Is It Any Wonder? (EP) - Misplaced Pages

2020 EP by David Bowie

Is It Any Wonder?

EP by David Bowie

Released

14 February 2020 (2020-02-14) (digital)
20 March 2020 (2020-03-20) (physical)

Recorded

1995–98

Studio

Looking Glass, Sony Music (New York City)

Genre

Length

28:15

Label

Parlophone

Producer

David Bowie, Reeves Gabrels & Mark Plati

David Bowie chronology

Conversation Piece
(2019)

Is It Any Wonder?
(2020)

I'm Only Dancing (The Soul Tour 74)
(2020)

David Bowie EP chronology

No Plan
(2017)

Is It Any Wonder?
(2020)

ChangesNowBowie
(2020)

Is it Any Wonder? is a six-track EP by David Bowie that was released in early 2020. It is composed of older Bowie and Tin Machine songs that the artist mostly re-recorded during his Earthling (1997) sessions and Earthling Tour rehearsals in early 1997, plus a few new tracks originated in the same era of this recording.

Background

Many of the tracks on the EP had not been released before. "Baby Universal '97", originally by Tin Machine, was re-recorded for Earthling in 1996 (to be slotted between "I'm Afraid of Americans" and "Law (Earthlings On Fire)", but was dropped from the album before its release.

"Fun" came from the song "Fame", re-worked on Bowie's 1997 Earthling Tour as "Is it Any Wonder?". The song started with tracks recorded during pre-tour rehearsals in early 1997, supplemented with a live version of "Fame" recorded in June 1997, and then mixed by Mark Plati and Reeves Gabrels at Looking Glass Studios in New York and at Sony Music Studios in New York in February 1998. The track on this EP was mixed by Danny Saber in May of that same year. Prior to its release, the song was occasionally referred to as "Funhouse".

"Stay '97", an updated version of "Stay", released originally in 1976 on his album Station to Station, was recorded in 1997 at The Factory studios in Dublin and mixed in mid-1997, potentially for use as a B-side.

The Tin Machine track, "I Can't Read", was re-recorded as a solo David Bowie recording in 1996 (being called "I Can't Read '97" in the EP). This one was Bowie’s preferred solo version, but it was ultimately cut from Earthling by him to be replaced at the last minute with "The Last Thing You Should Do". An alternative version of that discarded rerecording, differentiated by featuring minor chords and a darker sound for the chorus, was worked for The Ice Storm film. The full length version of that reworking appeared on a single in 1997, while an edit featured on the film’s soundtrack album.

"Baby Universal '97", "Stay '97" and "I Can't Read '97" (in that particular early Earthling version) had not been released before.

"Nuts", a semi instrumental track by Bowie, Gabrels and Plati, was recorded in November 1996, and was intended as a bonus track, but was never released until this EP.

This mix of "The Man Who Sold the World" was originally released in 1995 as the b-side to Bowie's "Strangers When We Meet" single, but had not been released since. The mix was made on 30 October 1995 from a live recording of the band playing the track during the Outside Tour, to which Brian Eno "added some backing vocals and a sonar blip and sculpted the piece a little so that there was more contour to it."

Release

In the build-up to the EP's release, tracks were available to stream, one per week, starting in January 2020. The entire EP was available via streaming services starting on 14 February 2020, and physical copies were made available in a limited edition (of 4000 copies on CD and 6000 copies on vinyl) to purchase in 20 March 2020.