Nite Songs

  "God I miss David Bowie/He was my paperweight/And when he went back to Mars, man/I swear the stars looked very different that day" Thus sang Chris Catalyst on You Die At The End , one of the standout tracks from his debut solo album Life Is Often Brilliant a few years ago. So the arrival of a covers album of tracks from the Thin White Duke probably shouldn't come as a surprise from the Eureka Machines frontman and recently unmasked Ghost guitarist. Now, let's be honest, attempting a whole set of songs by an artist as seminal as Bowie is fraught with danger - most of us know these songs inside out and the question is, where can you take them that they haven't necessarily been taken to before? So Chris really deserves a lot of credit for pulling off something special here - while these songs are most definitely identifiable as their original versions, he's added just enough of his own stamp on them to ensure that it doesn't descend into slavish fanboy cop...

  75 years ago today, one of the great musical geniuses of our age was born. Six years ago on Monday, he left us. So it seemed only right that we should celebrate the anniversary of Bowie's birth and death by doing an album by album guide to his decidedly vast body of work. The main thing to bear in mind when looking back through David Bowie's back catalogue is that he was pretty much a musical chameleon without compare and would rarely stick with the same style of music for more than a couple of albums. Although this did lead to him making the odd creative mis-step down the years it also means that listening to his stuff is never dull and often fascinating as you chart his evolution. Here you go then, from the diamonds to the odd dog, a look back at all 26 Bowie albums. Happy 75th Ziggy, we miss ya. 26. Never Let Me Down (1987) Unfortunately logic dictates that when you have a career the length and musical breadth of Bowie’s that you will make the occasional mis-step and Nev...

PREVIOUSLY IN THIS COLUMN:   Intro  •  Part 1 (50-41) Yup, it's that time again. Grit your teeth and strap yourself in as we wander further into the depths of Nite Songs' Worst Albums Ever. You have been warned... 40. WENDY JAMES - "Now Ain't The Time For Your Tears" (1993) I did warn you in the intro to this thing yesterday that although Transvision Vamp's critically derided but not actually that bad  Little Magnets vs The Bubble of Babble  album had missed out on this that Wendy James might not be so lucky. In the wake of TV's breakup following the  Little Magnets  album, Wendy announced that she would be collaborating with one of her heroes Elvis Costello on a new project which turned out to be the  Now Ain't The Time For Your Tears  album. According to the rumours, Costello basically whacked all ten of the songs on this album out in the space of a weekend and oh boy, it shows. The likes of lead-off single  London's Brilliant  an...

One of the best things about running your own music webzine is when you get positive feedback. It's always nice when bands get in touch to say "hey, thanks for covering our music on your blog" or readers feel moved enough to write in and say they enjoy my deranged scribblings. It genuinely makes you feel that you're doing something worthwhile and feel just that little bit better about life. I mainly say this because I know that this one-off feature we're running on Nite Songs  for the next week is probably going to upset some people. Doing a Worst Albums Ever article is always a risky business because, in the words of a musician friend of mine from back in the days when I used to write for Leeds Music Scene, "Opinions are like arseholes. Everybody's got one. And most people's are full of shit." If anything here over the next week offends you, please bear in mind that this is just my take on things - I'm fully aware that there may be some peop...