Author: Peter Podbrežnik
Artist: Bowie, David
Label: Mercury Records
Released: 1970
Length: 40:37
Rating: 4/5
On his third studio outing, »The Man Who Sold the World«, the great musical genius David Bowie did what he’d do so often in his magnificent career: he ‘chameleon-ed’ his way into a new sound, waving goodbye to the acoustic-leaning prog folk rock and psychedelia that marked his previous album, »David Bowie« a.k.a. »Space Oddity« (1969). Part of the reason for the shift was that his friend and occasional musical rival Marc Bolan (T. Rrex) had just turned from an acoustic-psychedelic dreamer into a fiery glam rocker. Bowie had no intention of being left behind, but he pulled off his next sonic evolution in a way entirely his own. He kept a close eye on the music trends of the day and ‘kneaded’ them according to his own recipe. In 1970, hard rock was at the top of the heap for rock fans, led by the likes of Black Sabbath, Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin, and that left a decisive mark on David’s new direction.
»The Man Who Sold the World« matters above all because it’s where Bowie first started working actively with the members of his backing band The Spiders from Mars, led by the immensely talented guitarist Mick Ronson. That shaped the album’s style, which was an almost total about-face into electric-guitar hard rock with touches of blues, glam and art rock. Compared to the dreamy psychedelic/folk-rock feel of »Space Oddity«, it was a real sonic shake-up. Rounding out Bowie’s band at the time were drummer Mick Woodmansey and producer/bassist Tony Visconti. Visconti was replaced on bass shortly after the album came out by Trevor Bolder, who later built himself a fine musical career as a member of the legendary Uriah Heep.
Ronson’s energetic, dynamic electric-guitar passages dominate »The Man Who Sold the World« so much that some even hailed it as a fine example of early heavy metal, though hard rock would be the more fitting label. Ronson and Visconti teamed up with David, who was busy with his brand-new wife Angie at the time, and were key to writing the arrangements.
The album also drew some attention for its cover, where Bowie, who kept changing his look as much as his sound and was starting to open the door to his later glam rock era, is dressed in women’s clothes. For the time, that was of course a pretty provocative move, and it especially riled up America’s self-appointed guardians of public morals. For the US market, the cover was swapped out for some second-rate scrawl. So »The Man Who Sold the World« is where Bowie’s teasing about his sexuality began, and the androgynous-looking man gave the conservative public of the day plenty of gray hairs, especially during his glam rock era, even if years later he revealed that he was heterosexual and, indirectly, regretted making such a ‘circus’ out of it in the seventies.
»The Man Who Sold The World« had a much gloomier, more ambient tone than its predecessor, matching the punchier nature of the individual arrangements, while the lyrics leaned even harder than before on dystopian themes like paranoia, alienation, schizophrenia and the dangers of runaway scientific progress. Four tracks stand out for quality: »The Width of a Cricle«, »All the Madmen«, the title track and »The Supermen«. The new, hard-hitting style shines through already on the opening hybrid of hard rock and rhythm and blues, »The Width of a Circle«, which features Ronson’s fiery electric-guitar artistry, led by a superb solo, while the enigmatic lyrics revolve around a sexual encounter with an angelic or demonic woman, inside heaven or hell. Even better has the test of time passed »All the Madmen«, crowned with a gothic mood, which ranks among Bowie’s early masterpieces and at the same time the hardest-edged works of his career, built as it is on uncompromising guitar passages, a moog modular synth courtesy of Ralph Mace and Woodmansey’s massive drum fills. The transitions into three-part harmonies work especially well, deepening the dramatic message about the depths of human madness.
»Black Country Rock« is a positivist blues rocker that stands in sharp contrast to the gloomy mood running through the album, and it’s stylistically quite close to certain T. Rex exploits, mainly thanks to Bowie’s altered, unusual way of singing, which here sounds a lot like Marc Bolan’s usual vocal approach. The darker »After All«, where Bowie again toys with Nietzsche’s idea of the ‘superman’ along with occult undertones, may even be the strangest experiment on the whole album and one of the few tracks on it with a psychedelic nature. »Running Gun Blues«, which clearly pokes fun at American gun ‘culture’, is a sharp-tongued blues rocker with a punchy guitar riff, harmonica and an almost goofy vocal approach from David.
On the dramatic prog/hard rocker »Saviour Machine«, woven through with punchy guitar passages and futuristic moog modular sounds, Bowie touches on yet another dystopian idea, in which computer artificial intelligence takes over from humans in the near future. It’s one of the few tracks of David’s career where he moved stylistically close to progressive rock in the vein of Genesis. »She Shook Me Cold« is another hard rocker in the style of Led Zeppelin, with plenty of sexual references in the lyrics, and it was more than obviously structured around a group instrumental jam. After this less inspired moment comes the unforgettable title track, which stands out for its ‘spacey’ mood, backed by a distinctive guitar riff and a romantic central arrangement. Here Bowie wonderfully weaves together elements of glam rock, psychedelia and art rock to create an exceptionally intense atmosphere, while the lyrics deal with schizophrenia, or a split personality, including an imaginary double, yet another of Bowie’s favorite themes.
The hard rock classic »The Supermen« is deservedly the best-known track on the album, even though it only made a bigger splash a few years later, when it was re-recorded at the height of David’s success in the middle of the glam rock era. Its lyrics draw inspiration from the works of H.P. Lovecraft about the ‘Great Old Ones’ (a special breed of eerie beings from another dimension), further heightened by dramatic vocal harmonies in the background, while the mighty chorus pushes the all-pervading dystopian atmosphere to the extreme. According to Bowie, the central guitar riff for »The Supermen« was a gift from Jimmy Page.
With »The Man Who Sold the World«, the hardest-hitting record of his career, Bowie, already eyeing his next sonic shift, took the first big step toward the glam rock era and shaped the core of his most successful backing band along the way. With the new, ‘electrified’ sound he also made a huge leap forward compared to »Space Oddity«, kicking off the classic period that many fans rate as his best. On home turf in Britain, »The Man Who Sold the World« didn’t achieve any great commercial breakthrough, but it still became Bowie’s first album to make a mark on the American charts. Just a year later David created his first studio masterpiece and wrote his name in gold letters among the greatest music icons of the 20th and 21st centuries.
This review is dedicated to the memory of David Bowie (1947-2016).
Lineup
David Bowie – vocals, guitar, stylophone, saxophone
Mick Ronson – guitar, backing vocals
Tony Visconti – bass guitar, piano, guitar, recorder, production, backing vocals
Mick Woodmansey – drums, percussion
Ralph Mace – Moog modular synthesizer
Production
Tony Visconti
Track list
1. The Width of a Circle (8:05)
2. All the Madmen (5:38)
3. Black Country Rock (3:32)
4. After All (3:51)
5. Running Gun Blues (3:11)
6. Saviour Machine (4:25)
7. She Shook Me Cold (4:13)
8. The Man Who Sold the World (3:55)
9. The Supermen (3:38)
