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Hey, it's Alan and I just wanted to let you know that you can now listen to the ongoing history of new music. Early and ad free on Amazon Music included with Prime. With Black Friday savings at the Home Depot you can get up to $1,400 off plus get free delivery on select appliances like LG, America's most reliable line of appliances. Check out the newest LG refrigerator with new mini Craft ice straight from the dispenser shop. Black Friday savings on select LG appliances plus get free delivery now at the Home Dep. Free delivery on appliance purchases of $396 or more offer valid 11.5through12 3 US only. See store or online for details. John Legend, Sheryl Crow, Elvis Costello and Alanis Morissette star in the MGM Original series Words and Music. Iconic artists share intimate performances and the stories behind the songs. Series premiere on November 30, only on MGM. I remember exactly where I was when I heard that David Bowie had died. It was 2:30 in the morning of Monday, January 11, 2016. I was already having a restless night. So instead of just staring at the ceiling for another hour, I picked up my phone. Maybe that would help me sleep. Instead, I found that my phone was blowing up. News was breaking that Bowie had died the previous afternoon. My initial reaction was this surely was another Internet hoax. This was Bowie. He was special, probably immortal. Yeah, sure he had his health problems, but he had the best health care money could buy from anywhere in the world. And besides, the man had just released a brand new album that Friday. It was barely three days old. He couldn't be dead yet. The news was true. Bowie was gone, a victim of liver cancer that had been diagnosed about 18 months earlier. And just like that, Bowie, one of the most important musical artists of all time, was gone. We've now had many years to reflect on Bowie's legacy, and many people can't help noticing that the world kind of started going to hell after he died. I mean, just think of all the things that we've been through politically, socially, economically and technologically since then. Trump presidencies, Brexit, Putin, Ukraine, Covid, Gaza, the rise of AI in not so beneficial ways. I'm sure it's all a coincidence, but it's no exaggeration to say that since Bowie died, we've transitioned into a completely different world. Yet one thing remains. David Bowie still matters. In fact, he may matter more than ever before. Here, let me explain. This is the ongoing History of New Music podcast with Alan Cross.
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Look up here. I'M in heaven, I've got scars that can't be seen.
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David Bowie and Lazarus, one of the singles from his final album, released on Friday, January 8, 2016, which also happened to be his 69th birthday. We'd heard rumors of poor health, but only his closest family and associates knew exactly how sick he was. The album arrived on a Friday. That night he was supposed to make a cameo appearance with the surviving members of his Spiders from Mars band at a small show in New York City. At the last second, though, he apparently bowed out, he did take a phone call from the stage and the crowd sang Happy Birthday to him. I'd later hear, and I can't verify this, but I'll tell you anyway, that he'd had second thoughts about appearing in public in New York that Friday, and he allegedly told Tony Visconti, his longtime producer and member of the band, I'll see you in Toronto, the next stop on that Spiders from Mars tour, which was coming up the following Tuesday. But On Sunday, the 10th, he laid down for an afternoon nap and never woke up. The cancer finally took him. On Monday the 11th, I was asked to write a tribute to Bowie for the National Post. It just so happened that I'd been called to be screened for a jury in a murder trial, and while I was waiting to be vetted in the courtroom, I. I wrote the article. Sitting there in the benches, I think the judge sensed that I wasn't completely present, so I was dismissed. I was at that Tuesday show in Toronto, and the word to describe the mood was stunned. There was plenty of denial, but the truth was starting to sink in. And since then, Bowie fans still can't quite believe that he's gone. And like I said, it's become something of a meme that the world has deteriorated into chaos since Bowie died. But Bowie lives on, and in these coming episodes I want to explore why, years after his death, David Bowie still matters. Yes, his music has been extraordinarily influential, but that's only part of it. Style, image, the concert, arena, fashion, film, stage, painting, museums, career management and mismanagement. Bowie's influence can be found all over rock, punk, new wave, goth, industrial, electronic dance music, grunge and indie