DAVID BOWIE "THE MAN WHO SOLD THE WORLD" (UNOFFICAL VERSION) EX/NM- OOP LP

$

23

THREE YEARS AGO I LOST ONE OF MY BEST FRIENDS TO CANCER, HE WAS A COOL MUSICIAN A DRUMMER BY TRADE, ORIGINALLY FROM SEATTLE, BUT RELOCATED TO L.A. IN 1985, HE AMASSED A VERY LARGE MUSIC COLLECTION, AND HAD KILLER TASTE FOR ROCK & ROLL, SADLY I AM SELLING OFF A LOT OF HIS COLLECTION ON BEHALF OF HIS WIDOW TO HELP PAY OFF DEBTS INCLUDING BILLS, TAXES AND STORAGE UNIT FEES. I AM NOT TAKING ANYTHING FOR THIS SERVICE, DOING IT FOR MY FRIEND (MISS YOU DAVE!). THIS ITEM IS FROM HIS COLLECTION.

THE PHOTO'S MAY BE A LITTLE BLURRY, HAVE A LITTLE GLARE, SOME REFLECTIONS OR IN SOME CASES YOU MAY SEE SPECKS OF DUST. BUT THE PHOTO'S ARE OF THE ACTUAL ITEM YOU ARE BIDDING ON. I DO COMBINE SHIPPING. BUT I DO NOT ACCEPT “BEST OFFERS”, THE MONIES GO TO MY FRIENDS WIDOW.

THESE ARE VISUALLY & PLAY GRADED. LET ME REITERATE I DO NOT TAKE “BEST OFFERS”.

ARTISTS: DAVID BOWIE

TITLE: “THE MAN WHO SOLD THE WORLD” (COUNTERFEIT COPY)

TRACK LISTING (SEE PHOTOS & BELOW):

A1

The Width Of A Circle

8:07

A2

All The Madmen

5:38

A3

Black Country Rock

3:33

A4

After All

3:52

B1

Running Gun Blues

3:12

B2

Saviour Machine

4:27

B3

She Shook Me Cold

4:13

B4

The Man Who Sold The World

3:58

B5

The Supermen

3:39

Companies, etc.

• Published By – P.R.S.

• Recorded At – Trident Studios

• Recorded At – Advision Studios

• Remixed At – Trident Studios

Credits

• Drums – Mick Woodmansey

• Electric Bass, Producer, Piano, Guitar – Tony Visconti

• Engineer – Ken*

• Executive-Producer – Robin McBride

• Guitar – Mick Ronson

• Synthesizer [Moog] – Ralph Mace

• Vocals, Guitar, Written-By – David Bowie

Notes

Counterfeit of the original US Mercury edition of the album, see David Bowie - The Man Who Sold The World.

This version has simple etched matrices, with the text base oriented toward the grooves (see images). Artwork is identical to the counterfeit linked below.

For the counterfeit with more elaborate matrices (SR- prefix, M1 or M2 suffix), and with the text base oriented toward the label, please see David Bowie - The Man Who Sold The World

Not dated but it is fair to speculate pressed sometime post-1972 when Bowie was becoming more well known.
The country is also unknown but judging by the sleeve construction probably USA. There are said to be many more bootlegs of this album than real copies as it sold very few on release.

The bootleg is a very faithful reproduction of the original and appears almost exactly identical except for three prominent differences:
1- the matrix # is hand-scratched, NOT machine stamped
2- about 2 seconds of music is missing from All The Madmen, there is a jump cut which misses out the words 'all the same as' from the line 'For I'm quite content they're all the same as me' from the end of the second chorus. Someone who had not heard the album before would probably not notice this edit. This is not a skip it is quite smoothly done and sounds like a tape edit. Apart from this omission the music is of a professional sounding quality.
3 - The rear cover speech bubble "Oh by jingo" on an authentic Mercury cover is positioned very close under the lyrics above it (below the lyric "So softly a supergod cries (second times dies)"). On counterfeits, the speech bubble is almost three line spaces below.

