David Bowie - BBC Sessions, Volume 10: 50th Birthday Concert, Madison Square Garden, New York City, 1-9-1997

I'm going to tempt fate by posting another David Bowie BBC album. (Weirdly, as I write this, Volume 8 is banned here but not on YouTube, and Volume 9 is banned on YouTube but not here.) Again, get it while you can, because who knows if this post will last.

David Bowie turned 50 years old in January 1997, and he decided to celebrate it with a bang, via a concert at Madison Square Garden that was broadcast on the BBC. What makes this especially interesting are all the guest stars who dueted with Bowie, usually for more than one song: Frank Black of the Pixies, the Foo Fighters, Robert Smith of the Cure, Sonic Youth, Lou Reed, and Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins. 

I'm sure Bowie was especially excited to perform with Reed, since Bowie had been a big fan ever since the late 1960s, at a time when very few people had ever heard of Reed or his band the Velvet Underground, especially because Bowie was British and the Velvet Underground were even more obscure in Britain at the time. All the songs were originally done by Bowie, with the exception of three songs by Reed: "I'm Waiting for the Man," "Dirty Blvd.," and "White Light-White Heat." Bowie had performed "I'm Waiting for the Man" and "White Light-White Heat" pretty much since they were released. (For instance, it's known he performed "I'm Waiting for the Man" back in the summer of 1967!) However, this was the one and only time Bowie was involved with "Dirty Blvd." a more recent Reed song. The one Bowie original done with Reed, "Queen Bitch," comes from the "Hunky Dory" album in 1971. It is obviously an homage to Reed and the Velvet Underground, both musically and lyrically (and he mentioned the inspiration in the album's liner notes), so it's interesting to hear Reed help sing it.

The sound quality is excellent... now. Originally, all the lead vocals were surprisingly low in the mix. So I used the audio editing program UVR5 to remix every single song here. I think it sounds much better as a result.

This album is an hour and 58 minutes long.

01 Introduction [Instrumental] (David Bowie)
02 Little Wonder (David Bowie)
03 The Hearts Filthy Lesson (David Bowie)
04 Scary Monsters [And Super Creeps] (David Bowie & Frank Black)
05 Fashion (David Bowie & Frank Black)
06 Telling Lies (David Bowie)
07 Hallo Spaceboy (David Bowie & the Foo Fighters)
08 Seven Years in Tibet (David Bowie & the Foo Fighters)
09 The Man Who Sold the World (David Bowie)
10 The Last Thing You Should Do (David Bowie & Robert Smith)
11 Quicksand (David Bowie & Robert Smith)
12 Battle for Britain [The Letter] (David Bowie)
13 Voyeur of Utter Destruction [As Beauty] (David Bowie)
14 I'm Afraid of Americans (David Bowie & Sonic Youth)
15 Looking for Satellites (David Bowie)
16 Under Pressure (David Bowie)
17 'Heroes' (David Bowie)
18 Queen Bitch (David Bowie & Lou Reed)
19 I'm Waiting for the Man (David Bowie & Lou Reed)
20 Dirty Blvd. (David Bowie & Lou Reed)
21 White Light-White Heat (David Bowie & Lou Reed)
22 Moonage Daydream (David Bowie)
23 talk - Happy Birthday (David Bowie)
24 All the Young Dudes (David Bowie & Billy Corgan)
25 The Jean Genie (David Bowie & Billy Corgan)
26 Space Oddity (David Bowie)

https://www.imagenetz.de/dsJQ7

The cover photo comes from this exact concert.