When I watched the "Moonage Daydream" movie earlier this year in a small local cinema, some of the live songs sounded very rough and hard. I am glad to confirm that it was all down to a low quality audio system and much too loud volume settings in the cinema. The older live versions do have a harder sound on the album but that is to be expected from these old recordings. I was afraid they would be of somewhat lower quality but that is certainly not the case. All the music both live and studio sounds really great on this album and the flow between the songs is great too.
It is not a career spanning soundtrack. The movie focused on specific areas in Bowie career and life. This soundtrack logically has tracks mostly from those periods in time. 1970s Glam-rock. 1970s Berlin. "Let's Dance". "1. Outside". His last album "Blackstar".
The soundtrack has segments where it comes close to ambient whale music and inspires day-dreaming, and then it has other segments where it totally rocks it's way from one song to another. It's very varied, which is not so strange because Bowie's songs were exactly that, hard to put in a box. The chameleon was always changing its colors. This also makes the album a bit of a fragmented experience, but still a fine experience given the outstanding quality of the songs and the way they've been combined and reworked.
The album features a few spoken words bits from Bowie interviews and some instrumental segues and shorter edits of songs. It also has 2 instrumentals by Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. Mostly though, the album is a mix of great live tracks and really cool new mixes of both beloved and lesser-known Bowie songs.
The title track "Moonage Daydream" is delivered in a thunderous live version, "Jean Genie" is also a rocking live jam. I was happy to find "Hello Spaceboy" as both a new mix and a short live version, because let it be known, I love the "Outside" album to death.
It's really great with the new mixes of some old goodies. I've never been much of a fan of "Heroes" and I really don't like the album version of "Sound And Vision". The new mix of "Sound And Vision" is however super funky and the bassline and the piano kick ass. "Heroes" is a live edit version and I like it a lot better than the old album version.
I am not sure If I'll be watching the movie again any time soon. It was a great movie but it's not really a movie I think I'd be watching multiple times. It is different with this soundtrack. It works great on it's own and I predict I'll be listening to it many times in the future. Maybe I'll make my own Edit of the 2CDs, keeping only the bits and pieces I like best of the 45 tracks included on the album.
Rating: 
Band: David Bowie
Record Title: Moonage Daydream (A Film By Brett Morgen)
This Release: 2022
RunTime: 140
Record Format: CD
Record Label: ISO
Extra Info:
- Available now as 2CD and digital.
- A 3LP version is planned to be released in early 2023.
- The 2CD comes with a booklet.
Content Type: Record Review
Language: 
Updated: 2022-11-19 18:21
Created: 2022-11-19 18:21
