I want to get into Prince and David Bowie. Can I get your 10 track starter playlist?

2 artists ppl slightly older than me seem to love and I've wanted to get into but have no idea where to start. I've heard Purple Rain the album, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust, and Blackstar but that's about it. Their catalogs are so deep, it's pretty intimidating to even go near it. Thanks.

Can't say much about Prince but for Bowie just go through the albums from Hunky Dory to Let's Dance, they are all great. Oh but not Pin Ups, that is shit.

He goes through quite a lot a stylistic changes.

For Bowie, excluding anything from Ziggy and Blackstar since you've listened to them...

1. Space Oddity
2. The Man Who Sold the World
3. Life on Mars?
4. Rebel Rebel
5. Fame
6. Heroes
7. Ashes to Ashes
8. Modern Love
9. Let's Dance
10. New Killer Star

That covers a fair bit of the big ones, though the challenge with boiling Bowie down to just 10 tracks is that he reinvented himself stylistically a ton over his career so even if you don't care for one album to much you may very well love one of his others.

@panfoot: It just goes to show how much he changed, I'd only have one of the songs from your list in my top ten. Maybe two, maybe.

Prince (in no particular order):

1. Purple Rain

2. Little Red Corvette

3. When Doves Cry

4. Sign o' the times

5. Kiss

6. Let's Go Crazy

7. Darling Nikki

8. Uptown

9. Partyman

10. Gett off

David Bowie (also in no particular order):

1. Major Tom

2. Let's Dance

3. Ashes to Ashes

4. The Man Who Sold the World

5. Ziggy Stardust

6. Heroes

7. Under Pressure

8. I'm Afraid of Americans

9. Blue Jean

10. China Girl

Just my picks.

For Bowie it depends what you want. He has classic rock, folk rock, blue-eyed soul, artsy/electronic stuff, dance, ect . If you want more like Ziggy Stardust, go with Aladdin Sane or even Young Americans. If you liked Blackstar try the Berlin trilogy (Low, "Heroes," Lodger)

Prince, try the self-titled 1979 debut, Sign O the Times, and 1999. The 3 disc "The Hits" compilation is also very good. Here's 10 good starters anyway:

1. Thieves in the Temple
2. Little Red Corvette
3. U Got the Look
4. Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad
5. Controversy
6. Kiss
7. P Control
8. Pop Life
9. 7
10. Raspberry Beret

Prince songs used to be a lot harder to find online, but since he passed away, all that stuff is on YouTube now.

For Bowie, I’d say you can simply start chronologically from the beginning. From the Pye singles through Scary Monsters he really did no wrong, and you’ll be able to see how he grew and changed over time. For example, it’s really neat how he adopted glam rock for Ziggy Stardust and then actually did a song with T. Rex on his next album (that’s actually Marc Bolan and company behind him on “The Prettiest Star”). There are a lot of really cool notes like that coming from all the scenes he moved through. It’ll help you appreciate the massive leap he took with Let’s Dance, too.

Pin Ups is the only weak point in that era, yes, but it was always more of a side attraction as a cover album. That said, I think his cover of “Sorrow” on that album is really good.

Also, I’d highly recommend checking out the albums that Bowie produced during that time. He basically pulled Iggy Pop out of a death spiral, lived with him in Berlin for years, and produced (and supposedly wrote) one of my favorite albums ever, Lust for Life. Lou Reed’s Transformer was also a great Bowie production and it’s a lot of fun hearing Bowie on background vocals. (Another side note here: if you’re an Arcade Fire fan, that’s Bowie in “Reflektor.”) Mott the Hoople was another great glam rock band that worked a lot with Bowie, who for example did the background vocals for “All the Young Dudes” and may have even written it, though I can’t remember off the top of my head.

After the early 80’s I kind of fell off his work until the last few years of his life. The Next Day and Blackstar are both really good and Blackstar in particular ruins me. Leave it to David Bowie to write an album in secret about his own death and then release it as soon as he goes.

Okay, sans those albums you mentioned, I'm gonna try and run down a list that spans through as many of the "good years" that I can

Prince

1. When You Were Mine
2. Controversy
3. Little Red Corvette
4. Delirious
5. America
6. Temptation
7. Kiss
8. Sign O' the Times
9. U Got the Look
10. My Name is Prince

Bowie

1. Space Oddity
2. Changes
3. Queen Bitch
4. Lady Grinning Soul
5. Young Americans
6. Station to Station
7. Warszawa
8. Heroes
9. Teenage Wildlife
10. Modern Love

If you wanted 10 across both

1. Space Oddity
2. When You Were Mine
3. Changes
4. Little Red Corvette
5. Station to Station
6. Kiss
7. Heroes
8. Sign O' the Times
9. Modern Love
10. Controversy
    
    Cut out some real obviously standout songs that I'm gonna kick myself at not including, but whatcha gonna do?

