David Bowie: Both Sides of the Bowie Coin Reissue Album Reviews (1972)

Bowie’s early masterpieces resurface – grab The Man Who Sold The World while you can!

one-page review of Space Oddity (RCA LSP 4813) and The Man Who Sold The World (RCA LSP 4816) in Sounds, November 18, 1972.

DAVID BOWIE: "SPACE ODDITY" (RCA LSP 4813). "THE MAN WHO SOLD THE WORLD" (RCA LSP 4816).

TWO OLD Mercury albums one with its original title, but with the "Man Of Words, Man Of Music" album retitled "Space Oddity" - have been repackaged and put out on Bowie's current label with new image pictures, glossy posters, and daft sleeve notes and would appear to have been written by an accountant with a thesaurus. But no matter, the music is the message as they say, and that's what you buy albums for, isn't it?

I never did like the "Man Of Words, Man Of Music" album a lot: it sounds a little scrappy and hurriedly put together, with words from Bowie that do him much less than justice sloppy love

songs like "Letter To Hermione" and a lot of clever word play that doesn't add up to a lot. There are some fine lines though, like ". you're the gleam in your banker's spleen", but the total effect is less than shattering.

Musically it's slightly un-together, despite the presence of some excellent people like Keith Christmas, Tim Ren-wick, Honk, Rick Wakeman and Paul Buckmaster. I like the "Space Oddity" track, be-cause it's such a good treatment of a simple idea, a per-fect single, and also the last track "Memory Of A Free Festival", basically for the same reasons.

"Man Who Sold The World" is altogether a different matter, and for me it rates with "Hunky Dory" as the justification of all the praise that's been heaped on Bowie's head so far; I thought "Ziggy Stardust" was going to have the power and depth of this, but it didn't, and I was thus disappointed.

Whereas on "Man Of Words" Bowie used different people for different tracks, this one uses Mick Ronson and Mick Woodmansey (now Spiders), with producer Tony Visconti on bass throughout, and this gives it a unity and fluidity in sound as well as in concept. The album has some of Bowie's most amazing songs perception and fine craftsmanship tempered by a wry sense of humour. If you didn't pick up on songs like "All The Madmen", "Saviour Machine", "The Man Who Sold The World" and "The Supermen" the first time around, here's your chance. This is the one, really. - SP.