I have great affection for this album. It was one of the first Bowie albums I heard, recorded on a cassette tape with Hunky Dory on the other side and given to me by a boy in my A level history class. I can’t remember his name now, but I recall hearing this for the first time and playing both albums over and over again. It’s Bowie’s third studio album and a world away from its predecessor and strikingly different from its follow up. These albums were so different in texture and tone that it felt like hearing a different artist, which is one of the things I’ve loved about Bowie from day one. It’s an unusual album, with a heavy grungy rock guitar sound, twisting blues idioms with glam rock and coming up with something distinctly different. There’s arguably a bit of prog in there too on the opening track Width of a Circle, and then there’s the subject matter, tackling themes such as Nietzsche’s Ubermensch concept (The Supermen), dystopian visions of computers taking over the human race (Saviour Machine), Aleister Crowley occult references (After All), and madness and paranoia (All The Madmen). She Shook Me Cold is pure Led Zeppelin rip-off or homage, as one prefers. On Black Country Rock Bowie emulates Marc Bolan right down to the falsetto wobble in his voice. After All sounds like it would have fit well on his previous psychedelic folk-rock album, David Bowie. And then there’s the title track The Man Who Sold The World, which was never released as a single by Bowie and went almost entirely unnoticed until it was covered by Lulu in 1974. Her version, produced by Bowie and Ronson, actually reached No 3 in the UK charts. And then, twenty years later, this scruffy grunge band called Nirvana sung an acoustic cover of it which propelled it to a whole new audience. FOR FULL REVIEW & PLAYLIST CLICK LINK IN BIO #davidbowie @davidbowie #themanwhosoldtheworld #thewidthofacircle #allthemadmen #sheshookmecold #vinyl #recordcollection #recordstoreday #nowlistening #nowplaying #randomrecordreview https://www.instagram.com/p/CEcNc_6pel8/?igshid=1xi3xzghx5d5z
