David Bowie - The Man Who Sold the World

I think I’ve already mentioned how many people I knew in school that hated David Bowie because he was supposed to be this evil gay guy.  Now, I wasn’t some enlightened, way ahead of my time middle class white teenage boy.  I’m sure I was a complete asshole to people on more than one occasion.  Because I think empathy is something you learn, not something you just have.  When I had a tutor for math that was a teacher with a “roommate” is when I first figured out I knew someone that was really, actually gay.  I mentioned it to my parents (thinking I could get out of math tutoring) and I found out that my parents knew, didn’t care and had nothing but respect and admiration for the teacher that was my tutor.  In fact, the guy was on my dad’s bowling team.  So I was told at a pretty early age to get over myself.  So I think I did.  As I get older I think I get better at understanding other people’s problems.

Back then, I used to hang out at a friend’s almost every day.  I slept there as much as I slept at home, and we spent a lot of time listening to music.  One of the cool things was that his dad had a night job as a janitor in an office building.  Yeah, you’re thinking, “what’s so cool about that?”  Well, Capitol Records had an office there, that’s what!  My friend’s dad had a good memory and remembered a lot of artists I used to tell him I liked, and the dude came home with stacks of promo records and posters all the time.  I didn’t get to keep the records because it was my friend’s dad, after all.  I got several posters, and my friend and I put posters up over every square inch of his room.  We thought it looked really, really cool.

One of the records in my friend’s bin was David Bowie's The Man Who Sold the World.  It was the one with the black and white cover.  This was probably one of the first Bowie albums I ever heard, and they played very little of it on the radio, even here in Cleveland.  They did play a little, mostly late at night.  WMMS took all the credit for breaking Bowie in the US (Rush, Springsteen outside of the Jersey Shore, Alex Harvey and Roxy Music were all claimed WMMS’ own, too).  I remember I really loved The Width of a Circle (still do) and I thought Black Country Rock and All the Madmen were fantastic as well.  The title track did get a little play on WMMS, and I know Nirvana laid claim to it (Kurt did a great job on it).  But I remember playing this album and some people just looking at me like I was goofy or something.  I never really thought this was such a weird record, but as I’m listening to it right now, I guess it kind of is.  After All is some strange stuff, but I think I really thought it was more mature than weird.  I don’t know if I agree with that assessment these days, but I really wanted to be older than I was when I was a kid, which is funny, because I don’t want to be older now, nor do I want to be younger.  I’m good with what I am and I just want to be happy.

And lemme tell ya, The Man Who Sold the World makes me very happy.  Running Gun Blues is super cool.  The Width of a Circle is still one of my favorite songs, and Saviour Machine is one of those songs that as I’ve gotten older I’ve really grown to appreciate.  I think Saviour Machine’s kind of cheesy keyboards could have wrecked everything, but they don’t.  They’re dated, yeah, but so is the whole album.  The Man Who Sold the World is definitely a product of its time, but that’s okay with me.  I don’t need everything to be timeless or even a step forward.  Just being good is good enough, ya know?

I mean, the sleaziness of She Shook Me Cold never really goes out of style, does it?  If it has for you, you should probably rethink your style, because this is some cool, heavy stuff.  Mick Ronson has such a great sound all over this record, and Bowie’s lyrics are both dumb and perfect.  I think that’s something Bowie does really well, dumb and perfect lyrics.  He gazed a gazely stare and strange fascinations fascinate me are inane things to say, but when Bowie sings them it’s okay.  Hey, it could be a lot worse!  I can also remember that when I actually got to hear The Supermen on the radio I’d be pretty excited.  I like the way the tension builds and fades in that song.  It’s like it’s stretchy music, and I can really get behind stretchy music.

The other thing about this record is that there’s multiple covers.  Not cover songs, but album covers.  The original has Bowie wearing a dress.  I guess in 1970 that was as bad as having an anatomically correct dog body on a Bowie drawing a few years later.  So they came out with the black and white cover, I think.  I’ve got another cover, like a comic or cartoon.  That one has been widely faked!  I was really worried after I bought one not too long ago because it was a good price and it’s a cool cover.  But I checked and mine’s the real deal (I guess the matrix numbers aren’t stamped on the fakes, and mine are stamped).  Sound wise, I could probably look for a more perfect record because mine’s been loved by me for a long time, but I think I’m good.  I’ve got the Rykodisc cd and the black and white and comic covers, so I probably have enough.  The Rykodisc is an excellent sounding cd, with some bonus tracks that don’t matter much.  Both of my records play with a little noise on them, but it’s not very noticeable.  I think for a record I dragged around to parties, the black and white cover one I have is pretty nice, actually!