He would go on to Tin Machine, to Blackstar , to the final masterpiece. But in this window—1980 to 1987—Bowie was neither the freak nor the icon. He was a man in a very expensive suit, dancing on a minefield, and the 24/96 FLAC LP is the only format that lets you hear the click of the detonator.
When you rip that LP to 24/96 FLAC, you freeze a moment in time: the moment when David Bowie, aged 33 to 40, learned to stop worrying and love the chart. But he never loved it innocently. He colonized the mainstream to subvert it from within. This compilation is not the best of Bowie’s art . It is the best of Bowie’s survival . The man who wore the clown suit in “Ashes to Ashes” was mocking his own legacy. The man in the yellow suit on the Let’s Dance cover was selling you a product that contained its own poison. David Bowie The Best Of Bowie 1980 -24.96- FLAC LP
There is a specific lie we tell ourselves about David Bowie. It is that his creative peak was a tidy, analog thing: the coke-fueled paranoia of Station to Station , the experimental exile of the Berlin Triptych (Low, “Heroes,” Lodger), and the glittering death of Ziggy Stardust. We prefer Bowie as the alien. We are less comfortable with Bowie as the businessman . He would go on to Tin Machine, to