David Bowie - "Magic"

There were three years between the release of David Bowie's Tonight album in 1984 and his follow-up Never Let Me Down album in 1987. In fact, Bowie released songs on three soundtracks in 1986. I thought that if those tunes were collected together, we could have a Bowie album for that year.

In all, there are 10 Bowie tracks that appeared on the Labyrinth, Absolute Beginners and When the Wind Blows soundtracks.

1. Opening Titles – Underground
2. Absolute Beginners
3. Magic Dance
4. Chilly Down
5. As the World Falls Down
6. When the Wind Blows
7. Within You
8. Volare (Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu)
9. That’s Motivation
10. Underground

Of the three soundtracks, Labyrinth has the most Bowie songs with six, Absolute Beginners has three and When the Wind Blows has just the title track. I decided to mix the sequence of the songs and I think the result is generally satisfying, although the '80s production can be annoying. Then again, it's that shared mid-'80s production that allows all the tracks to gel as an album.

The album's length is 39:42, longer than Tonight (35:47) but much shorter than Never Let Me Down (53:07—although this album would later be shortened to 48:06 when one of the songs was jettisoned from re-releases). So, although short by today's standards, this imagined album actually measures up lengthwise with the times.

For a cover, I chose the slip sleeve for the "Magic Dance" single and altered it a bit, including spelling out the title in the Flood font. I decided to call the album Magic as I thought calling it Magic Dance was too much like the Let's Dance album title. Plus I liked the simplicity of the title. All tracks can be found on the aforementioned soundtracks. They're also all on the Loving the Alien (1983-1988) box set.

To hear how this album would sound, check out the YouTube playlist.