As a music critic I’m contractually obliged to mention the following things about David Bowie: Major Tom-Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, Thin White Duke, Young American, Alien Godfather of New Romance, Drum & Bass, Goblin King, Brian Eno/Hansa Studios, a cocaine habit so bad it results in holes in the brain, groundbreaking stage shows, Iggy Pop, Androgyny, cut up lyrics and Spiders from Mars.
These words are part of every reviewer’s ‘Bowie tool kit’ and as such you must have heard it all before – you must have. Suffice to say that for over three decades he has cut a swathe through pop music creating some of the most glorious and influential sounds and visions in popular culture and The Platinum Collection is a 57 track encapsulation of this, with hit after hit (punctuated by a few surprises) and it falls upon your ‘umble servant to try and describe not only the music on offer here but to present it in the context of previous ‘best of’ collections, and to do all this without once describing our hero as ‘The Chameleon of Pop’.
The album consists of three CD’s, each one loosely representing an era. The first covers the seventies and Bowie’s first surge into the public consciousness: ‘Space Oddity’ his chart topping tale of an astronaut who decides not to return to earth; ‘Ziggy Stardust’, the basis for one of Glam Rock’s greatest concept albums; ‘Starman ‘with its clever appropriation of ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’; ‘Suffragette City’, a squealing, libidinous freak out and the darker, almost gothic ‘Man Who Sold the World’. This first section is guitar driven, blues inflected rock music with a dash of extraterrestrial attitude, and features some of Bowie’s most potent creations.
Disc Two is perhaps darker, taking us through Bowie’s years spent succumbing to, and overcoming, various addictions, and experiments with skewed soul and electronica in the company of such fellow travelers as Brian Eno and Robert Fripp. ‘Golden Years’; ‘Fame’; ‘Look Back in Anger’ and the anthemic ‘Heroes’ are just four examples of the tempestuous, searing beauty to be found here.
The third and final disc takes us through the eighties and New Romantic World Domination. The epic pop of ‘Let’s Dance’, ‘Blue Jean’ and ‘China Girl’ rub padded shoulders with spikier tracks such as ‘Ashes to Ashes’, ‘Scary Monsters’ and even a rousing rendition of Brecht’s ‘Alabama Song’.
Overall, this is a heady collection of songs and does throw up the occasional surprise such as the beautiful, almost Gregorian ‘Drowned Girl’ from the play Baal.
However, it should also be pointed out that ‘Best Of’ collections have appeared in the past, for example the changesbowie series; Sound and Vision (70 songs); The Best of David Bowie (59 songs) and Singles Collection (37 songs). These are all admirable records in their own right some of which contain more recent singles.
Missing from Platinum are any representations of work from Bowie’s last seven albums. We don’t get to hear the twisted disco of ‘Jump They Say’, the industrial pop of ‘The Heart’s Filthy Lesson’, nothing from the woefully underrated ‘Buddha of Suburbia’ soundtrack and no recent live tracks (for example Bowie’s velvet-soft drum’n’bass reworking of Laurie Anderson’s ‘O Superman’ is sublime.)
As such, Platinum may even be seen as a missed opportunity. And while we’re on the subject: Isn’t it time we took another look at Tin Machine? No wait, hear me out. This was a band that became a byword for Bowie’s hubris and mid life crisis, four suited gents playing heavy rock to almost universal displeasure. More people hate them than have heard them, and yet this outfit produced such gems as ‘I Can’t Read’ (a hypnotic slice of industrial-chant) and the louche ‘You Belong in Rock’n’Roll’. My advice, dear reader, is be bold: forget their suits, and rediscover the music.
All in all then, Platinum is a great album but one overshadowed at times by previous collections, something that might have been avoided had someone made the bold decision to reexamine and include some of the lost jewels of Bowie’s more recent projects.