Been a while since I’ve been excited to see/hear some new releases and it turns out there are at least three things being released in the next couple of months I’m intrigued about.

First up is the November 6th release of the newly remastered David Bowie album Metrobolist.

What, you never heard of that album?

Welp, for good reason: This was the original title David Bowie had for the album that was eventually known as The Man Who Sold The World.

See, at quite literally the very last minute the record company decided Metrobolist was too weird a title (I guess) and renamed it after what is probably the most famous song on it.

The album will feature its original artwork, the cartoonish bit you see above, along with the photographs of Bowie in a dress which wound up being used on the album’s cover later on…

Metrobolist/The Man Who Sold The World is officially David Bowie’s third album after David Bowie and Space Oddity and, IMHO, the first “real” Bowie album through and through. Others might quibble and say Space Oddity is the “real” first Bowie album but, other than a few intriguing songs -including his first big hit- I feel that album is still showing Bowie as a work in progress.

Longtime Bowie producer Tony Visconti has remastered the album and, based on how well he remastered the song Space Oddity (he also remastered the entire album, but I have yet to hear it), it could prove to be something quite special. We’ll see on November 6th!

Next up, also for a November 6th release, is Albert Bouchard’s Re Imaginos.

For those who don’t know the name, Mr. Bouchard used to be the drummer for Blue Oyster Cult and, perhaps most famously, was the one responsible for the “cowbell” in their hit song Don’t Fear The Reaper.

However, back in the 1980’s, the band and he had a falling out and he left them. Shortly afterwards and in the early 1980’s he worked on an album he called Imaginos, which used many of Blue Oyster Cult’s songs and created a concept album.

However, acrimony between the band and he led to the album being taken away from his hands. It was re-worked by the other members of the band and eventually released in 1988…

Bouchard’s original demo version of the album was leaked years ago and can be heard here:

Anyway, the years past and we fast forward to now and Blue Oyster Cult, without Bouchard as their drummer, are about to release a new album. Amusingly, their first music video release for their first single, That Was Me, features a guest appearance by Albert Bouchard and he’s banging away at a… cowbell! (He first appears around the 1:05 mark of the below video)

My guess, when I first saw the video, was that Mr. Bouchard and the remaining original members of Blue Oyster Cult have (perhaps) settled their differences and are even having a laugh at their shared past, though based on the video it doesn’t appear Mr. Bouchard has returned to the band but rather re-appeared for this video and/or provided “cowbell” for that particular song.

However, shortly following the release of the above single/video, I read that Mr. Bouchard was going to release Re Imaginos, his polished up version of the original Imaginos album. A video was released for the song Black Telescope, which is a considerable departure from Workshop of the Telescopes, the original version of the song made by Blue Oyster Cult.

Here’s Mr. Bouchard’s new version of the song from Re Imaginos, which takes on an old mariner’s sound:

And here’s the original version of the song…

Interestingly, if you go back to that demo of Bouchard’s Imaginos I presented above, Workshop of the Telescopes/Black Telescope wasn’t part of that original version of his album!

Anyway, Re Imaginos comes out on November 6th, as I said before, and it should be interesting to hear, especially if you’re a fan of Blue Oyster Cult!

Finally, its been announced that Christopher Nolan’s Tenet will be released to home video come December 15th.

I’m very curious to see the film but there was simply no way I would go to a theater to see it. First, the local theaters in my neck of the woods were closed through the original release dates. Secondly, even if they were open I wouldn’t have felt comfortable being in an enclosed area watching a 2 hour long film. It’s simply not safe.

But I will pick up the movie when its released to home video!