featuring David Bowie
      6. Isn’t It Evening (The Revolutionary) — Earl Slick Featuring David Bowie
      7. Bring Me The Disco King (Loner Mix) — David Bowie Featuring Maynard James Keenan And John Frusciante (Taken From The Underworld Motion Picture Soundtrack)
      8. New Killer Star (Radio Edit)
      9. Love Missile F1-11
      10. Fly
      11. Queen Of All The Tarts (Overture)
      12. Never Get Old (Single Edit)
      13. Waterloo Sunset
      14. Rebel Rebel (2003 Re-Record) (Taken From The Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle Motion Picture Soundtrack)
      15. New Killer Star (Sessions @ AOL Live Version, 23/09/03)
    • CD 13: Re:Call 6
      1. Days (Live)
      2. 5:15 The Angels Have Gone (Live)
      3. Rebel Never Gets Old (Radio Mix)
      4. (She Can) Do That — David Bowie With BT (Taken From The Stealth Motion Picture Soundtrack)
      5. Life On Mars? (Live At Fashion Rocks, 08/09/05)
      6. Wake Up (Live At Fashion Rocks, 08/09/05) — David Bowie With Arcade Fire
      7. Five Years (Live At Fashion Rocks, 08/09/05) — David Bowie With Arcade Fire
      8. Arnold Layne (Live At The Royal Albert Hall, 29/05/06) — David Gilmour Featuring David Bowie
      9. Love Is Lost (Hello Steve Reich Mix By James Murphy For The DFA Edit)
      10. Sue (Or In A Season Of Crime) (2014 Version)
      11. ’Tis A Pity She Was A Whore (2014 Version)
      12. Lazarus (Radio Edit)
      13. I Can’t Give Everything Away (Radio Edit)

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