David Bowie - Zion - Non-Album Tracks (1973-1974)

I must admit, this album of David Bowie stray tracks is a little thin compared to some previous ones I've posted here. In 1971 and 1972, Bowie had more good songs than he knew what to do with. But by 1973, he seems to have had trouble coming up with enough songs for his "Aladdin Sane" album. He had to use a couple of songs that predated his last two albums.

That said, this is still quality stuff, it's just on the short side, plus there's some repetition. The first two songs are a case in point of the repetition. On July 3, 1973, Bowie played a concert that was filmed and released as the movie "Ziggy Stardust: the Motion Picture." It was his last concert playing with his band the Spiders from Mars. However, the two encores with guitarist Jeff Beck weren't shown in the movie or released on the accompanying album, apparently because Beck was unhappy with his playing or his "uncool" appearance. This album starts out with these two encore songs, even though Bowie has done "The Jean Genie" and "Around and Around" a lot elsewhere, because I think the Beck guitar make them different. Plus, there's a version of "Love Me Do" included as part of a medley.

The rest of the songs here are more typical studio outtakes, some of them still unreleased. I included a version of "All the Young Dudes" on the last Bowie stray tracks album I put together, but I'm including it here again because that version was Bowie in 1972 singing guide vocals over what became the hit Mott the Hoople version. This is Bowie in 1973 doing an entirely different version that is arguably better.

Also note that there's a song on Bowie's 1974 "Diamond Dogs" album called "Candidate," and there's a song here called "Alternative Candidate." In fact, they are two totally different songs (and "Alternative Candidate" is the official name of this one). It's just that they were both dealing with the same candidate concept as part of Bowie's 1984-themed concept album.

I've added a couple of bonus tracks at the end. One is a medley of "Dodo" and "1984." The other is the US single version of the hit song "Rebel, Rebel." It has some pretty significant differences from the version that has become the commonly played one.

01 The Jean Genie - Love Me Do [Live] (David Bowie with Jeff Beck)
02 Around and Around [Live] (David Bowie with Jeff Beck)
03 Dodo (David Bowie with Lulu)
04 All the Young Dudes (David Bowie)
05 Zion [Tragic Moments] (David Bowie)
06 Amsterdam (David Bowie)
07 Growin' Up (David Bowie)
08 Alternative Candidate [Demo] (David Bowie)

1984 - Dodo (David Bowie)
Rebel Rebel [US Single Version] (David Bowie)

https://www.imagenetz.de/bBAxB

I stumbled across a watercolor painting by Lora Feldman of Bowie in his Ziggy Stardust phase, and I thought it would make a cool cover. So here it is, with some text added.