If you can't sit through all of Hunky Dory or Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars, then you're probably not going to be into Bowie.

I can't really speak too much about Prince, he has songs I love, but not enough to dig in to his catalog.

Weirdly, it was The Next Day that got me to appreciate Bowie. But yeah, follow the big hits and their respective albums, and you can't go wrong.

I can't add much more to the already great lists by the folks above me but I do implore you to listen to Suffragette City by Bowie.

It's extremely catchy, great riff, and most importantly has an awesome sound. The production on the entire album is great, but that one is a stand out track to me. Listen to the layering, especially the bass/keyboard mix near the end (around 2:18).

Bowie at the Beeb is just great, even if you're into Bowie already. Especially Disc two.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowie_at_the_Beeb

@panfoot: Good list, I might add in Moonage Daydream and Starman.

So I can only pick ten Prince songs, huh? Okay. Let's see how this goes in no particular order, and intentionally leaving out songs from Purple Rain because that's every newbie's first choice.

1. "The Question Of U" - Graffiti Bridge
2. "Shhh" - The Gold Experiance
3. "PoomPoom" - Crystal Ball
4. "Lemon Crush" - Batman
5. "Strange Relationship" - Sign O' The Times
6. "Come On" - New Power Soul
7. "She's Always In My Hair" - The Hits/The B-Sides
8. "Lady Cab Driver" - 1990
9. "Anna Stesia" - Lovesexy
10. "Bambi" - Prince

Oh gosh - for Bowie I'd probably recommend ten albums, not ten songs. These three "era" based best-of albums (they are available individually, I believe - I have the first two eras as separate albums) are a good primer, however.

For Prince, just listen to the entire Purple Rain album, its great top to bottom.

Bowie hits are more spread out over his entire catalog and most of the good stuff has already been listed, my favorite Bowie song lately is Changes which I don't think has been mentioned yet.

Coverville did some excellent tributes to both last year and they are worth checking out

http://coverville.com/episodes/a-tribute-to-david-bowie/

http://coverville.com/episodes/a-tribute-to-prince/

Make sure you watch the Purple Rain movie.

I'd recommend Bowie's albums from Space Oddity through to Let's Dance

Bowie Songs:

• The Man Who Sold The World
• Watch That Man
• Diamond Dogs
• Young Americans
• Station To Station
• Golden Years
• Stay
• Sound and Vision
• It's No Game (No. 1)
• Modern Love

Here's the thing about Bowie: he goes through such delineated phases that it's much more a matter of your own personal taste than someone else's (as exemplified by the folks giving you 10+ albums to choose from per list), so if you liked Ziggy, work forward from that because it's going to be a lot of similar stuff right up until his "Thin, White Duke" phase. I mean here was a guy who was collaborating with Trent Reznor and NiN back when other musical luminaries were calling it noise. THAT'S how he stayed relevant: changing with the times. Likewise working backward from Blackstar will work as well.

Prince kept a more consistent style, from what I can tell, though I'm not nearly as familiar with him, so I'm not sure it'd work the same way.

If no one puts "Blue Light" on their Prince playlist, at least put it on yours.

Here's a 10 track 80's Prince playlist for ya, in chronological order. Kept Purple Rain off since you mention it in the OP. Intimidating discography to appraoch for sure.

• I Feel For You (Prince)
• Do It All Night (Dirty Mind)
• Do Me, Baby (Controversy)
• Private Joy (Controversy)
• Extraloveable (Unreleased, 1983)
• Erotic City (B-Side, Purple Rain)
• She's Always In My Hair (B-Side, Around the World In A Day)
• Anotherloverholenyohead (Parade)
• Strange Relationship (Sign O' The Times)
• Adore (Sign O' The Times)

Pages of Prince suggestions and no Mountains or Money Don't Matter 2 Night? Allow me to change that.

Where to start with Bowie... Lots of good suggestions so far, but I would not completely avoid the mid 80s-00s Bowie completely. Ok, you can probably ignore Tonight and Never Let Me Down unless you get really into it. There were small kernels of greatness in the Tin Machine albums, but much of that was overpowered by the Sales Brothers as Bowie tried to take a backseat for once. Black Tie/White Noise was a very good Jazz/Fusion album. 1.Outside is more industrial, and is probably my favorite of this time frame, and has some really great tracks like Hallo Spaceboy, The Motel, and Strangers When We Meet. Earthling went electronica, but definitely seek out the Reznor mix of I'm Afraid of Americans. Hours... was honestly pretty weak for Bowie, but is still a good Adult Contemporary album. Heathen took a bit to grow on me, but it hearkens back to the Berlin albums (Low, "Heroes", Lodger) with songs like Sunday and the title track. Reality finally comes back to a bit more of a general rock vibe.

