The man who sold the world. An analysis of David Bowie’s “The Man Who Sold the World”

The Man Who Sold the World was originally better received by music critics in the US than in the UK Retrieved 2 March 2021 — via Rock's Backpages subscription required
Then, at the last possible moment, Bowie would reluctantly uncurl himself from the sofa on which he was lounging with his wife, and dash off a set of lyrics A blues rock and hard rock song, Bowie impersonates in his vocal performance

The Man Who Sold the World (song)

He performed the song during his tour, including at the BBC Radio Theatre in London and at the.

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The Man Who Sold the World (song)
The disquieting aspects of this are amplified by being placed upon a musical chordal structure that is just as disturbing as the underlying philosophical ideas
An analysis of David Bowie’s “The Man Who Sold the World”
Beyond this, the episode is unexplained: as James E
An analysis of David Bowie’s “The Man Who Sold the World”
In a review for , Erlewine complimented its "tight, twisted heavy guitar rock that appears simple on the surface but sounds more gnarled upon each listen"
Music publications and originally found The Man Who Sold the World "surprisingly excellent" and "rather hysterical", respectively The 1971 German release's artwork presented a winged hybrid creature with Bowie's head and a hand for a body, preparing to flick the Earth away
The Man Who Sold the World: David Bowie and the 1970s Spitz compares the song's blues style to Led Zeppelin, while O'Leary and Pegg write that Ronson was attempting to emulate Cream's

An analysis of David Bowie’s “The Man Who Sold the World”

Bowie has performed the song on numerous occasions.

The Man Who Sold the World (song)
Nirvana's cover received considerable airplay on radio stations and was also placed into heavy rotation on , peaking at number 3 on MTV's most played videos on 18 February 1995; it also peaked for two weeks at number 7 on Canada's in March 1995
The Man Who Sold the World (album)
No-one writes chord changes like that
The Man Who Sold the World (album)
Bowie performed the track live later in his career in different renditions than the original, including in a darker style during 1995's ; a studio recording of the tour's arrangement appeared as a B-side in 1995
The critical success of the album in the US prompted Mercury to send Bowie on a promotional radio tour of the country in February 1971 Retrospectively, the album has been praised by critics for the band's performance and the unsettling nature of its music and lyrics, being considered by many to be the start of Bowie's "classic period"
Drawing on styles, he depicted a dreary main entrance block to the hospital with a damaged clock tower

An analysis of David Bowie’s “The Man Who Sold the World”

He again rerecorded the song in an acoustic arrangement in 1996 for the documentary ChangesNowBowie; this version was released in 2020 on the digital version of the EP and on the album ChangesNowBowie.

An analysis of David Bowie’s “The Man Who Sold the World”
Additionally, the liner notes incorrectly listed the personnel for "Lightning Frightening" as those who played with Bowie during the Space Oddity period, when in fact the personnel were members of the sessions proto-group
The Man Who Sold the World (album)
Reviewing for in February 1971, called the album "uniformly excellent" and commented that Visconti's "use of echo, phasing, and other techniques on Bowie's voice
An analysis of David Bowie’s “The Man Who Sold the World”
On 4 January 2020, the surviving members of Nirvana again teamed up with Beck on vocals and on guitar to perform the song at a charity event for 's annual Heaven gala