We Were So Turned On: A Tribute to David Bowie


We Were So Turned On: A Tribute to David Bowie is a David Bowie tribute album released worldwide on September 6, 2010, by Manimal Vinyl as a charity for War Child UK. The album features contributions from Duran Duran, Carla Bruni, Mick Karn, John Frusciante, Warpaint, Devendra Banhart, Vivian Girls, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, A Place to Bury Strangers and others.
The project was started in early 2008 by Manimal Vinyl's founder Paul Beahan. The album was originally planned to feature contributions from Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails and MGMT, who all pulled out due to recording and scheduling conflicts.
The cover artwork was created by Los Angeles–based artist owleyes and the inside artwork was created by artist and musician Nico Turner. The cover includes three images of the inside artwork from the gatefold edition of the album Aladdin Sane filled with psychedelic graphics. The label released A Place to Bury Strangers' cover of "Suffragette City" on the music blog Cover Me one week before the album. Xu Xu Fang's "China Girl" video reached number 1 on Cover Me Songs 2010 Year-end Best of list.

Track listing

Disc one

  1. "Space Oddity"
  2. "Boys Keep Swinging"
  3. "Sound and Vision"
  4. "Ashes to Ashes"
  5. "Be My Wife"
  6. "Always Crashing in the Same Car"
  7. "John, I'm Only Dancing"
  8. "Fame"
  9. "I'm Afraid of Americans"
  10. "Suffragette City"
  11. "Repetition"
  12. "Look Back in Anger"
  13. "Fashion"
  14. "Theme from Cat People"
  15. "Red Money"
  16. "I'm Deranged"
  17. "African Night Flight"
  18. "China Girl"

Disc two

  1. "Heroes"
  2. "Absolute Beginners"
  3. "Blue Jean"
  4. "Life on Mars?"
  5. "Changes"
  6. "It Ain't Easy"
  7. "Soul Love"
  8. "The Bewlay Brothers"
  9. "Art Decade"
  10. "Ashes to Ashes"
  11. "As the World Falls Down"
  12. "The Supermen"
  13. "Starman"
  14. "Quicksand"
  15. "Sound and Vision"
  16. "Memory of a Free Festival"

iTunes Special Edition tracks

  1. "Heathen (The Rays)"
  2. "Letter to Hermione"
  3. "Ziggy Stardust"
  4. "Oh You Pretty Things"
  5. "The Man Who Sold the World"
  6. "Within You"
  7. "The Secret Life of Arabia"
  8. "Modern Love"

Critical reception

The Warpaint cover of Ashes to Ashes was well-received, appearing on NPR's "5 best cover songs of 2010" and RadioX's "The 10 best David Bowie cover versions".
NME described the album as "a mismatch of a record, skipping frantically between genres with every turn", while The Complete David Bowie called it "exhaustive and occasionally exhausting".