Welcome to Vinyl Stylus, a blog about good music, and what makes music good.

Here, you'll find Rocks In The Attic - a disc by disc journey through my entire vinyl collection.

In a world full of TV talent shows, greatest hits CDs and manufactured pop, take a stroll through something that's good for your ears and good for your soul.

Saturday, June 23, 2012

Rocks In The Attic #78: David Bowie - ‘Space Oddity’ (1972)

This is a strange album - considered by many to be the first proper Bowie album, this was originally released as David Bowie in 1969, before being repackaged with a different title and released with a different cover in 1972. I have that version - the one with Bowie looking stoned with spiky orange hair on the cover.

I remember being taken to Rock Circus by my parents when I was 8 or 9. Rock Circus was a museum, in Picadilly Circus (hence the name), run by the same people who do Madame Tussauds. Alongside the usual eerie-looking waxworks was a room set up like a small theatre. We took our seats and the first act was Bowie himself doing Space Oddity. In a spacesuit. Revolving around the stage, going upside down and such. Obviously this was just a waxwork, but it looked pretty good - enough to forever stamp that song onto my brain. I think, if memory serves, that Bowie was then followed by The Beatles doing Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and maybe With A Little Help From My Friends. Or maybe The Beatles opened for Bowie, I can’t quite remember.

This isn’t a fantastic album. There are flashes of brilliance, but overall it’s full of hippie nonsense and only a tentative sign of things to come.

Hit: Space Oddity

Hidden Gem: Memory Of A Free Festival

1 comment:

  1. One of his weakest records for sure. It took him a few to get going, Hunky Dory is the first really good one. And then (apart from Young Americans) he doesn't put a foot wrong until Scary Monsters.

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