rock. Name another artist that was equally as important to Lady Gaga as they were to the Sex Pistols, and we can go even bigger. David Bowie was one of the most important figures for gay people that pop culture has ever seen. This had tremendous social and political implications, especially in the uk, and I'm going to prove all this to you. Bowie has had an effect on high finance. He was an Internet pioneer. And once we're done this review of his career, you may not think of Bowie the same way again. The best way to go through all that Bowie has done for and to rock is to detail his career chronologically. Instead of just hopping back and forth and risk losing context and perspective, it might be best to just follow how things unfurled from the very beginning. Does that make sense? And if we're going to do it that way, we need to spread everything out over multiple shows. There is a lot to cover here. So back to the beginning. It was pretty inauspicious. Bowie, or David Jones as he was known back then, which is his real name, tried real hard to make something happen with music. He was a saxophone player first inspired by Little Richard and American R and B. He was in a bunch of bands that went nowhere. He did manage to get on the telly though. In 1964, at the age of 17, he appeared as a spokesman for the League for the Protection of Animal Filament, a totally fictitious support group for men who who chose to wear their hair long. It was all a scam so he and his buddies could get on TV and earn about five pounds each. It was November 12, 1964. Let's have a listen.
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Movie Jones, now a little better known as David Bowie. It all got to stop. They've had enough. The worms are turning. The rebellion of the long hairs is getting underway. They're tired of persecution, they're tired of porn, they're tired of losing their jobs. They're tired of being sent home from college, they're tired of being sent home from school. They're tired even of being refused. The devil. So with a nucleus of some of his friends, a 17 year old David Jones has just founded the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Long Haired Men. Well, here we are, long haired men. You've got to have your hair, what, nine inches long before you can join. Well, I think we've passed that over now. Have you? Yes. Now exactly who's being cruel to you? Well, I think we're all fairly tolerant, but the last two years we've had comments like darling and can I carry a handbag thrown at us? I think it's just had to stop now. But does it surprise you that you get this kind of comment because your alcohol. You haven't got really rather long hair, haven't you? We had, yes. Yeah, it's not too bad really. No, I like it. And I think we all like long hair and we don't see why other people should persecute us because of this. How are you going to set about this campaign? Well, I don't know. I think the real sort of thing we should do is to try and get more followers behind us so that we can sort of march in protest to ban the bomb all over again. You know, only against Hare. You know, people persecuted Aldermaston. I think gradually it will work.
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That first TV appearance was right around the same time that Bowie appeared on record for the first time. That was June 5, 1964, and the group was called David Jones and the King Bees. The first time David Bowie ever appeared on record. The song is Liza Jane. Bowie spent the rest of the 1960s frantically and desperately trying to break into the music business. But he couldn't find a style that suited him. He even had trouble with his name. First there was a poet and painter of some renowned in South London named David Jones. And then there was that short kid who moved to America and joined a TV band called the Monkees. So a new name was in order to our. David Jones had just seen a movie called the Alamo. He became somewhat obsessed with a character played by actor Richard Widmark. That character's name was Jim Bowie. He was a real life American pioneer and soldier as well as a smuggler and slave trader who became famous during the Battle of the Alamo in Texas. And henceforth, David Jones began calling himself David Bowie. Now let's be clear. This is how you pronounce it. Bowie, not Bowie. And not Bowie. Although guitarist Mick Ronson insisted on pronouncing it that way. It should be pronounced Bowie. And trust me, I spoke to the man himself. Between 1967 and 1969, Bowie tried to find his niche. He experimented with all kinds of different things. He lived in a Buddhist monastery for a while. He took dance lessons, he learned to become a mime. He worked in a printing shop. And he was cast in an ice cream commercial.
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Love Everybody Needs It, Love with Popcorn.
