The Man Who Sold The World - David Bowie

David Bowie’s third album developed, refined and perfected the glam rock tendencies of ‘Space Oddity’ and ditched the folk angle, resulting in one of the strongest and certainly the hardest and rockiest album of his long and varied career. STYLE Bowie’s guitar and distinctive up and down English vocals find their perfect consort in the lead guitar work of Mick Ronson, who would go on to help define the sound of the band’s golden age of the next few years, resulting in the ‘Hunky Dory,’ ‘Ziggy Stardust’ and ‘Aladdin Sane’ albums. The electronic instruments are in full swing here, and the distortion is turned on. ‘The Man Who ...  Read the complete review

David Bowie - The Man Who Sold the World (1971) Producer: Tony Visconti The Width of a Circle All the Madmen Black Country Rock After All Running Gun Blues Saviour Machine She Shook Me Cold The Man Who Sold the World The Supermen The Man Who Sold the World would stand as a turning point in Bowie's career, not because of any noticeable change of quality within the songs, but because for the first time he has together the key members of what would later become The Spiders from Mars - guitarist Mick Ronson and drummer Mick Woodmansey. Tony Visconti also returned for production duties after working ...  Read the complete review

The Man Who Sold The World David Bowie As an Elvis fan I have always rated David Bowie as a weirdo who’s music I sadly disregarded as hippy music. Boy was I wrong. Ross’s pal Zoe gave him this album as a present and it is the most amazing music I have heard. Released in 1972 the album caused major controversy at the time as Bowie was wearing a dress. I love the lyrics in this album, as they are just so weird. I read somewhere that his eyes are different colours . One brown and one blue . The reason being he had a pencil stuck into one of them when he was at school The album starts off with the eight minute long( Width of a Circle ) ...  Read the complete review

Odd that this album should have been sandwiched between the semi-acoustic folkiness of SPACE ODDITY and the swaying melodies of HUNKY DORY, for THE MAN WHO SOLD THE WORLD is little short of a hard rock album. Mick Ronson's demonic guitars and some raw, jagged production make for a brutally engrossing listening experience. Bowie's lyrics are paranoid and uncompromising, and on songs like 'Supermen' and the title track somewhat bizarre. A terrific rock album that really hits you hard. ...  Read the complete review

After trying really hard on 'Space Oddity', but not quite getting it right, Bowie finally starts getting it right. If there is a top 5 of Bowie's albums, this little beauty would be on it. One of it's best points is that it has a mood and depth to it that even classics like Hunky Dory and Ziggy Stardust don't quite manage to sum up. It's a good precursor to some of Mr B's live work in the Ziggy days. There really isn't a bad track on this, but the best numbers for me are "All the Madmen", "Black Country Rock", "The Man Who Sold the World" and "The Supermen" (which incidentally, is a ...  Read the complete review