Re: Floydy's All-Time Top 1000 Favourite Albums

No.49: “Live In Gdansk” by David Gilmour (2008)
Gilmour has released many videos of his own solo years. Pity there aren’t more from Pink Floyd – the 1970s are very poorly documented on film – and this 2CD/2DVD live concert package is the best IMO, even more so than the recent return to Pompeii outing from 2016.
It centres around his On An Island album which had just been released prior to this live set, but also features many of Pink Floyd’s classic songs. The DVD visual version is impeccable and the 25-minute tracks ‘Echoes’ originally from the Meddle album is worth the cost of it alone.
I had a field day picking these videos:

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Re: Floydy's All-Time Top 1000 Favourite Albums

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Documentary video edits:



Track Listing:


Personnel:
• David Gilmour – guitars, lead and backing vocals, console steel guitar, acoustic lap steel guitar, alto saxophone on "Red Sky at Night"
• Richard Wright – piano, Hammond organ, Farfisa organ, lead and backing vocals
• Jon Carin – keyboards, synthesiser, backing vocals, lap steel guitar, programming
• Guy Pratt – bass guitars, backing vocals, double bass, guitar on "Then I Close My Eyes", glass harmonica on "Shine On You Crazy Diamond"
• Phil Manzanera – guitars, backing vocals, glass harmonica on "Shine On You Crazy Diamond"
• Dick Parry – tenor and baritone saxophones, electronic organ, glass harmonica on "Shine On You Crazy Diamond"
• Steve DiStanislao – drums, percussion, backing vocals
• Zbigniew Preisner – conductor
• Leszek Możdżer – piano
• Polish Baltic Philharmonic orchestra – "Castellorizon", "On an Island", "The Blue", "Red Sky at Night", "This Heaven", "Then I Close My Eyes", "Smile", "Take a Breath", "A Pocketful of Stones", "Where We Start", "High Hopes*", "A Great Day for Freedom*" and "Comfortably Numb*" (Orchestrations by Zbigniew Preisner except "Comfortably Numb" by Michael Kamen.)
• Igor Sklyarov – glass harmonica on "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" (Venice performance only)

Re: Floydy's All-Time Top 1000 Favourite Albums

No.48: “★” (“Blackstar”) by David Bowie (2016)
I remember waking up around 1pm on 10th January 2016 to the news that David Bowie had died. I couldn’t believe it. He was one of my favourite singers of all-time and I cried my eyes out watching the tributes and I got to work on a huge series of self-compiled CDs and subsequently played his music and nothing else in my car for three months.
Bowie was an icon, a legend, the chameleon of rock music. Nobody else was even similar, he was unique and people have copied him but nobody has come close to his talent, his looks and his personality. Without going too much into a biography here, I should speak about the album in question noted at No.48 above.
Blackstar was released the previous Friday, that is just three days before Bowie died, which was obviously his wish. Nobody knew anything about it beforehand, like his previous album The Next Day which suddenly appeared in the shops without any warning except a strange video for a single.
We were given the title track’s 10-minute slow jazz epic on the news and the internet, along with the track ‘Lazarus’, which was harrowingly upsetting to watch as Bowie was shown laying on his ‘death bed’ ill with grief and pain covered in bandages and with patches over his eyes. The song was superb.
Seven other songs feature on the album, most of them in a similar rather sombre style with some incredibly beautiful music to accompany them all, also mostly in that same low-key mellow jazz style, which was a departure for Bowie. Only the wonderful final song ‘I Can’t Give Everything Away’ was more like the David Bowie of before which was quite possibly deliberately placed to highlight the singer’s oncoming passing.
Blackstar is a record which takes a few plays to get into but when it hits, it’s a tremendous album.

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Re: Floydy's All-Time Top 1000 Favourite Albums

Documentary: Tony Visconti on Blackstar, 40mins:


Full album (audio):


Track Listing:
1. "★"
2. "'Tis a Pity She Was a Whore"
3. "Lazarus"
4. "Sue (Or in a Season of Crime)"
5. "Girl Loves Me"
6. "Dollar Days"
7. "I Can't Give Everything Away"

Personnel:
• David Bowie – vocals, acoustic guitar, Fender guitar (track 3), string arrangement (track 1)
• Donny McCaslin – saxophone, flute, woodwind
• Jason Lindner – piano, Wurlitzer organ, keyboards
• Tim Lefebvre – bass
• Mark Guiliana – drums, percussion
• Ben Monder – guitar
• Tony Visconti – strings (track 1)
• James Murphy – percussion (tracks 4 and 5)
• Erin Tonkon – backing vocals (track 2)
Production:
David Bowie – production, mixing
Tony Visconti – production, mixing, engineering

Re: Floydy's All-Time Top 1000 Favourite Albums

Thank you, Floydy, for those amazing Bowie tracks - he was an incredible performer.

Re: Floydy's All-Time Top 1000 Favourite Albums

Rattus Norvegicus saves the day after that truly awful 'Journey' album.

Massive part of my teen record collection and still sounds truly awesome to date.....great memories.......

As for THAT Bowie album.......I'm still too distraught to listen to it in full!

Re: Floydy's All-Time Top 1000 Favourite Albums

Anytime Silver tabby. It's all part of the service!

Nowt wrong with Journey mate. Great band. But each to their own The Stranglers album is superb though I agree.

The Bowie album was already legendary the day it came out. A stunning piece of work and a marvellous epitaph to a great career.

Re: Floydy's All-Time Top 1000 Favourite Albums

Ploughing on with this thing I now wish I'd never even began as I owe it at least to the members who are enjoying this thread. My thoughts of contributing further to the forum after this are in place now.
But ho hum, we must continue. Here's another four classics...

No.47: “Raintown” by Deacon Blue (1987)
Raintown is one of those rare debut albums from a new band that comes along which is an undisputed masterpiece on first hearing. Full of singer-songwriter type tales of daily life in Glasgow and the characters that appear in it, this record details Rocky Ross’ otherwise unheard songsmith talents for the first time. It was preceded by the instant gem of a single that was ‘Dignity’, plus songs like ‘Chocolate Girl’ and ‘When Will You Make My Telephone Ring?’, Raintown is a wonderfully descriptive album which one never tires of hearing.

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