All Selections published by PRS. Ltd (ASCAP)
Recorded at Trident Studios and Advision Studios, London, England
Remixed at Trident Studios, London, England
Many thanks to our engineer, Ken.

Barcode and Other Identifiers

• Matrix / Runout (Side A, etched): 61325 - A

• Matrix / Runout (Side B, etched): 61325 - B

• Rights Society: ASCAP
  

LABEL: “MERCURY” RECORDS

CAT. #: SR-61325

YEAR: 1970

RECORD CONDITION: THE RECORD IS IN EX/EX- CONDITION. NO VISIBLE WEAR, SCRATCHES, LINES, BLEMS ETC. BOTH LABELS ARE IN EXCELLENT CONDITION. NICE SHINEY BLACK LUSTER TO THE VINYL.THE SONGS PLAY SUPER CLEAN. THERE'S SOME VERY VERY LIGHT BACKGROUDN SOUND ON THE LEAD IN GROOVES, SONGS PLAY GREAT.

SLEEVE CONDITION: THE JACKET IS IN VG+/EX- CONDITION THERE'S NO WRITING ON THE JACKET. STRAIGHT EDGES, NO WRITING, TEARS, WRINKLES OR SEAM SPLITS, ETC.ETC. SMALL PINHOLE LOWER LEFT CORNER (SEE PHOTO) ALSO THE TOP EDGE HAS A BIT OF A “RIDGE” AS YOU CAN SEE FROM THE PHOTO.

MORE INFO: THIS RECORD IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT. THANK YOU DISCOGS FOR POINTING OUT TO ME THAT THIS INDEED A COUNTERFEIT LP, IT HAS THE HAND ETCHED MATRIX #, AND THE OTHER WARNING SIGNS, BUT IT'S COOL AND PLAYS GREAT

MORE ON THE ARTIST & RELEASE:

David Robert Jones (8 January 1947 – 10 January 2016), known professionally as David Bowie ] was an English singer-songwriter and actor. He was a leading figure in the music industry and is considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, acclaimed by critics and musicians, particularly for his innovative work during the 1970s. His career was marked by reinvention and visual presentation, with his music and stagecraft having a significant impact on popular music. During his lifetime, his record sales, estimated at over 100 million records worldwide, made him one of the world's best-selling music artists. In the UK, he was awarded ten platinum album certifications, eleven gold and eight silver, and released eleven number-one albums. In the US, he received five platinum and nine gold certifications. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996.

Born in Brixton, South London, Bowie developed an interest in music as a child, eventually studying art, music and design before embarking on a professional career as a musician in 1963. "Space Oddity" became his first top-five entry on the UK Singles Chart after its release in July 1969. After a period of experimentation, he re-emerged in 1972 during the glam rock era with his flamboyant and androgynous alter ego Ziggy Stardust. The character was spearheaded by the success of his single "Starman" and album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, which won him widespread popularity. In 1975, Bowie's style shifted radically towards a sound he characterised as "plastic soul", initially alienating many of his UK devotees but garnering him his first major US crossover success with the number-one single "Fame" and the album Young Americans. In 1976, Bowie starred in the cult film The Man Who Fell to Earth, directed by Nicolas Roeg, and released Station to Station. The following year, he further confounded musical expectations with the electronic-inflected album Low (1977), the first of three collaborations with Brian Eno that came to be known as the "Berlin Trilogy". "Heroes" (1977) and Lodger (1979) followed; each album reached the UK top five and received lasting critical praise.

After uneven commercial success in the late 1970s, Bowie had UK number ones with the 1980 single "Ashes to Ashes", its parent album Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), and "Under Pressure", a 1981 collaboration with Queen. He reached his commercial peak in 1983 with Let's Dance; the album's title track topped both UK and US charts. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Bowie continued to experiment with musical styles, including industrial and jungle. He also continued acting; his roles included Major Jack Celliers in Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983), Jareth the Goblin King in Labyrinth (1986), Pontius Pilate in The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), and Nikola Tesla in The Prestige (2006), among other film and television appearances and cameos. He stopped touring after 2004 and his last live performance was at a charity event in 2006. In 2013, Bowie returned from a decade-long recording hiatus with The Next Day. He remained musically active until he died of liver cancer at his home in New York City, two days after his 69th birthday and the release of his final album, Blackstar (2016).