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Bowie's in there somewhere, really. And that commercial was directed by another guy trying to find his way. And his name was Ridley Scott. Yeah, him. Here's an example of Bowie's musical experiments back then. And yeah, I think he would probably like this one back. That's the Laughing gnome, released on April 14. Yes, Bowie was very, very lost in the 1960s. He was discouraged and depressed and he really didn't begin to find himself until he demoed a new song for executives at RCA Records. But hold on, back up. One day in 1968 he went to see a movie, completely stoned out of his mind. It was Stanley Kubrick's 2001 A Space Odyssey. And shortly thereafter, a new song emerged, almost completely and fully formed. Bowie was thinking of astronaut David Bowman, played by actor Keir Dullea. But it's possible that the name of the character in the song was inspired by the story of a failed British trapeze artist named Tom Major, the father of future British Prime Minister John Major, and, wait for it, someone who had a second career making garden gnomes. Listen, you can't make this stuff up anyway. The song was space oddity, and at first nobody wanted it. Oh, another novelty song. Dave, give it a rest. It was rejected a couple of times, but then, like I said, he had a chance to demo it for some people at RCA Records. This is what he played them.
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This is ground control to Major Tom. You've really made the grave and the papers want to know who shots you where.
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That song became David Bowie's first ever hit, and only because of some lucky timing. This was the era of the Apollo moon missions. Who knows what might have happened or not have happened had the BBC decided to use some other song as a theme for their coverage of the main moon landings, the biggest TV event ever to date. And while this is a signature song which reached number five on the UK charts, you know where it finished in North America. It never made it any higher than number 124, at least the first time. When it was re released in 1973, it reached number 15 in the US and number 16 in Canada. This success gave Bowie some much needed confidence. He felt he could even be more bold with his experiments with image and presentation, which often involved some serious gender bending. If his long hair of the early 60s was enough to get him on TV, his style of dress, or more specifically, his dress, could do even more. Bowie appeared on the COVID of his 1970 album, the man who Sold the World, wearing a flowing gown designed by a certain Mr. Fish. Michael Fish, a British fashion maven. Not only that, he also insisted on wearing the dress in public and to interviews. Now, this sort of androgyny was not encouraged in 1970. Certain US stores wouldn't display the record because, well, it was a dude in a dress, and that was just wrong, right? But Bowie didn't care, even as the controversy hurt sales, at least until some new editions with different covers were rushed out in places like the US and Germany. Inside, though, it was apparent that the floodgates had begun to open when it came to new songs. Things were looking up and when the next album arrived 13 months later, it was obvious something was happening. Extra Value meals are back. That means 10 tender juicy McNuggets and medium fries and a drink are just $8 only at McDonald's for a limited time only. Prices and participation may vary. Prices may be higher in Hawaii, Alaska and California.
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And for delivery this episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast Smart move Being financially savvy Smart move. Another smart move having State Farm help you create a competitive price when you choose to bundle home and auto bundling. Just another way to save with a personal price plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer availability, amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state.
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Space oddity in 1969 was a step up for David Bowie finally. But it took until 1971 for things to really start getting interesting. He released an album called Hunky Dory, and it gave him another hit in the form of a song called Change.
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You wanna be a richer man.
