TRAILER: David Bowie Is

Via the Village Voice:

It’s the kind of forward-thinking experience David Bowie himself might have predicted. Just for one day, on silver screens across the country, a movie about a museum exhibition — featuring the rocker’s groundbreaking albums, outlandish costumes, and clips from his artistic videos — will briefly tantalize the world — and be gone. All in the form of the documentary David Bowie Is, directed by Hamish Hamilton. And the film is, above all, a reminder of Bowie’s artistry, his creativity, his fearlessness. If you’ve forgotten why you loved Ziggy or that eerie experimenter bunking in Berlin, this thrilling bit of cinema will surely lure you back. “I wasn’t the biggest Bowie fan in the world,” says Hamilton, a refreshingly straightforward director best known for TV work like The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. “I was drawn to the project because of the music. And the strangeness of the request. Since the filming was of a live event” — last summer’s exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London — “they were looking for somebody who could do live. That’s me. I was sort of a conduit between David’s creativity and the genuine passion, knowledge, and care of the curators.

JMG Top Ten Tracks For 2013

Culled from my Spotify favorites playlist, here's my annual roundup of the tracks that got the most play this year at Casa JMG. Some of them appeared here during the year, some did not.

1. John Grant - Pale Green Ghosts
(Openly gay, openly HIV+, very Dead Can Dance.)
2. Boy George - King Of Everything
(One of his loveliest ballads ever.)
3. The Knife - Full Of Fire
("Liberals giving me the nerve itch.")
4. David Bowie - Love Is Lost
(Hello Steve Riech Mix by James Murphy.)
5.  Nine Inch Nails - Copy Of A
(And the title track from Came Back Haunted.)
6. Brandon Maclean - Stupid
(Plus the Stereogamous remix on Spotify!)
7. Holy Ghost! - Dumb Disco Ideas
(Delicious nu-disco out of Brooklyn.)
8. Young Galaxy - Pretty Boy
(The Peaking Lights remix is very New Order-y.)
9. BT - Skylarking
(Glorious trance that evokes the mid-90s.)
10.  Lindstrøm - Lanzarote
(Instrumental retro Italo featuring Todd Terje.)

MORE FAVORITES:
FKA Twigs - Water Me
Bright Light Bright Light - In Your Care 
Purple Crush - Thirsty
Chicane - One Thousand Suns

David Bowie - Love Is Lost

This has been my most-played track on Spotify for at least a month and finally there's a video. The remix is by James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem. Dig the hat tip to Ashes To Ashes. And definitely check out the full ten-minute version.

David Bowie - Valentine's Day

Chris Hadfield - Space Oddity

In what may be the coolest clip I've ever seen, Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield bid farewell to his time on the International Space Station with the below version of David Bowie's classic, Space Oddity.  Best comment on YouTube: "Most expensive music video ever."  CNET has more:

Mixed with the help of staff at the Canadian Space Agency, musician Emm Gryner, and others, the cover features a somber piano intro and modified lyrics that reference the Soyuz capsule that will return Hadfield to Kazakhstan. When the mustachioed commander sings "I'm floating in a most peculiar way" while actually floating up in space, Hadfield wins the Internet, as one commenter suggests.

From David Bowie's Facebook page: "It’s possibly the most poignant version of the song ever created."  Incidentally, Hallo Spaceboy was Bowie's 1996 single, the hit remix of which featured the Pet Shop Boys.

David Bowie - The Next Day

Bill Donohue is outraged, you guys.

David Bowie is back, but hopefully not for long. The switch-hitting, bisexual, senior citizen from London has resurfaced, this time playing a Jesus-like character who hangs out in a nightclub dump frequented by priests, cardinals and half-naked women. Bowie is nothing if not confused about religion. He once made a public confession: “I was young, fancy free, and Tibetan Buddhism appealed to me at that time. I thought, ‘There’s salvation.’ It didn’t really work. Then I went through Nietzsche, Satanism, Christianity…pottery, and ended up singing. It’s been a long road.”

Too bad the pottery didn’t work. But Bowie didn’t give up trying to figure out who he is. “I’m not quite an atheist and it worries me. There’s a little bit that holds on. Well, I’m almost an atheist. Give me a couple of months.” Well, Bowie has had more than a couple of months—it’s been ten years since he spoke those words. Not sure what he believes in today (anyone who is “not quite an atheist” is not an atheist), but it’s a sure bet he can’t stop thinking about the Cadillac of all religions, namely Roman Catholicism. There is hope for him yet.

The "Cadillac of all religions"?

David Bowie - The Stars (Are Out Tonight)

Whoa. Trippy. Starring Tilda Swinton.

David Bowie - Where Are We Now?

His first new single in ten years.