Basically any Bowie is great to listen to, depending on what you are looking for. He has literally released a song in almost every genre of music there is. You could really just start with the ChangesBowie compilation, which is where I started so many years ago. I'll put down more of a deep tracks version of it though:

1. Width of a Circle (Man Who Sold the World) - Bowie's take on early Heavy Metal
2. Time (Aladdin Sane) - Bowie at perhaps his most overblown
3. Sweet Thing/Candidate/Sweet Thing (reprise) (Diamond Dogs) - Dark, brooding, reworked from a "1984" stage show he wanted to produce
4. Station to Station (the live version from Stage) - I think a superior version of an already tremendous song
5. V-2 Schneider ("Heroes") - The first track on the instrumental second side of the album. There are some underrated sax parts throughout Bowie's music.
6. Look Back In Anger (Lodger) - Just a fantastic rock song
7. Cat People (Let's Dance) - I prefer the album version to the slowed down, more sinister single version
8. Hallo Spaceboy (1.Outside) - You can go with the album version or the Pet Shop Boys remix. Album version definitely rocks harder.
9. I'm Afraid of Americans (Earthling) - As mentioned earlier, go with the Reznor mix.
10. Heathen (The Rays) - This song really stuck with me after seeing Bowie live. It is such a powerfully emotional song.

Had to link this after writing my list.

For some reason I have a soft spot for Prince's "I Can Never Take the Place of Your Man" simply because that song has one of the most upbeat, happy-go-get-'em vibes in the music itself.

Bowie:

1. Space Oddity

2. Starman

3. Ashes to Ashes

4. Ziggy Stardust

5. Changes

6. Heroes

7. Young Americans

8. Man Who Sold the World

9. China Girl

10. Diamond Dogs

Really, just listen to a best of compilation like ‘Changesbowie’ and work out what you like from there

Never really got into Prince sadly ;/ But one of my favourite Bowie songs that doesn't get mentioned much...

And a perfect cover of Bowie from the life Aquatic which is always worth mentioning

10 songs each wouldnt really do them justice. If you pick up the 'best of' albums with 20-30 tracks each that might be the best idea

For Bowie, I highly recommend Station to Station. One of my all time favorite songs.

For Prince, I recommend Controversy from the album of the same name. Such an underrated Prince song.

It's so tough to narrow down both of these artists songs to just 10. I'd recommend listening to the full albums rather than just picking and choosing songs.

Thanks folks with the lists.

Maybe it's just my perception of it, but that album as a whole seems so underappreciated and it's probably my absolute favourite of his! "Stay" being my second favourite track on there, after the title track:

David Bowie- "Under Pressure", "I'm Afraid of Americans", "Fame", and "Starman" are some of my favorites

I don't see anyone putting up anything from The Next Day, Bowie's album before Blackstar. That thing is criminally underrated; The Stars Are Out Tonight is probably one my favorite videos of his. It's a great hit that's just as strange and hilarious as the best Bowie videos always are.

My favourites for Bowie:

1. Sweet Thing (my absolute fave)
2. Space Oddity
3. Ziggy Stardust
4. Starman
5. Always Crashing in the Same Car
6. Ashes to Ashes
7. Within You (from Labyrinth)
8. Lady Grinning Soul
9. All the Young Dudes (he just wrote it, but still)
10. Where are We Now?

I also love Blackstar, Heroes, The Man Who..., and Life on Mars, of course.

As for Prince, the only two songs I ever loved and adored by him were "Little Red Corvette," and "Sometimes it Snows in April." Stunning lyrics, both.

Since everyone has already posted plenty of tracks I just wanted to post two videos I love

I have bootlegs of Bowie with Nine Inch Nails performing live Scary Monsters, Reptile and Hurt. Now that's some good shit.

Only saw it on one list (which just goes to show how amazing his catalog is), so I'll post it.

I don't have anything amazing to add to the existing lists, but I noticed a few mentions of "All the Young Dudes." Besides being a great song, Bowie actually did his own studio recording; I like it better than the Mott The Hoople original ("The Best of David Bowie 1696-74" is also a pretty good CD, for anyone looking to get into the artists):