Zubissou Sounds

The roomArtists › David Bowie

Where to start with David Bowie

Start with Station To Station — Station To Station, 1976. That is the track sitting closest to the centre of all 21 David Bowie tracks in Zubissou Sounds — a listening room of 14,971 tracks placed one at a time by hand, not an algorithm.

This page is not a discography and not a ranking. It describes exactly one thing: the 21 David Bowie tracks that one person put in one room, and where they sit relative to each other. The starting point above is chosen by a rule you can check — of the 21 tracks, it is the one nearest the average position on the four knobs the room runs on. Nothing here calls any record better than any other.

It is spread thin and wide — 21 tracks across 13 different records, which is a browsing history rather than a shelf of favourites.

The dates here run from 1970 to 2016. They are the dates attached to the releases in this room rather than recording dates, so the later ones are likely reissues — but 46 years is still more than one version of the artist.

The mood knob swings 83 points across these tracks, the widest of the four — it is the axis this artist actually travels along in this room.

21tracks in the room
13albums
1970–2016years covered
art rockfiled under

Three ways in

The one track, if you only play one

Station To Station — Station To Station, 1976. Of the 21 David Bowie tracks here, this one sits closest to the average of all of them across the four knobs the room runs on. It is the least surprising thing in the collection, which is exactly what an entry point should be.

If you want the melancholy end

Art Decade - 2017 Remaster — Low (2017 Remaster), 1977. The lowest mood reading of any David Bowie track in the room (4 out of 100). This is as far towards melancholy as the collection goes.

If you want the euphoric end

Ashes to Ashes - 2017 Remaster — Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) [2017 Remaster], 1980. The highest mood reading here, at 87 out of 100 — a 83-point swing across the collection towards euphoric.

Where David Bowie sits in the room

Zubissou Sounds does not have playlists or genres you click. It has knobs. Every track carries a position on each one, set by hand when the track was added, and you find music by setting the room to a state rather than by searching for a name. These are David Bowie's average coordinates and the range they cover.

KnobAverageRangeLow → high
mood564–87melancholy → euphoric
energy6024–90ambient → driving
density6217–91sparse → wall
head · body5525–80cerebral → groove

All four run 0–100. They are placed by a person, not derived from audio analysis or from any streaming service's feature data.

What is here, record by record

AlbumYearTracks
Ziggy Stardust: The Motion Picture5
Station To Station19762
Low19772
Let's Dance (2018 Remaster)19832
Low (2017 Remaster)19772
Young Americans19751
Labyrinth (From The Original Soundtrack Of The Jim Henson Film)19861
7“19771
The Man Who Sold the World19701
Diamond Dogs19741
Blackstar20161
Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) [2017 Remaster]19801
Station to Station (2016 Remaster)19761

Every David Bowie track in the room

TrackAlbumYear
The Width of a CircleThe Man Who Sold the World1970
ChangesZiggy Stardust: The Motion Picture1971
Suffragette CityZiggy Stardust: The Motion Picture1972
Big BrotherDiamond Dogs1974
WinYoung Americans1975
Station To StationStation To Station1976
TVC 15Station To Station1976
Wild Is the Wind - 2016 RemasterStation to Station (2016 Remaster)1976
Heroes7“1977
A New Career in a New TownLow1977
Always Crashing the Same CarLow1977
Art Decade - 2017 RemasterLow (2017 Remaster)1977
Sound and Vision - 2017 RemasterLow (2017 Remaster)1977
Ashes to Ashes - 2017 RemasterScary Monsters (And Super Creeps) [2017 Remaster]1980
China Girl - 2018 RemasterLet's Dance (2018 Remaster)1983
Let's Dance - 2018 RemasterLet's Dance (2018 Remaster)1983
As The World Falls DownLabyrinth (From The Original Soundtrack Of The Jim Henson Film)1986
LazarusBlackstar2016
Lets Spend The Night TogetherZiggy Stardust: The Motion Picture
Rock n Roll SuicideZiggy Stardust: The Motion Picture
White Light / White HeatZiggy Stardust: The Motion Picture

Near neighbours in this room

These are the artists whose average knob position sits nearest to David Bowie's in this room. It is a coordinate match, not a claim that they sound alike.

What the open databases say

MusicBrainz lists David Bowie as a solo artist and born in 1947. Its contributors tag the artist rock, electronic, pop, alternative rock and experimental. These are the open database's facts, not mine — you can check them against the MusicBrainz entry.

Questions

How many David Bowie tracks are in Zubissou Sounds?

There are 21, across 13 albums. 18 of them carry a date, running from 1970 to 2016. That is the whole of what this room holds — it is one person's collection, not a discography.

Is this a best-of, or a ranking?

No. Nothing here is ranked and no track is called better than another. The starting point is picked by arithmetic — the track closest to the centre of all the others on four measured axes — and the rule is printed above so you can disagree with it.

Where do the knob numbers come from?

They are set by hand, one track at a time, by the person who added the track. They are not audio analysis and not a Spotify feature. Mood, energy, density and the head/body balance each run 0 to 100. All 21 of these tracks have been read individually — nothing on this page is running on a default.

Can I listen to these here?

Not yet from this page. Zubissou Sounds is in private beta — the room itself plays through Spotify, and 21 of these 21 tracks are matched to a Spotify ID and ready to play the moment you are in. The waitlist form is at the bottom of this page.

Get on the list

The room is in private beta — 14,971 tracks by 5,585 artists, including these. Leave an address and you go in the queue in order. No newsletter, no marketing, no third parties: the address is used once, to let you in.