Customer Reviews

The Complete David Bowie

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

It's hard to dispute this book's billing as "The Most Comprehensive Bowie Book Ever Published"! Although the author drew from existing sources without conducting any original research, his encyclopedic knowledge of the subject more than makes up for it. David's music is analyzed from two perspectives: song by song (from A to Z) and album by album (in chronological order). And the entries are far from superficial: they scrutinize each topic exhaustively. Bowie's other works (movies, videos, etc.) are also covered. With 445 pages full of text in small print (no pictures), "The Complete David Bowie" puts all other "Bowie guides" to shame. That, of course, does not include biographies. But you can forget books like "We Can Be Heroes - The Story Behind Every Bowie Song" (Chris Welch), "The Complete Guide to The Music of David Bowie" (David Buckley - but his Bowie biography "Strange Fascination", on the other hand, is a must), "David Bowie, Theatre of Music" (Robert Matthew-Walker) and others in a similar vein.

The best book about David Bowie, in a non-bio way.
The meat of the book are its song by song chapter, and album by album chapter.
The song by song covers every Bowie song, taking about its form and whats its about.
The album by album chapter covers each album in great detail.
The book also has chapters about Bowie's art, acting, videos, ect. In all it has nearly everything you'll need to know about David Bowie's career.

As a collector of Bowie's music, I found this book invaluable. It filled in some gaps in my understanding of the great ones music and cleverly clarifies the evolution process from one Bowie phase to the next.
The book makes reference to many rare and unreleased songs which is vital to a serious collector.
It is written plainly and factually with no hint of worship.
If you are only concerned with Bowie's music then this is the book for you. Essential.

The Complete David Bowie is definitely the best account of Davids work, presenting in the first part of the book each and every song he has ever written or sung and continuing with his albums, singles, movies and live appearances.

Dont get me wrong, Nicolas Pegg has done a great and painstaking job and the book is a great source if youre going to write a thesis on Bowie(!), but I wouldnt call it fun reading, mostly because of its structure, which is similar to that of a dictionary or encyclopedia! However, there are many interesting facts and quotes that will draw your attention, and you get to hear the explanation of many of his songs from David! e.g. I didnt know what the theme of Heathen (The Rays) was and why it brought tears to his eyes in one of his concerts

I think its a very good and detailed piece of work, as long as you know what youre getting!

The Complete David Bowie is definitely the best account of David's work, presenting in the first part of the book each and every song he has ever written or sung and continues with his albums, singles, movies and live appearances.

Don't get me wrong, Nicolas Pegg has done a great and painstaking job and the book is a great source if you're going to write a thesis on Bowie(!), but I wouldn't call it fun reading, mostly because of its structure, which is similar to that of a dictionary or encyclopedia! However, there are many interesting facts and quotes that will draw your attention, and you get to hear the explanation of many of his songs from David! -e.g. I didn't know what the theme of Heathen (The Rays) was and why it brought tears to his eyes in one of his concerts...

I think it's a very good and detailed piece of work, as long as you know what you're getting!

I recently got into Bowie stuff I'd never really paid attention too - "Heroes", Young Americans, Station to Station, Diamond Dogs....I used to just listen to singles. After reading Hugo Wilcken's book on Low I needed to know more, and wikipedia repeatedly cited this book by Nicholas Pegg as a source when I would search individual songs. If you want to know everything about Bowie, buy this, its a huge book, and goes through each song conceptually as well as production and performance wise, and then goes through each album as a whole, including historical anecdotes, who or what influenced each record, who he played with, and there's plenty of quotes from Bowie peppered throughout. This is one stop shopping for insatiable Bowie fans, not to mention incredibly well written. It reads like high-brow criticism that is understandable, with the occassionally humourous observation thrown in. You can tell the author is a fan himself, but remains unbiased and doesn't shy from acknowledging Bowie's eighties stuff as sub-par compared to the seventies. The version I have goes up to Reality. It also lists and describes in depth live tours, film and TV appearances and basically anything else you might want to know. Shipped in a week.

If you are a Bowie fan, this is must reading. Pegg is extremely accurate, and his accounts of the songs Bowie has written and the stories about how the songs were recorded are fascinating. He does a great job tying Bowie's lyrics and music to places and times in Bowie's life, creating a full picture of all that was happening. The accounts of Bowie's tours and albums are accurate and excellent reading, very concise without being wordy or over the top. To get the complete picture of Bowie the entertainer buy this book. I have been a huge fan of Bowie since 1984 and this is the best book ever done on him.

2009 paperback version: Defective/Does not work properly
Details: It's misbound. P 465 to p576 are missing from where they should be and instead start at the end of the book after p 688. Is this a problem with the whole print run?

Not written by a music journalist but by a true Bowie fan who knows what he is talking about, this is a very enjoyable book to read, full of interesting facts and trivia, along with complete technical details of every song, album, video and tour.

A must have for anyone interested in Bowie's music.

If you're a Bowie fan, this is the book to get. Very thorough, wonderfully written, and extremely quick delivery. Worth every cent (and it was very inexpensive as well).