SPACE ODDITY was originally released as MAN OF WORDS, MAN OF MUSIC on Mercury in 1969.
SPACE ODDITY is an Enhanced audio CD which contains regular audio tracks and multimedia computer files.
Personnel: David Bowie (vocals, 12-string guitar, organ, stylophone, kalimba); Keith Christmas (acoustic guitar); Tim Renwick, Mick Wayne (guitar); Paul Buckmaster (cello); Tony Visconti (flute, recorder, bass); Benny Marshall and Friends (harmonica); Rick Wakeman (electric harpsichord, Mellotron); John Lodge, Herbie Flowers (bass); Terry Cox, John Cambridge (drums).
Producers: Gus Dudgeon, Tony Visconti.
Engineers: Ken Scott, Malcolm Toft, Barry Sheffield.
Digitally remastered by Peter Mew & Nigel Reeve (1999, Abbey Road Studios, London, England).
This is an Enhanced CD, which contains both regular audio tracks and multimedia computer files.
SPACE ODDITY was the first record on which David Bowie looked and sounded like the Bowie whom the world has come to know. One glance at the spooky, androgynous face that adorns the record was enough to signal that the Anthony Newley-influenced, light-pop singer who sang the novelty number "The Laughing Gnome" a few years earlier was a thing of the past. Leaving behind the mannered, English music hall-isms of his initial recordings, Bowie roughened up the sound, creating a ragged, eclectic mix of folk and rock tinged with electronic sounds. The record yielded his first American hit, and began the singer's soon-to-be meteoric rise to international rock icon-hood.
The title track, a sci-fi mini-epic, is an enduring classic in which Bowie squeezes every bit of drama from both his dour low range and the soaring upper reaches of his voice. Even after decades of continued airplay, "Space Oddity" is surprising for its intricate arrangement, nifty guitar playing, and palpable sense of interplanetary estrangement. Other fine and lesser-known musical moments include the sublimely subdued "Letter to Hermione," and the sprawling and strange "Memory of a Free Festival."

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