The Man Who Sold the World (2015

This third LP by the now sadly late David Bowie - aka Mr Jones - is often damned with faint praise, as if it's a mere prelude to better things. It's an obvious step forward from the first two albums - though 'Space Oddity' is a wondrous, too often overlooked oddity indeed - but I also think it's can more than hold its own beside its superb, classic successor, Hunky Dory, and certainly Ziggy Stardust (the whole Ziggy episode has always left me cold, only really liking Five Years, Soul Love & Starman. After HD, it was Aladdin Sane that did it again for me).To my ears, this is a Bowie/Ronson meisterwerk. Mick Ronson's guitar is as much a star as Bowie's singing, and at best this is a superb rock album from two guys who really knew how to rock.Apart from the title track, this isn't full of particularly famous Bowie songs, but it's one I can happily listen to and enjoy every song.Talking of the title track, I love its laidback, tender quality, hardly the radio-friendly rock song I remember at all, more of a restrained, rueful ballad.Black Country Rock is a good song and great fun too, with Bowie's spot-on impression of his friend Marc Bolan's tremulous singing as well as writing style (more Tyrannosaurus Rex than T Rex).The remastering is a gleaming pleasure, and it's good to have such an unpretentious early example of Bowie's genius in such good sound.Of the early albums, one of Bowie's best.

Great value for money

I’m not sure if this is my favourite Bowie album but it’s up there with his best i find it hard to describe i just love it i don’t need to tell anyone who has the album about the music you know what I mean 👨🏻‍🎤

This early David Bowie album from 1970: is, in common with other future Bowie albums; innovative,creative,original and Arty.The man who sold the world,is definitely not a mainstream pop record.Musically it is very interesting,with traces of folk music and strange,but interesting instrumentation being evident.Lyrically I find most tracks rather hard to understand - could be because I'm a natural tunesmith,not wordsmith.although i'll stick my neck out and say that the title track,has a very ghostly theme to it,and is a very haunting sounding song.put your own meaning and interpretation to lyrics if you're not sure - makes it much more fun.Now legendary guitarist: Mick Ronson makes his debut on a David Bowie record (as does drummer Mick 'woody' Woodmansey),and is certainly on fire on TMWSTW - that's for sure.So is producer Tony Visconti,who begins to forge his production style on this l.p.Bowie was yet to achieve the status of 'icon and creative genious',at the time of TMWSTW's release,and had to wait two years later - on release of the Ziggy stardust album,for mass critical acclaim and commercial success.the interim release Hunky dory - 1971,fits neatly between the two.virtually ignored at time of release (unbelivable now).With TMWSTW Bowie was laying down his style and paving the way for the shape of things to come - you just had an incline.This 2015 re-mastered edition: is well presented,comes with complete lyrics and musician credits and includes various photographs from the period.very good remastered sound,by the way.Ps: an excellent closing track: The supermen,is a fitting end to a more than passable (ha ha),early career David Bowie album release.

Good quality pressing of this classic album.

David Bowie's third full-length album, and to me his first truly great long player. Adopting a set of mostly very hard rocking musical shapes, 'The Man Who Sold The World' includes 'The Width of a Circle', which would go on to be a lynch pin of his 'Ziggy'-era live set, and the title track, which gained greater attention firstly through Lulu's Bowie-produced 1973 cover version, and twenty-odd years later, Nirvana's 'Unplugged' take, which cemented the song's classic status. That would be good enough for most, but there is so much else going on here. Tony Visconti produces and plays bass, and two-thirds of the Spiders From Mars in drummer Woody Woodmansey and guitarist Mick Ronson are also present and correct, but it's the songs - with a very disturbing, dystopian, kind of Sci Fi ambience - that are the most potent aspect of this heady brew. The crazed soldier of 'Running Gun Blues', the robotic subject of 'Saviour Machine' (with its hectic Jazz Watz time signature), and the spooky 'After All' make this a superb set, the heaviest stuff he'd record until Tin Machine. An early peak, and its an album I have returned to again and again this last forty years. It's at its best on vinyl, of course.

Stomping.

This album needs no introduction. It was David Bowie's first proper rock album of the 1970s and is certainly one of his heaviest. There were no singles taken from this album, but there didn't need to be, because every track on this album is a classic. If you are a Bowie fan, then you really need to buy this album, if you don't already have it.This release is supposed to be "digitally remastered", according to the case. However, as with most other albums that have been supposedly "digitally remastered", I couldn't detect any noticeable difference in the overall sound quality at all. It sounded identical to the releases of this album that I owned before. There are also no bonus tracks, so there is very little incentive to upgrade to this release if you already have this album. If you are a Bowie fan, however, and you don't own this, then this release is as good as any other you will find. Five stars from me.