Iggy Pop / The Bowie Years 7CD box

In May, Universal Music will issue The Bowie Years, a seven CD Iggy Pop box set that presents Iggy’s 1977 collaborations with David Bowie – both in the studio and live on stage – including classic albums The Idiot and Lust For Life.

Both of those albums were co-written with David Bowie and David produced The Idiot and co-produced Lust For Life with Pop and Colin Thurston (as ‘Bewlay Bros.’). Interestingly, unlike all three of Bowie’s so-called ‘Berlin Trilogy’ albums Lust For Life was entirely recorded and mixed at Hansa Tonstudios and in that respect is the only true ‘Berlin’ album from the five records associated with this era.

Despite being full of fairly well known songs – ‘China Girl’, ‘Nightclubbing’, ‘Lust For Life’, ‘The Passenger’ etc. – the two studio albums delivered no hit singles anywhere, save for some success in The Netherlands with ‘Lust For Life’. That song wasn’t a single in the UK until 1996 (thanks to its inclusion in Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting), and ‘The Passenger’ was only a B-side (to ‘Success’) but like ‘Lust For Life’ was a hit decades later when used in an advert in Britain.

The Bowie Years includes both albums and a disc of previously unreleased alternate mixes, single edits and an interview with Iggy discussing the recording of The Idiot.

The Bowie Years box set contents. Click image to enlarge.

Alongside the studio output in this box is the live album TV Eye. Released in 1978, this features live performance from The Idiot tour which famously featured David Bowie as part of the touring band (on keyboards and backing vocals). This album was originally collated from from performances in Ohio, Illinois and Missouri.

However, The Bowie Years box set features three additional CDs of ‘Live in ’77’ performances. Released for the first time are Live at The Rainbow Theatre, London, Live at The Agora, Cleveland and Live at Mantra Studio, Chicago. These are from the same tour with Bowie in the band.

The box set features newly designed album artwork and comes with a 40-page book written by Michael Hann, with contributions from the musicians who played on the records and fans who talk about the influence the albums had on them.

As well as this box, The Idiot and Lust For Life will also be reissued as 2CD deluxe editions. The Idiot’s second disc is Live at the Rainbow Theatre, while Lust For Life comes with TV Eye. Therefore three discs are exclusive to the box set, the disc with alternate mixes, Live at The Agora, Cleveland and Live at Mantra Studio, Chicago.

The Bowie Years is £56 at the time of writing on Amazon in the UK. That’s a great price. If you have already pre-ordered this at £70 from the uDiscoverMusic store, please be aware that those sets are not signed by Iggy, but rather by poster artist Chris Hopewell. This wasn’t clear originally, which is why I’m mentioning it.

The Bowie Years box and the two deluxe editions will be released on 29 May 2020.

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Iggy Pop

The Bowie Years 7CD box set

Shop Price gbp Stock Amazon uk   62.69 Order Amazon de   50.66 Order Amazon usa   64.52 Order Amazon fr   65.03 Order Amazon it   64.99 Order Amazon es   65.03 Order Amazon ca   107.4 Order JPC de   77.99 Order FNAC fr   66.18 Pre-Order MusicVaultz ca   114.99 pre-order Rough Trade uk   64.99 pre-order Rough Trade usa   99.99 pre-order Townsend Music uk   65.00 pre-order

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The Idiot - 2CD deluxe

Shop Price gbp Stock Amazon uk   11.53 Order Amazon de   12.65 Order Amazon usa   14.03 Order Amazon fr   9.89 Order Amazon it   12.99 Order Amazon es   12.99 Order Amazon ca   19.74 Order Amazon jp   2269.00 Order JPC de   13.99 Order FNAC fr   15.00 Pre-Order

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Lust for Life - 2CD deluxe

Shop Price gbp Stock Amazon uk   20.15 Order Amazon de   24.06 Order Amazon usa   13.99 Order Amazon fr   21.39 Order Amazon it   26.29 Order Amazon es   24.65 Order Amazon ca   26.7 Order Amazon jp   2269.00 Order JPC de   21.99 Order

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