The Width Of A Circle

This is a very schizophrenic release, with Bowie straddling his previous folkie works, coupled with the heavy metal Man Who Sold The World material. Some of it is embarrassingly bad (Pierrot is completely dispensable), but the live Hype material is worth the price alone, with by far the funkiest best version of Waiting For The Man Bowie ever recorded.I always wondered why Bowie abandoned The Hype, which was an infinitely better band than the Spiders. I chalked it up to his mercurial nature, always reinventing himself and his surrounding musicians. But no, the excellent Apple series 1971: The Year That Changed Everything finally sets the record straight. Ace conman Tony Defries fired Visconti to create his own image of Bowie, presumably out of professional jealousy for Visconti’s talents. One can only imagine how much better Ziggy and the Spiders would have been with Visconti on bass and Wakeman on keys. What is it about greedy bloodsucking managers destroying English musicians? Defries nearly destroyed Bowie, and he DID destroy Mott The Hoople, Allen Klein robbed the Beatles and the Stones blind, and Stan Polley literally killed half the members of Badfinger. I’m sure there are many more I’m missing.Visconti’s manic bass playing and supreme production puts The Man Who Sold The World at the top of my favorite Bowie albums. He certainly was channeling Jack Bruce. So this companion piece gathers the only snippets of remaining Hype material we’ll ever get. Thank God they saw fit to release this. While his remixing of the 50th anniversary releases is occasionally questionable, there’s no questioning his incredible bass skills.1971: The Year That Changed Everything also offers a tantalizing glimpse of Bowie’s Hunky Dory phase, which is also at the top of my Bowie favorites, albeit from a completely different musical direction. Hearing a live version of Changes at Glastonbury makes me hope that the whole set was recorded. The 50th anniversary edition of Hunky Dory may turn out to be even more incredible than Conversation Piece and The Man Who Sold The World. Here’s hoping!

I like the edition, a hard cover with a good booklet.Some rareties, bbc songs, etc... Bowie's fan... you must!!

Some box sets just have the "millionth new found version" of this or that song, and there isn't any real reason to own it. But this is a must for the Bowie collector who likes to follow the progression of his sound from each album to the next. The BBC show on Disc 1 contains some unique arrangements of songs found live elsewhere. Disc 2 has some repeated songs but still each one is unique.THE MAIN AWESOME ATTRACTION IS THE INCLUDED BOOKLET--great photos and insight on the material.

This "Width of a Circle" CD set may be flawed in sound (on disc one) ,...but it allows the listener the pleasure of hearing Bowie's ch-ch-changes just before super-stardom!Yes, Disc one is a 1970 concert that features Mick Ronson on guitar on it's second half songs. The start of his collaboration with David. This concert is flawed in sound , at one moment it fades a bit into a diminished sound....but over all it's a worthwhile listen. Just hearing the show's announcer nudging Bowie about his first two LPs being called "David Bowie" is funny in that a few scant years later they would speak about him more reverentially . The "comedy" section of the set has a few Biff Rose songs including a take on Buzz The Fuzz that messes the lyric a bit and loses a joke because of that. Buzz the Cop pushes his gun in Alice's chest and says ,"This is a bust!" in Biff's version. A cool look at David on the cusp of stardom.DISC 2 has the REAL GOLD here! The "Looking Glass Murders" tracks finds Bowie in his "modern" almost Ziggy voice for what must have been the first time, and it's GREAT to hear these cuts. Then the original versions of the few singles from the era are clear and interesting to hear gathered together .A show from March of 1970 feels to me to be of a David Bowie peaking in his vocal powers . It's just a great tiny set including Waiting For The Man (I think it may really be Waiting For My Man...on the Velvet Underground album?) by Lou Reed,...done before many had taken notice of the VU around the world. The 2020 remixes of some of the single tracks are actually pretty fantastic! Making me think that maybe Holy, Holy and Memory Of a Free Festival should be released to radio now as a promo for this set? Memory of a Free Festival was about the Glastonbury Fair fest Bowie was involved in earlier....and this version flows much better than any I'd heard before...it was obvious that Bowie had a bit of a revelation about the end of an era at that show, and maybe felt himself change too.So,...for passing fans this may be one to skip. But for anyone looking to experience David's change from a wayward pop dabbler into the star he was with a finger on the social changes occurring in the 1970s ...well, this is something you need to see and hear. Just those few little "Looking Glass Murders" cuts have the feel of an artist finding his voice (in vocal confidence and lyrically too)...and speaking of a loss of innocence ,not only of his own but of an era also.

Been a fan of David Bowie since I was 8/9 years old, but I'm not fan of constant remastered and repackaged stuff just to squeeze a dollar out of us. Having stated that, I love the packaging of this release. Sounds great.David Bowie and Prince are the only two artists I buy "new" stuff from.

It is a classic CD and it has been enjoyable.

As inundated as we’ve been by Bowie reissues and stuff since he left the planet, it’s nice to hear some of these early recordings, especially the Hype music. Most of the material here is from “Space Oddity” but points ahead to the metaloid third album, welcoming Mick Ronson and Marc Bolan. Great book too.

Beautiful 'Man who sold the World' era collection of live BBC material, rare singles, B-sides, and cleaned up Tony Visconti 2020 mixes of Prettiest Star, Holy Holy, Memory of a Free Festival and more that sound amazing! Definetley worth adding to the collection! Recomended!!