Bowie Picks Obscure Favourite Album

The Buddha Of Suburbia is David Bowie's favourite of his albums - even though hardly anyone has ever heard of it.

The Ziggy Stardust legend names the 1993 LP, the soundtrack to a BBC TV series of the same name, as his number one, because the process involved in its creation was so astounding.

He recalls, "I felt really happy making that album. Overall, it was just myself and ERDAL KIZILCAY working on that. Erdal was a fellow musician, Turkish, working in Switzerland.

"He had studied at the Istanbul Conservatory, and for his degree had to become proficient in every instrument in the orchestra.

"This led to a lot of testing on my part. I would produce an oboe from my jacket pocket, 'Hey, Erdal, don't you think oboe would be nice here?' He would trot off to the mic and put down a beautiful solo, then say, 'That's quite good, but how about if I doubled it with the North Albanian Frog Trembler?' And he would.

"The album itself only got one review, a good one as it happens, and is virtually non-existent as far as my catalogue goes - it was designated a soundtrack and got zilch in the way of marketing money. A real shame."