In celebration of what would have been David Bowie's 73rd birthday, today Parlophone announced the release of a new streaming Bowie EP. David Bowie Is It Any Wonder? is a six track EP collecting unreleased and rare tracks. The EP will be released over a period of six weeks -- the first track is streaming now in honor of Bowie's birthday and the remaining five songs will be issued one-by-one on a weekly basis beginning January 17th.
Today's celebratory birthday track is a previously unreleased version of "The Man Who Sold The World" taken from a nine-song session titled ChangesNowBowie. The mostly acoustic session was recorded in November of 1996 and was broadcast by the BBC on Bowie's 50th birthday in 1997. The radio broadcast also included commentary and birthday messages from Robert Smith, Bono, Damon Albarn, and more; the session was produced by Bowie, Reeves Gabrels (who is featured on guitar), and Mark Plati (featured on keyboards).
Though ChangesNowBowie aired on the BBC, the session was never released, however today Parlophone also announced that a limited edition version of ChangesNowBowie will be issued on vinyl and CD on April 18th for Record Store Day. The tracklisting and more info on ChangesNowBowie will be revealed in the weeks to come.
In summary (since it may be confusing): David Bowie Is It Any Wonder? is a streaming-only six track EP featuring previously unreleased versions of Bowie material. ChangesNowBowie was a radio/session broadcast that WILL be released physically for Record Store Day. The ChangesNowBowie version of "The Man Who Sold The World" was issued as a streaming-only track today and serves as the first song from David Bowie Is It Any Wonder, BUT it will also be released physically on the ChangesNowBowie LP/CD on Record Store Day. A betting person would assume the rest of the streaming-only EP will feature other tracks from ChangesNowBowie, but they haven't said as much at this point.
Stream "The Man Who Sold The World" below:
