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22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Dark, Brooding, & Heavy, January 17, 2004
I've heard this album was Bowie's attempt at heavy metal. I'm not sure I agree, but the album is definitely one of his heaviest efforts. This is Bowie's second studio album, & it is strikingly different from his folk-oriented "Space Oddity". Bowie excellently employs legendary glam-rock guitarist Mick Ronson for a blusier, heavier, more distrotion-driven guitar sound."The Man Who Sold the World" (TMWSTW) couldn't have opened with a better piece than "The Width of a Circle". It's a long, segmented song with a variety of tempo changes and it also moves the listener through a plethora of moods. "All the Madmen" is a song about, well, madmen. The eerie wooden whistles add a nice touch of lunacy to the song. "Running Gun Blues" is an all-out rocker about a war vet who comes home & embarks on a shooting spree not unlike the DC sniper incident. "She Shook Me Cold" is a dark, bluesy ditty with obvious lyrics describing a sexual encounter. My favorite song on the album is the conclusion, "The Supermen". It's a lofty, echoing piece about an apparent race of superhumans that existed before time...It reminds me of short stories from H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. The timpani and octave-leaping moans in the background give the song a weird, other-worldly feel. The album cover for TMWSTW is characteristically Bowie, with him sporting a tight fitting, Victorian-era silk dress. He is holding playing cards while reclining on a sofa. It's a feminine image giving off a sense of subtle danger. A drawback to TMWSTW is the sometimes muddy production of the album, thanks to Tony Visconti (maybe he's a bass player first, then a producer...). There are also a few songs like "After All" & "Saviour Machine" that I consider rather weak & forgettable. Overall, if you want a change from Bowie's (*powder-puff*) 80's & 90's material, this is an album to invest in.
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Anguish, Abandonment, And Long, Flowing Hair, February 8, 2000
From the cover, which shows a longhaired Bowie in a full-length dress, reclining on a chaise longue, it is clear that this is no ordinary record. "The Man Who Sold The World" is often cited as being Bowie's "heavy metal" album. It definitely marks a significant departure from the folk influenced sound of his previous album, and without question stands as his first great piece of work. Overall the sound is raw and rather under-produced. Mick Ronson's dazzling guitar work, combined with the eerie sound of a moog synthesiser, and Bowie's pronounced Cockney accent creates an atmosphere that is distinctly, and suitably macabre.The album begins with "Width Of A Circle", a grotesque and disturbing psycho-neurotic fantasy. This eight-minute opener, with its religious and sexual imagery is as phantasmagoric as the works of Hieronymus Bosch or William Blake. Bowie's half brother Terry suffered mental illness and spent most of his life in psychiatric institutions. In "All The Madmen" Bowie provides a rather wry and sinister commentary on mental illness, a theme he would often return to in his career. "After All" with its quasi-music hall "Oh by jingo" refrain was intended to address a generation jaded hippies. 'I've borrowed your time and I'm sorry I called' sings Bowie. "Saviour Machine", a dark, prophetic tale of society's over-dependence on technology, tells of a machine that is bored with the utopia it has helped to create. In a Dostoyevskian act of disassociation, the narrator of "The Man Who Sold The World" meets his doppelganger on the stairs, where he announces "Oh no, not me/I never lost control". "The Supermen" with its overt reference to Neitzsche is almost Wagnerian in feel. On this track Bowie's strained vocals erupt over the ominous beating of drums and monastic chants to chilling effect. With its surreal, stream of consciousness lyrics and wailing guitars, "The Man Who Sold The World" is an unnerving album that flows in places like a grotesque, existential nightmare. But in the end its pain and anguish is only human, all too human.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Bowie's First Classic, October 18, 2006
This is the album where Bowie first hit his stride. After a forgettable and debut and the well-intentioned but lackluster(except for the title track) "Space Oddity" album, Bowie roared back with "The Man Who Sold The World".
After the folky, mod-ish wankery employed on his first two albums, Bowie hit hard with what is easily his heaviest and most challenging album. This album is pretty much straightfoward heavy metal by the standards of 1971, at times sounding more like Black Sabbath than the man who belted out "Space Oddity" two years prior. In fact, considering the small market for metal at the time, this album could very well have served as a strong influence for a number of bands who would define the genre more percisely during the coming years. The guitars are heavy (Mick Ronson destroys on this album)while Bowie sticks mostly to acoustic guitar for ambience (although they are so quiet at times, the album probably would have not suffered without them). The drums are killer, and the bass (played by the album's producer, Tony Visconti) is competent. In fact, the backing band is rumored to be responsible for composing most of the music on this album, leaving the lyrics to Bowie.
The greatness of this album lies in its individual songs, however. "Width of a Circle" is a standout, as is "All the Madmen", "Saviour Machine", "She Shook Me Cold", and pretty much every other song on the album. The title track was famously covered by Nirvana on their "Unplugged" set years ago...they did the song more than justice, but I still perfer the original found here. The lyrics are awesome, and set the precedent for what would be covered by Bowie's later Ziggy Stardust and Thin White Duke personas, with lots of references to Nietchze, Crowely, and supermen.
Keyboards and synthesizers add positively sinister tones to a number of tracks, employed to greatest effect on "She Shook Me Cold" and "Saviour Machine". Surpirisingly, synths and keys are featured very prominitely on this album, a heavy metal album from 1971! (Bowies was several years ahead of his time, here).
A classic album, and the first taste of how awesome Bowie had the potentiol to be. He would spend the rest of the decade cranking out genious albums at an astounding, inhuman pace.
Bowie would never be this heavy again until 'Tin Machine" in '89 (which sucked, incidentally). So, if you want to hear Bowie rocking out at the peak of his abilities, this is pretty much the only place to get it.
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