The Man Who Sold the World is the third studio album by English rock singer-songwriter David Bowie. It was originally released by Mercury Records in the United States in November 1970] and in April 1971, with different artwork, in the United Kingdom. The album was reissued by RCA Records in 1972 used a black-and-white picture of Ziggy Stardust as the artwork, but subsequent reissues since 1990 have used the original UK cover as the official artwork.

The album was produced by Tony Visconti and recorded at Trident Studios and Advision Studios in London. Following the largely acoustic and folk rock sound of his previous 1969 self-titled album, The Man Who Sold the World marked a shift toward hard rock. The lyrics are also darker than his previous releases, exploring themes of insanity, religious themes, technology, and war commentary. None of the songs from the album were released as official singles, although some tracks appeared as B-sides to other songs between 1970 and 1973.

Upon release, The Man Who Sold the World performed well critically and commercially in the US but not as well in the UK. Retrospectively, the album has been praised for the band's performance and the unsettling nature of its music and lyrics. Multiple critics have since considered the album to be the start of Bowie's "classic period". The album has since been remastered in 1999 and in 2015 as part of the box set Five Years (1969–1973).

Writing and recording

The album was written and rehearsed at David Bowie's home in Haddon Hall, Beckenham, an Edwardian mansion converted to a block of flats that was described by one visitor as having an ambiance "like Dracula's living room". As Bowie was preoccupied with his new wife Angie at the time, the music was largely arranged by guitarist Mick Ronson and bassist/producer Tony Visconti. Although Bowie is officially credited as the composer of all music on the album, biographer Peter Doggett quoted Visconti saying "the songs were written by all four of us. We'd jam in a basement, and Bowie would just say whether he liked them or not." In Doggett's narrative, "The band (sometimes with Bowie contributing guitar, sometimes not) would record an instrumental track, which might or might not be based upon an original Bowie idea. Then, at the last possible moment, Bowie would reluctantly uncurl himself from the sofa on which he was lounging with his wife, and dash off a set of lyrics." Despite his annoyance with Bowie's fixation on married life during the recording of The Man Who Sold the World, Visconti still rated it as his best work with Bowie until 1980's Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps).

Bowie himself was quoted in a 1998 interview as saying "I really did object to the impression that I did not write the songs on The Man Who Sold the World. You only have to check out the chord changes. No-one writes chord changes like that". "The Width of a Circle" and "The Supermen", for example, were already in existence before the sessions began] Ralph Mace played a Moog modular synthesizer borrowed from George Harrison; Mace was a 40-year-old concert pianist who was also head of the classical music department at Mercury Records.

Music and lyrics

The Man Who Sold the World was a departure from the largely acoustic music of Bowie's second album.According to music critic Greg Kot, it marked Bowie's change of direction into hard rock. Much of the album has a distinct heavy metal edge that distinguishes it from Bowie's other releases, and has been compared to contemporary acts such as Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath.The record also provided some unusual musical detours, such as the title track's use of Latin rhythms to hold the melody.

The album's subject matter also had a quality of heaviness, exploring themes of insanity ("All the Madmen"), gun-toting assassins and Vietnam War commentary ("Running Gun Blues"), an omniscient computer ("Saviour Machine"), Lovecraftian Elder Gods ("The Supermen"), and, in "The Width of a Circle", a sexual encounter – with God, the Devil or some other supernatural being, according to different interpretations – in the depths of Hell.The album has also been seen as reflecting the influence of such figures as Aleister Crowley, Franz Kafka and Friedrich Nietzsche.

