David Bowie, who died earlier this year, was an extraordinary talent, and I really liked many of his songs.
Strangely, though, I think I have owned only two of his albums in my life — "Diamond Dogs," of which I wrote a couple of years ago, and "Changesonebowie," a compilation of Bowie's 11 best recordings from 1969 to 1976 that was released 40 years ago today.
In case you're wondering, there was a "Changestwobowie," which hit the music stores five years later, but I never owned a copy. There just weren't enough songs on it that interested me.
But I liked "Changesonebowie." As I have mentioned here before, I always did prefer Bowie's early stuff — and "Changesonebowie" was the first time that "John, I'm Only Dancing," which was released as a single four years earlier, appeared on an LP.
That alone made "Changesonebowie" worth having, as far as I was concerned.
Two of the songs on the album — "Ziggy Stardust" and "Suffragette City" — hadn't been released as singles when "Changesonebowie" hit the stores.
Both were on the 1972 album, "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars."
Ziggy Stardust was Bowie's alter ego, a rock star/extraterrestrial messenger. Rolling Stone ranked the song #282 on its list of the top 500 recordings of all time.
The two "Changes" LPs were eventually combined to form a CD that was released in 1990. It's been in my CD collection all these years.
It's the CD I listened to the day I learned of Bowie's death. It had all the Bowie songs I wanted to hear.
It still does.
