The third installment in a comprehensive deluxe reissue series of
David Bowie's entire catalog,
A New Career in a New Town (1977-1982) chronicles perhaps the most artistically ambitious phase in
Bowie's career -- one that began with 1977's
Low and concluded with 1980's
Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps). Only two other studio albums arrived in this period --
Heroes, which also came out in 1977, and 1979's
Lodger -- which means the remaining seven discs in this 11-CD box are devoted to a variety of odds and ends, including two versions of the 1978 double-live album
Stage (the original LP track listing, plus a new remaster of the 2005 expansion), the
Heroes EP which contains German versions of the lead track, a brand-new mix of
Lodger from producer
Tony Visconti, and
Re:Call 3, which gathers up B-sides, single edits, and other ephemera from this period. Like on its two predecessors,
Five Years and
Who Can I Be Now,
A New Career in a New Town frustratingly does not include any of the bonus tracks from the '90s
Rykodisc expansions of these albums -- a situation that seems especially weird in the case of
Low, whose bonus "Some Are" wound up as a section of
Philip Glass' 1992 symphonic adaptation of the album -- but the pain is mitigated by the vivid new mix of
Lodger. Dense and colorful without changing the feel of the original album, the 2017 mix of
Lodger helps focus attention on an excellent record that often gets overshadowed by the three albums accompanying it in this box. It's hard to say if it's enough to warrant a purchase of this hefty box, but in either its CD or LP incarnation,
A New Career in a New Town is a handsome, alluring, and exceptional-sounding reissue that earns its price tag. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine
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