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Customer Reviews of The Man Who Sold the World

4.5 Stars - Bowie's first classic, all within the width of an LP circle!
With a solo career spanning nearly 40 years, David Bowie is one of the most successful artists of all time. In the very early part of his career, David Bowie did not have the great fame and following which would come to him with the release of his all time classic in 1972, `The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars'. However, the simple fact was that Bowie had already released four albums before this, of which the previous two were awesome, classy efforts. The first one of these was `The Man Who Sold The World', David Bowie's third studio album, released in 1971 and over time, with Bowie's increased popularity came to be seen as one of his finest and most respected efforts. <
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>Every one of David Bowie's albums, to me and many other fans have a refreshing uniqueness to them, due mostly to the fact that Bowie has tried out so many styles (i.e. folk, glam rock, electronic sounds) during his career. `The Man Who Sold The World' is no exception and this is essentially, Bowie's hard rock, predominantly guitar-based album. This shift in sound, which was far heavier than his early work was due more than anything to the arrival of guitar genius Mick Ronson who, just to note hails from my home town of Kingston Upon Hull in England! Teaming up with the rest of Bowie's backing band, Mick Woodmansey (drums), Tony Visconti (bass) and Ralph Mace (synthesizer), Ronson's commanding guitar play was what added the harder rocking element to Bowie's music. `The Man Who Sold The World' is Bowie's first great album and marked the start of a run of top notch music that he would sustain right into the mid-70's and this is in part due to having a guitarist as good as Ronson in his band. This album also marked the start of a number of controversial (at the time!) acts that Bowie was to make during his career. The original album cover (which is the one you get now) depicting Bowie in drag was frowned upon by many at the time and was withdrawn shortly after release and replaced with a black and white cover showing Bowie playing guitar. If you own an original LP with the withdrawn cover, count yourself lucky (especially if you live in England) as they are rare and would fetch a tidy sum if sold, not that you'd want to sell off your Bowie albums of course! <
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>In the past ten or fifteen or so years, the David Bowie album series has undergone a number of remasters. The first of these was the 1990 remaster series which features the original 9 track album and bonus tracks including songs `Moonage Daydream' and the glam styled `Hang On To Yourself'. Since then, an enhanced series of Bowie albums has become available and this is the version you're most likely to find on the CD shop shelf. These new versions have awesome sound quality for the original albums and come with well constructed booklets of lyrics however the enhanced CD's have no bonus tracks featuring like the earlier version. This is a shame because the remasters are excellent and it seems strange that they miss off extras that feature on an earlier version! <
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>`The Man Who Sold The World' is hard rocking in nature but has an essentially dark and troubling undercurrent to it with themes of madness being woven into Bowie's songwriting. The album kicks off with Bowie's timeless epic, `Width of a Circle'. This is one of the picks of the album with some timeless guitar playing from Ronson and a great overall atmosphere to the song, it's a perfect track to begin an album. `All the Madmen' follows this, a particularly dark song where Bowie sings about people who are afflicted by madness and depression. The exit to the track is interesting where Bowie sings in French over a great guitar tune. Next up is `Black Country Rock', another hard rocking song which also has Bowie singing in a Marc Bolan imitative style. `After All' finishes the first half of the album in a very haunting and suspicious style; everything slows down for this one. Opening the second half of the album is `Running Gun Blues'. It is one of the weaker tracks on the album but is still excellent. It has a great, spacey sounding style with Bowie singing in a jovial but haunting style and it builds into a heavy guitar rocker which is a little repetitive in parts. Following from this is `Saviour Machine', a track which some are not to keen on for some reason. I personally think it is excellent; a little experimental with some whirling keyboard usage but it gives the song a great uniqueness. However, things take a little downturn with `She Shook Me Cold'. I have very much a love-hate relationship with this song. The start is just too mingled and over-produced with no real theme however the track is saved by an excellent closing effort on the guitar from Mick Ronson. Next up is the famous song from the album, the title track. The riff is timeless in itself and the droning end to the track is something unique. However, for me, Bowie saved the best till last with this album. `The Supermen' is remarkable, a four minute masterpiece. The wailing singing over some killer bass and guitar work is chilling to say the least and Bowie's vocals are excellent to say the least on this song, as is Ronson's guitar solo mid-way through. <
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>`The Man Who Sold The World' is David Bowie's first classic album in my opinion, even if it is a little flawed on a couple of tracks. Bowie's fusion of hard rock, dark themes and atmospherics is a result to behold and this is deservedly hailed as one of his finest efforts. This is definitely an album to add to your collection, Bowie himself would, after this album move onto other styles, such as glam rock, and so `The Man Who Sold The World' stands as his brilliant one time effort at hard rock music.

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Hard Times
First of all a warning: if you're thinking about buying this album because you reckon The Man Who Sold The World is a great song, forget it. Unlike its predecessor, Space Oddity, this is a rock album (of the hard variety). Bowie, apparently, had little interest in this album once the songs were written and it ended up essentially being guitarist Mick Ronson's album... and don't it show! <
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>However, some of the songs are excellent - Width Of A Circle (whose motif Primal Scream ripped off years later), All The Madmen and the title track are superb songs and Bowie's voice goes into histrionics throughout (particularly in Supermen - probably the weirdest and scariest vocal performance ever committed to vinyl). And After All was probably written after smoking a pound of hash... a song so mellow it nearly isn't there. <
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>All in all, not a bad album, but probably more for fans than the casual listener.

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Essential hard rocking Bowie
Bowies third album is also one of the best of his career. Certainly it's his hardest rocking album due to the guitar pyrotechnics of Mick Ronson and what are essentially the Spiders From Mars minus Trevor Bolder: Mick "Woody" Woodmansey on drums, producer Tony Visconti on bass with help from Ralph Mace on synthesizer. <
>On The Man Who Sold The World Bowie ditches the folk flavored material he favored on his first two albums for a more original hard rock sound, and the difference is mindblowing. Bowie lets his band cut loose and in doing so creates a raw and rocking masterpiece that is ironically as melodic as it is powerful. As soon as you hear the album opener, the 8 minute long Width of a Circle, you know TMWSTW is going to be a winner. Mick Ronson really shines on this complex, yet down and dirty song of spirituality and sex, great lyrics from Bowie. And the album continues strongly from there. From the T.Rex like Black Country Rock to the beautiful title song, The Man Who Sold The World is by turns a dark, joyful, and rocking tour de force. It's solid and strong. With TMWSTW Bowie really came into his own as a song writer. This is the album where the seed of the Ziggy Stardust persona first begins to germinate. Not to be missed.