David Bowie / “The Next Day”: 2CD+DVD collector’s edition

I was a bit dismayed to see amazon charging £9.49 for the 7 MP3s even though they’re 99p each – with the exception of the Dfa remix which is album only.

Bowie has over the years promised or if you like “threatened” a Tin Machine retrospective. I think he was genuinely sad that Hunt & Tony made it clear they quit for good as they didn’t like the softer sound directon of the ace second album.

if you click on my name you will be whisked off to my (poor) blog, if you are of a mind to do so search the blog post called the “Tin Machine myth”, written before the triumphant Next Day return, which puts complaints and praise for the band into some sort of perspective. whether you like the music or not.

I think they dont like the Tin Machine albums because they’re poor albums…

Why is everybody always bashing Tin Machine?
The first record is amazing (The first 6 songs belongs to his best from the 80’s)
Tin Machine II is indeed much lesser

I thought that Outside was a good album…not great, but good because he pushed the envelope. It wasnt particularly commercial but better for it. Bowie lows?…Tin machine…need I say more?! I agree that the hiatus that has led to this album (which is very good) has probably led to it’s overwhelming and universal acclaim. I bought the Deluxe Edition of The Next Day KNOWING they’d pull this marketing ploy…and I’m blinkin glad they have…something which gives us more Bowie can’t be bad…as long as it’s not Tin machine! Not sure Mr B will be in a hurry to release Deluxe editions of those two career lows!

Good price!

Only £13.99 on sainsburys.

if it helps, on the Reality front, i have the standard version of the CD (cover background / spine white) and the “tour edition” 2 disc set (cover background / spine silver)

on the CD there is one extra track, a decent enough cover of Waterloo Sunset. the DVD is an in order performance of the entire (standard edition) album, performed to a presumably select, invited audience at the Hammersmith Riverside Studios, September 2003. i.e. this is not the “A Reality Tour” DVD.

considering the amount of acts out there who now do gigs specifically to play an album through in this way, a sign of Bowie being ahead of the game once again?

i am convinced i have a 3rd copy of the album somewhere too, with just remixes or something tagged on the end.

I have “The Next Day” in 7 versions, if i’m not misstaken… The 2 EU and the 2 Japenese versions, the vinyl (EU) and the Paul Smith vinyl and also The iTunes version and i’m delighted with the new Collector’s Edition… In total 8 bonus tracks (comparing with the original version, not counting the remixes)… David was never that generous since the Ryko releases (1990).

And indeed, the so overlooked “1. Outside” (1995) is his masterpiece from the last 30 years…

Yes, I have the 2 cd version of Reality and Heathen.
It is annoying for fans when months after the release of a CD the record company decides to release another version with more tracks, better packaging, better price etc
I am sure they could find a way around this. For eg selling a new package like Bowie’s with the original CD included. They could then sell 2 versions of the new package at different prices, one with the original CD and everything else, the other minus the original CD but including the new stuff so that we could just slot the CD we have into the new package.
I am sure someone did this a few years ago, was it Coldplay?
Of course the record companies know full well that fans will just buy the new package anyway, so they are really buying the album twice

If I remember correctly, Reality’s ”deluxe” edition (the one with the studio album + live reality DVD”) was released about one month after the release of the album.
World record here?

Let me add another vote to the “Outside is actually good” campaign. Trim out the spoken bits and you’d have one of his strongest latter-day albums

I agree with Paul that the wait led to The Next Day being rated higher than it otherwise might have been, but still think it’s leagues ahead of Heathen – which, heretically, I found rather dull

As for the cynicism of the reissue, as long as the extra tracks are available separately as downloads – as the report suggests – there’s not a problem… (Admittedly I buy virtually no physical releases these days, which I guess puts me in a minority Superdeluxeeedition-wise.)

a handful of thoughts:

1- for the record, i think “outside” was, is, and remains better than his next-best and previous work “scary monsters.” (sorry for the grammar gymnastics with that last sentence.)

2- vis-a-vis releasing a bonus-track extravaganza months after the original multi-optioned release: once again, the music-powers-that-be (be it the Thin White Duke, his publicist, Columbia Records, etc.) rear their douche-like head! (and i’m a nurse, so when i say “rear” and/or “douche,” i refer to them only in the most medical of terms.)

and 3- yes, i’ll be re-purchasing this for the additionals. i am so pathetic!

Bowie fan here – and of course this is a bit cynical. It’s the fact that it’s coming out so soon after the original release, and that Euro buyers are being attracted by bonus tracks from the Japanese release – clearly these songs were available when we got the original release, so it’s pure manipulation. This should have been available at the time of release. I’d rather have paid £20 for this, than what I paid for the first one, and then this one. Although these salkes will no doubt bump up the total sales figures…….

As to the quality – this is a fantastic album. It’s far better than Reality, imo. Heathen is brilliant, and this is on a par with that, of not even better.

I think the MUSIC on Outside is okay – but the storyline, and especially the silly voices, and just embarrassing. Outside could have been a coherent rock album, instead it’s a minor failed experiment. Since they apparently recorded 20+ hours of music during those sessions, a special edition might repair things a bit.

It would be nice if they could have just had a coherent sales plan right from the start releasing everything together and saying, ‘look here is the new album and you can buy the vinyl, or the standard CD, or the deluxe CD or this CD/DVD combo.’

Most who go for this set will no doubt have already bought the previous deluxe CD thinking that’s it for this album. You just know they said, ‘let’s stick those extra bits on here and we can re-sell those people the same album they bought a few months ago.’

for those of us who bought the “SE” at the start of the year, this amounts to £16.99 for the DVD (4 videos), 5 new tracks & 2 remixes and what looks like a booklet with stills from the videos.

it would have been a nice “thanks fans” if this was closer to £12 – £15, but yeah, go on then, i will buy it.

“It just goes to show what a 10-year absence can achieve, since the album is really no better or worse than Reality or Heathen, the two (excellent) records that preceded it.”

Funnily, I thought the same when I first listend to “The Next Day” when it came out. But it surely is more coherent and consistent than “Reality” and it definitely is not as moderate and adultly as “Heathen”. And the promo videos are far better than anything Bowie has done since 1999’s “Thursday’s Child”.

The last Bowie album I really loved is “1. Outside” from 1995, somehow this NIN/Eno/Gabrel influences hit a button with me. “Earthling”, which followed was too hip with its drum ‘n bass elements and from then on, the wisdom/boredom of the old age set in… I would love to see a Bowie album released which is less classical and more experimental Bowie.

Any idea on the format of the seven track digital download – will they offer in a lossless format as well as the standard MP3 ?

Torn whether to buy this as I sprang for the Japanese deluxe edition – I probably should have seen this coming. But knowing me, I’ll probably buy it in the end.