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By the time the Hunky Dory album came out, Bowie had become friends with Mark Bowen, a former folkie who had taken up electric guitars and formed a psych band called T Rex. In March 1971, T Rex appeared on Top of the Pops, the hugely important British TV show, and he was wearing satin clothes covered with glitter dust, and Bowie thought this was brilliant. This was the beginning of glam rock inspired by Bolan, his crazy new friend, Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, another new friend, and a 7 inch single from 1968 called Paralyzed by a guy calling himself the legendary Stardust Cowboy. Bowie went all in. He called in his previous lessons as an actor and as a mime, and he experimented with makeup and costuming. Oh, and he got a haircut. This is really important. Bowie's new haircut was every bit as important to rock history as Elvis's curls or the Beatles moptops. Bowie found a picture of a model in a magazine and she was wearing clothes by Kensai Yamamoto, a huge figure in contemporary Japanese fashion at the time. His first collection debuted in London in 1971, and Bowie became a fan, together with a stylist named Susie Fussy, his mum's hairdresser. By the way, the model's haircut was replicated on Bowie's head razor cut at the sides and at the back, and then backcombed into a really puffy fluff ball for added effect. It was dyed a bright reddish orange the elfin, cute boy in the dress had been transformed into something unseen in music. Bowie immersed himself into this new Persona, this doomed pansexual alien, and he invented a new name for himself. It was Ziggy Stardust. Now, take it from me, the impact of Bo I Ziggy's Stardust on rock is almost incalculable. And here's why. First, we have to put everything into context. In 1972, rock was all about jeans and T shirts and long hair. If you wanted to annoy your parents, you dressed like a hippie. But then along comes Ziggy and changes everything. The makeup, the costumes, the hair. No one had ever seen anything like Ziggy before. He was a real alien. Back then, concerts were basically a bunch of dudes standing around on a low stage. But with Ziggy, the concert was theater, a spectacle with its choreography and costuming that was new. Yes, it was still all about the music, but with Ziggy, it was also about the show. It was hard rock mixed with vaudeville. It was glitter pop mixed with real theater. It was fashion mixed with technology. This was so new in 1972, anyone who saw Ziggy knew that this was a Bowie creation. But the whole approach was new. A prepackaged, synthetic, ultra glamorous, ultra theatrical, fantastical rock star. And there's more. Bowie was the first to unabashedly and openly feminize the macho male rock and roll star. After Bowie, there was a parade of androgynous, bisexual, gay or just plain femme looking acts. Depeche Mode, Gary Newman, Soft Sally, Rhythmics. The list is endless and we can go much deeper. In January 1972, Bowie gave a flippant quote to a British music paper about having always been gay. Now, today, that would be, of course, no big deal. But for a celebrity to admit to being gay back then, well, it's hard to explain exactly what kind of bomb that was. Again. Perspective. Until 1967, it was a crime to be a homosexual in Britain. You could be charged and jailed under the Sexual Offenses Act. Many, many people had their lives ruined for just being who they were. And even after being gay was decriminalized, the new conditions only applied to people over the age of 21 in England and Wales. It was a crime in Scotland until 1980. It was a crime in Northern Ireland until 1982. And if you were a member of the armed forces and you were gay, then you had better keep it to yourself, because being a gay soldier in the UK was a crime. And even with the decriminalization the police were arresting people on charges of gross indecency. The number of people picked up for that had tripled since 1967. So there was still so much fear. And now this weird looking pop star with the catchy songs telling the world that he was gay. Unthinkable. And even though Bowie was really just being flippant, this coming out struck a chord with thousands of people who wanted to do the same thing but were too afraid. They went from being afraid and confused and alone to suddenly understanding that there was someone out there, someone famous just like them. Bowie, George of Culture Club and Holly Johnson of Frankie Goes to Hollywood are just two people who say that their lives were changed by Bowie's comments. Bowie gave them the courage to be who they were. Bowie would later recant claims of being gay or even bisexual, something that resulted in plenty of criticism from the gay rights activists. But with this statement in January 1972, the genie was out of the bottle and rock would never be the same. More on why Bowie matters in just a second, including how he encouraged the development of this new thing called punk rock.
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In the 70s, four young women were found dead. For nearly 50 years, their cases went cold. I'm Nancy Hicks, a senior crime reporter for Global News. In the season finale of Crime Beat, I share how investigators uncovered shocking evidence of a serial killer and hear exclusive interviews with the killer's family. Listen to the full season of Crime Beat early and ad free on Amazon Music by asking Alexa to play the podcast Crime Beat. This episode is brought to you by ebay. Before all the algorithm fed blah and the endless sea of dupes, shopping used to feel more fun. Find that feeling again on ebay. It's not mindless scrolling, it's a fashion pursuit. And when you score that rare Adidas collab or the Dior saddlebag you've been manifesting, it's a rush. Ebay has millions of pre loved finds from hundreds of brands backed by authenticity guarantee. Ebay Things people love.
