Yesterday, January 8th, would have been the 70th Birthday of David Bowie.  Last year tomorrow, on January 10th, Mr. Bowie passed away.

Last year Mr. Bowie released his final new album, Blackstar, on his 69th Birthday.  For his 70th Birthday, No Plan, a four song EP, was released to mark his passing and give fans the last music the artist worked on before he passed.  Though the songs aren’t really “new” -they can all be found on the Lazarus soundtrack and the actual song Lazarus, the fourth on the EP, was part of the Blackstar album- this is the first time you can buy them on their own and outside of that Broadway soundtrack.

Since I truly didn’t care to buy the entire Lazarus soundtrack -sorry but I like to hear David Bowie singing David Bowie- I didn’t bother getting the Lazarus soundtrack but jumped at the chance to buy the EP (for those wondering why I didn’t just buy the other songs on their own, the three “new” songs could not be purchased separate from the full soundtrack).

Anyway, the EP was released, I believe, on Friday though the Amazon listing states its release is for tomorrow, January 10 (I guess they wanted to keep with the David Bowie birthday theme).

I picked up the EP yesterday and, if you like Blackstar, you’ll like the three new tracks presented.  It’s hard to point out which of the three is the best (and if I were to consider all four, I’d probably tilt toward the already released Lazarus, a song that feels like an eerie coda to David Bowie’s life and then upcoming passing).

Of the other three, No Plan is pretty damn good.  So much so they even made a video…

I suspect in the near future we’ll see more “unreleased” David Bowie material appear.  There is apparently quite a bit of it -excluding, of course, the vast amount of live shows that were surely recorded.

I know I’ve written before about some of the better never “formally” released David Bowie songs (at least songs that weren’t part of any of his actual albums), but of those songs I’m familiar with my favorite remains the alternative version of the song Candidate…

As can be seen in the graphic, this song was created for what eventually became the Diamond Dogs album.  Originally, Mr. Bowie intended to create a musical version of George Orwell’s 1984 but the late author’s wife refused to give him permission to make the album and therefore he was forced to make some changes (no pun intended) and, viola, Diamond Dogs.

There are still hints to the unmade 1984 album in Diamond Dogs, including…

There’s a Big Brother song as well and the Sweet Thing/Candidate medley (very good stuff but I have to say, I prefer the unreleased version of Candidate to it!).

Anyway, those who are fans of David Bowie, the bottom line is this: There’s a “new” EP out there and you get one more taste of what David Bowie was up to just before his untimely passing.

Perhaps other buried treasures will be found among his previous recordings and “new” and interesting Bowie songs will also appear in the near future.

I’ve got my fingers crossed.