Sunday, December 23, 2007

Baal for Christmas


For Christmas and the last days of 2007 we serve you...Baal, one of David Bowie's more odd recordings.
Baal is a musical play by Bertolt Brecht. It is a rather dark story about the life of the amoral poet singer Baal.
In 1982 BBC wanted to record it as a TV play and Bowie was offered the role as Baal.
He found it appealing since he thought it was the saga of the original super punk.
The record company RCA wanted to release the five song soundtrack as a part of a new Bowie album. However RCA thought that Bowie did not come up with any new songs that would fit the Baal music so they cut down their ambitions to an EP including nothing but the five Baal songs.
Many fans probably found the recording more true to Brecht than anyone would have guessed, and the Baal record was probably nothing to recommend for the new fans who embraced his Let's Dance album just one year later.
The Baal record was released both as 12" and 7" records. It has never been rereleased in its entirety on CD, but was made available as a download just some year ago.
The Baal songs played on Radio Dupree have been transferred from a 12" disc.
The Baal TV play can be found on
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnyXoFlyB1Q
if you want to check that one out.
Merry Christmas!

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