Cover artwork

The original 1970 US release of The Man Who Sold the World employed a cartoon-like cover drawing by Bowie's friend Michael J. Weller, featuring a cowboy in front of the Cane Hill mental asylum.[16] Weller, whose friend was a patient there, suggested the idea after Bowie had asked him to create a design that would capture the music's foreboding tone. Drawing on pop art styles, he depicted a dreary main entrance block to the hospital with a damaged clock tower. For the design's foreground, he used a photograph of John Wayne to draw a cowboy figure wearing a ten-gallon hat and a rifle, which was meant as an allusion to the song "Running Gun Blues". Bowie suggested Weller incorporate the "exploding head" signature on the cowboy's hat, a feature he had previously used on his posters while a part of the Arts Lab. He also added an empty speech balloon for the cowboy figure, which was intended to have the line "roll up your sleeves and show us your arms"—a pun on record players, guns, and drug use—but Mercury found the idea too risqué and the balloon was left blank. According to Bowie biographer Nicholas Pegg, "at this point, David's intention was to call the album Metrobolist, a play on Fritz Lang's Metropolis: the title would remain on the tape boxes even after Mercury had released the LP in America as The Man Who Sold the World."

Bowie was enthusiastic about the finished design, but soon reconsidered the idea and had the art department at Philips Records, a subsidiary of Mercury, enlist photographer Keith MacMillan to shoot an alternate cover. The shoot took place in a "domestic environment" of the Haddon Hall living room, where Bowie reclined on a chaise longue in a cream and blue satin "man's dress", an early indication of his interest in exploiting his androgynous appearance.The dress was designed by British fashion designer Michael Fish. It has been said that his "bleached blond locks, falling below shoulder level" in the photo, were inspired by a Pre-Raphaelite painting by Dante Gabriel Rossetti.[In the United States, Mercury rejected MacMillan's photo and released the album with Weller's design as its cover, much to the displeasure of Bowie, although he successfully lobbied the label to use the photo for the record's release in the United Kingdom. In 1972, he said Weller's design was "horrible" but reappraised it in 1999, saying he "actually thought the cartoon cover was really cool".

While promoting The Man Who Sold the World in the US, Bowie wore the Mr Fish dress in February 1971 on his first promotional tour and during interviews, despite the fact that the Americans had no knowledge of the as yet unreleased UK cover. The 1971 German release presented a winged hybrid creature with Bowie's head and a hand for a body, preparing to flick the Earth away. The 1972 worldwide reissue by RCA Records used a black-and-white picture of Ziggy Stardust on the sleeve. This image remained the cover art on reissues until 1990, when the Rykodisc release reinstated the UK "dress" cover. The "dress" cover has appeared on subsequent reissues of the album.

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PLEASE PAY FOR ALL ITEMS WITHIN 5 DAYS, OR MESSAGE ME TO EXPLAIN WHY YOU CAN’T,(IF YOU ARE BIDDING OR PLAN TO BID ON OTHER ITEMS) I WILL DO A ONE WEEK WAIT FROM THE DATE OF THE END OF THE FIRST AUCTION WIN, TO COMBINE SHIPPING ON ITEMS, AFTER THAT I NEED PAYMENT IN FULL AND WILL MAIL OUT THE ITEMS , EVEN IF YOU ARE BIDDING ON OTHERS, THUS BEGINS A NEW BILLING/SHIPPING CYCLE. THIS CASH FLOW IS MY SOURCE OF INCOME FOR PAYING RENT/BILLS, ETC. IF YOU HAVE WON AN ITEM AND I DO NOT HEAR FROM YOU ONE WAY OR THE OTHER WITHIN 7 DAYS I WILL OPEN AN “UNPAID ITEM CASE”, IN ORDER TO FREE UP THE ITEM FOR A POSSIBLE RE-LISTING OR A “SECOND CHANCE OFFER”. PLEASE WHEN YOU WIN AN ITEM TRY AND PAY FOR IT IN A TIMELY FASHION OR LET ME KNOW YOU ARE LOOKING AT OTHER ITEMS I HAVE LISTED, I MAIL ITEMS OUT WITHIN TWO WORKING DAYS ONCE PAYMENT IS RECEIVED. DO NOT ASK FOR ITEM TO ME MARKED “GIFT” ON CUSTOMS FORMS, INTERNATIONAL BUYERS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR ALL DUTIES AND CUSTOMS FEE’S! CHECK WITH YOUR POST OFFICE, I WILL NOT PAY THEM.

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