Paris (AFP)

Late for Christmas gifts? There is a week and good ideas to pick from the CD / vinyl boxes, sometimes accompanied by DVDs and beautiful books, with David Bowie, Prince, or the Sparks.

Fifty years ago, a 22-year-old boy named David Bowie released the single "Space Oddity". To celebrate this anniversary, a luxurious box set - "Conversation Piece" - in book / 5-CD format looks at the period 1968-1969, between models, BBC sessions, studio recordings, twelve new tracks / demos and a new mix from the album "David Bowie" (aka "Space Oddity") produced by Tony Visconti, its historical producer.

"I liked his difference, I liked the non-conformist", recently told Tony Visconti, who came to Paris on the occasion of the release of another book - "Rainbowman" - devoted to the interpreter of "Heroes ".

This time covering the 1967-1980 era, this titanic work signed Jérôme Soligny collects testimonies from a musical angle - "not the point of view of managers, groupies, dealers ...", insists the author. It is a first volume before a second planned for winter 2020.

For Prince fans, it's time to party around "1999", a re-released and enriched opus in a package of 65 audio tracks, including 35 previously unreleased songs and a full concert - never broadcast - recorded in Detroit, November 30, 1982. Without forgetting a DVD of a concert - again never unearthed - filmed in Houston, December 29, 1982. The different versions of "Little Red Corvette" of the Minneapolis Kid are worth seeing.

- Rita, stainless -

This year, the Sparks are also in the spotlight. The two brothers with sweet madness collaborate first of all on a title - "Handcuffed to a parking meter" ("Handcuffed to a parking meter", the character is a woman) in "Thirst", album of the gifted electro SebastiAn , one of the shocks of the year.

"Working with them was really a request on my part, they had collaborated with the Rita Mitsouko, I was fascinated by their aesthetics, their course of action, their career," SebastiAn recently told AFP. "Past tense, best of Sparks" is an opportunity to review the highlights of their delirious production. And as happiness never comes alone, "Gratuitous Sax And Senseless Violins", the duo's 16th album, is remastered 25 years after its initial release.

The two men therefore collaborated, as SebastiAn recalls, with the Rita Mitsouko, whose repertoire was honored by Catherine Ringer in a breathtaking tour spent by the Philharmonie in Paris, and in the provinces. The "Best of" by Rita released in September - CD + DVD - makes it possible to enjoy titles that have not aged like "Marcia Baïla", "C'est comme ça", "Andy", "Les Histoires D ' A "," Le Petit train "," Don't forget the nite ", etc.

- "Arthur", from Kinks -

"I do not have the impression that anyone occupies the place they occupied," recently observed rock critic Michka Assayas, interviewed by AFP. "They have always had a special place, they have never been part of a current, have never been worn by fashion. They came from elsewhere." To accompany listening, leaf through the book "Catherine Ringer and the Rita Mitsouko" by Stan Cuesta, prefaced by the Argentinian director Alfredo Arias, is essential.

Finally, we must mention "Arthur, or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire", by Kinks, reissued, 50 years later. The leader Ray Davies wanted to speak in this concept album - commissioned for a TV show that will never see the light of day - of these "disillusioned people of England after World War II, who felt betrayed" with a blocked social horizon , as he recently exposed to AFP. The rich box set (4 CDs of 81 titles in total, including 5 unreleased and 28 unreleased versions, demos, etc.), presents in particular the solo album of Dave - Ray's brother - too long stayed in the drawers.

© 2019 AFP