Fame And Fashion (David Bowie's All Time Greatest Hits)
	previously released material
	Released on April 1984
	UK CHART POSITION #40 . . . US CHART POSITION #147
	Find it at GEMM
AFK1-4919 cover

N ormally I’d label this as “superfluous product” and be on my merry tire-deflating way, but... damn, those digital remasters sound good. I know what you’re thinking: tire deflating? Or maybe you’re thinking: How good can a digital remaster from 1984 really be? The answer: Really good. To date, the best of bowies have been spotty (except for K-Tel’s The Best of Bowie, which was spot on), RCA taunting us with two poorly tailored changes. They get it right this time (fashionably late, you say?), with a dozen of Bowie’s best beloved gems. “Space Oddity,” “Starman,” all of it sparkles. The remasters are a revelation on the early cuts (it’s hard to believe some modern tampering didn’t take place on “Space Oddity”), less so on the later tracks but those albums were well engineered to begin with. I’d still recommend Rykodisc’s Changesbowie as the definitive sampler, but Fame And Fashion is no slouch. It doesn’t include the Let’s Dance experiment, limiting itself to the RCA catalog, but would you rather hear “D.J.” or “China Girl?” Exactly. Of minor interest, this was originally released on compact disc, which was still a novel format at the time; I’ve read that approximately 1,000 recordings existed on CD by the end of 1983. Like many (maybe all?) of the early CDs intended for US distribution, it was produced in Japan. Folks forget that CDs were once a strange and wonderful gift from the future, much as the music of Bowie has always been. Yeah, that came around rather nicely.

TRACK LISTING

1. SPACE ODDITY
2. CHANGES
3. STARMAN
4. 1984
5. YOUNG AMERICANS
6. FAME
7. GOLDEN YEARS
8. TVC 15
9. 'HEROES'
10. D.J.
11. FASHION
12. ASHES TO ASHES

CREDITS

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