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David Bowie's outsiderness of the early 1970s endeared him to other people who felt alienated and marginalized. We've already addressed the issue of sexual identity. But Bowie also appealed to members of the working class who wanted to stick it to their betters. But Bowie's effect on punk goes further than that. July 2, 1973. All the gear for Bowie's final show on the Ziggy Stardust tour was set up and ready to go at the Hammersmith Odeon Theatre in London. The following day, January 3rd, the only person in the building was a night watchman, and he'd fallen asleep in the seats. A young thief named Steve Jones somehow got inside and managed to help himself to whatever he could carry out, mostly some microphones and some amps, along with a couple of cymbals. In a couple of years, some of that gear would be used to start Steve's new band, and they were called the Sex Pistols. This wasn't necessarily an act of desperation or sabotage. The kids who would become the first generation of British punks, loved Bowie. They admired the short, sharp songs, his wild fashion sense, and the way he acted like he didn't care about what anybody thought, even in the face of huge amounts of ridicule and criticism. The punks loved that. And besides, Bowie was friends with Iggy Pop and he was cool. Bowie was also friends with Lou Reed and he had been in the Velvet Underground. That was cool, too. And maybe most of all, Bowie wasn't afraid to kill himself off. And that was really cool. Here's Bowie speaking as his Ziggy creation as he retires at the end of the Ziggy Stardust tour.
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Everybody, this has been one of the greatest tours of our life. We really.
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I.
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First, I'd like to thank. Thank the band, I'd like to thank our road crew, and I'd like to thank our lighting people. Of all the shows on this tour, this, this particular show will remain with us the longest, because not only is it. Not only is it the last show of the tour, but it's the last show that will ever do.
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Thank you. Now, people mistook that for Bowie, saying that he was retiring, which he let them think. What he really meant, though, was that he was killing off Ziggy. Bowie had already begun to think of a new Persona through which he could channel, well, whatever it was he was channeling. He called his new image Aladdin Sane. Separate that to a lad insane, and you'll get the tiniest idea of where his head was at. Not only had the Ziggy experience been crazy for all involved. But he also had a half brother he adored named Terry, who was suffering terribly with mental health issues, manic depression and schizophrenia, and he required hospitalization. A little more than a decade later, Terry would kill himself by lying down in front of a train. The next album, also called Aladdin Sane, was Bowie's first as a genuine rock star, and it came out on April 13, 1973. The Gene Genie, written a part about his even crazier friend Iggy Pop, and inspired by Jean Gentleman, another friend who was a writer, poet and political activist. Bowie's Aladdin Sane character was a transitional one. It was Ziggy Stardust taken to a higher realm. And Ziggy was to be developed even further through the next couple of albums, although he was never called that. The Pinups album, a collection of covers also from 1973, could be called, well, let's just call it Ziggy Karaoke. And then there was Diamond Dogs, Bowie's fifth album in just two years and four months. That prolificness was a big part of Bowie's rise to stardom. Album after album, single after single, character after character, tour after tour. It was absolutely incredible. It would have been different had the records been commercial and critical failures, but they weren't. And it would have been different if it had been just more the same, album after album. But it wasn't. Everything was different. From record to record, everyone was an event, and no one had any idea about what Bowie would do next. There was so much mystery around the man, and when new music appeared, the curiosity was off the charts. Write an album loosely based on George Orwell's novel 1984. Come on. Nobody did that kind of thing. But Bowie did, and he pulled it off.
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Rebel, rebel, put on your dress Rebel, Rebel, your face is a mess Rebel, Rebel Academy, Hot tramp, I love you so much.
