“Ch, ch, ch, ch, changes...”
Best of collections are a valuable entry point for casual listeners wanting to dip a toe into the work of artists they’re curious about.
In the UK alone, there were three important Bowie best of releases before the 1990 RYKO/EMI CHANGESBOWIE.
CHANGESONEBOWIE was released by RCA in 1976. The Best of Bowie was issued by K-Tel in 1980, with CHANGESTWOBOWIE following soon after on RCA in 1981.
The CHANGESBOWIE best of compilation LP hit the top spot in the UK 35 years ago today, promoted by Bowie’s SOUND + VISION World Tour which kicked off in Quebec, Canada, on 4th March, 1990.
Released on Monday 12th March 1990 by EMI in the UK (with three extra tracks on the 21 track LP & cassette), the 18-track US version was issued by RYKO on Friday 16th March 1990.
CHANGESBOWIE collected together songs chronologically that had previously appeared on both CHANGESONEBOWIE (11 tracks) and CHANGESTWOBOWIE (4 tracks) with other hits released after CHANGESTWOBOWIE and a couple of live favourites thrown in for good measure.
The album was released in several formats, including CD, Double Vinyl LP, and cassette, with RYKO releasing limited editions on Clear vinyl and a CD and cassette bundle with a free CD rack! Ryko’s gold numbered Au20 CD wasn’t made available till 1996 and EMI’s Minidisc version arrived in 1998.
It could be argued that the compilation was UK-centric as it included 16 UK Top 20 hits, of which 10 were Top 5, while also containing 6 US Top 20 hits of which 2 made the Top 5.
Either way, the album's sales were very healthy, attaining Platinum status in the US where 1,000,000 copies were shipped, and Platinum in the UK and France where 300,000 were shipped in each country. CHANGESBOWIE was also Gold status in many other countries.
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