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The tour that came with the Diamond Dogs album was one of the most ambitious things rock had ever seen. There were sets and costume changes and choreography and a big cherry picker boom that took Bowie over the audience during his performance of Space Oddity. It was hugely expensive and very complex for its day. No one had ever seen anything like it before. Again, Bowie had taken the basic rock and roll show and took it somewhere it had never been before. More theater, more spectacle, more everything. It was new and unusual and audiences loved it. That fall, October 1974, a double live album was taken from the tour that made for five studio albums and one live record in just two years and 10 months. Incredibly, there would be yet another album the following spring. And it would mark the debut of a new Bowie. Fans caught glimpses of the transition during the Diamond Dogs tour. Bowie became less spaceman and more elegant. Shorter hair, tailored suits and this air of sophistication. And the music changed too. Bowie became interested in American soul and R and B. Things became smoother and funkier. And during breaks on the tour, Bowie scheduled some studio time so he could get some of these new ideas down on tape. The result was Young Americans, an album released on March 7, 1975. So if you're counting six albums in three years and two months. And by this time Bowie was big enough that someone like John Lennon could was willing to hang out and even do a little co writing. Lennon was in the middle of his lost weekend estrangement from Yoko, so he was happy to party with Bowie. Not only did he and Bowie get along famously, but so did Lennon's assistant May Pang, and Bowie's producer Tony Visconti. And actually they ended up getting married. Listen carefully to this track from Young Americans. The genesis of it was a conversation Bowie and Lennon had about the difficulties of being famous. They co wrote the lyric in about 20 minutes. And on the recording we heard Bowie's lead vocals and background vocals from Lennon. That's John echoing the word fame in the verses. And even though Bowie didn't really like the song, it was tacked onto the album at the last minute. And then it was released as a single and it became Bowie's first ever number one in America.
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What you get is no tomorrow Fame what you need, you have to borrow.
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Young Americans introduced yet another Bowie. The blue eyed plastic soul singer, new haircut with the part on the right, new clothes with baggy pants and stylishly baggy sweatshirts. A new professed love for block music. And this endorsement encouraged a lot of his fans to explore those musical territories. And Bowie's cachet had so much widespread appeal that his music was played on both top 40 stations and rock stations. It was cool in the punk clubs, and if you were into this new thing called disco, it wasn't unusual to hear a song like Fame or Young Americans mixed in with all the dance music. He was one of the biggest stars in the world. But personally, Bowie was in terrible shape. He was drinking a lot and had developed a powerful appetite for cocaine. He was going quite insane, worried about witches and UFOs. But this didn't diminish his influence and importance. In fact, it made him even more mysterious and hence even bigger. As we approached the end of the 1970s, Bowie was considered to be the leading visionary when it came to rock. He was always several steps ahead of everybody else, and his instincts for what was to come next were bang on. Or maybe not. Maybe he was actually leading everyone in the direction that he wanted to go and we were just following along. It was a bit of both, really. And Bowie wasn't done morphing himself and his music into things we'd never seen before. If you lived through that period in real time, you'll know exactly what I mean. But if he didn't, we'll pick up things next time as we consider why Bowie matters so much. Even today, there are hundreds of ongoing history of new music programs available as podcasts. Just go to wherever you download your stuff and grab as many episodes as you want. They're all free. And while you're looking for podcasts, check out my other project, Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry. It explores the intersection of music and true crime, and believe me, there are lots of stories that need to be told. If you're looking for music news, information, opinion and recommendations, there's my website, ajournalofmusicalthings.com it's updated every day and to make it easier, there's a free daily newsletter. Subscribe and you'll always know what's happening before your friends, questions, comments, complaints and critiques. You can go to alanancross ca. I will answer you, guaranteed. Part two of why Bowie Still Matters coming up next time. Technical productions by Rob Johnston I'm Alan Cross Hey Ryan Reynolds here wishing you a very happy half off holiday because right now Mint Mobile is offering you the gift of 50% off unlimited. To be clear, that's half the price, not half the service. Mint is still premium unlimited wireless for a great price. So that means a half day. Yeah, Give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch upfront.
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Speed slow after 35 gigabytes of network's.
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