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David Bowie – Metrobolist (2020 Remix of The Man Who Sold The World)

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What does it sound like?:

In 1970, you’d have thought David Bowie would be doing everything he could to impress his new employer, Mercury. He’d been in danger of becoming a one-hit wonder with Space Oddity. His follow up singles were flops. His audition for the label was whimsical and folky, in keeping with much of the other music on his 1969 album. He’d won the contract by the skin of his teeth but allowed himself to become embroiled in the complexities of changing his manager. Ken Pitt had stood by him when most others looked away but Bowie was smitten by fast-talking American, Tony Defries. The transfer was protracted and distracting and one he would rue for decades. He was smitten in another way, newly married to Angie, who was keen to spend most of her day in bed or in antique shops. Bowie enthusiastically indulged her. He had two trusted lieutenants to look after the music, one longer standing, Tony Visconti, and one new, Mick Ronson. If Visconti is to be believed, Bowie was either absent or spent most of the recording time lounging about. The album he delivered is an album of extremes with no singles and heavy both musically and lyrically, entirely different to the album that preceded it and the one before that. The record company executives were not pleased, especially when they looked at the sales figures towards the end of 1971.

Mick Ronson was a real find for Bowie, a gifted musician and arranger. As a child he learnt recorder, piano and violin. He settled on guitar because walking around Hull with a violin case attracted unwanted attention. From painting rugby pitches in the cold and damp of Yorkshire, he suddenly found himself in a state-of-the-art studio at Trident, free to indulge his fantasy of being in a power trio, specifically Cream, with his mate Woody Woodmansey on drums. He encouraged Visconti to play like Jack Bruce and whacked his bass up to eleven. Bowie was receptive, too. He had a couple of songs already but was content to throw his trio some chord changes, let them work up the instrumental parts and add his vocals later.

The result is unique in the Bowie canon musically but the lyrics, across just nine songs, tell us a great deal about what was on his mind at the time. In his head was lots of sex, some of it homoerotic, madness, self-harm, an imminent apocalypse, a wrestle with the devil, childhood nightmares, murderous ex military, controlling computers breaking down, death, the after-life, super beings and Marc Bolan. Always a voracious reader, there are direct references to Jack Kerouac – On The Road, R.D. Laing – The Politics of Experience, Friedrich Nietzsche – Thus Spake Zarathustra & Beyond Good And Evil, Aleister Crowley – The Book Of The Law, Hughes Mearns – Antigonish, Robert Heinlein – The Man Who Sold The Moon, Joseph Conrad – The Secret Sharer, Isaac Asimov – Foundation series,Theodore Sturgeon – More Than Human and H.P. Lovecraft – The Call Of Cthulhu. When finally called upon to sing, all this came pouring out, one set of lyrics seeping into another.

The musicians, including Phil Mace on keyboard, mellotron and moog, do well to keep up. They do so by pushing the music further to the extreme. The Width Of A Circle is a gargantuan struggle between good and evil, introducing Ronson in an incredible forty bar solo, with a coda, stretching the song to nearly nine minutes, powerful enough to uproot trees. The duelling recorders on All The Madmen, along with the disturbing middle eight, are a master stroke. The quotations from Richard Strauss’s Also Sprach Zarathustra tympani add portent to The Supermen, matching the Nietzschean lyric. Running Gun Blues is suitably unhinged and Saviour Machine is weird in both structure and delivery. The band also have some fun. She Shook Me Cold is an attempt to out-riff Cream and Ronson almost pulls it off with Visconti matching him. Bowie contributes a ridiculous sex lyric that deserves a cold shower. Black Country Rock, the lightest track on the album, a welcome respite after Width Of A Circle and All The Madmen, is a note perfect piss-take of Marc Bolan, Bowie imitating his vocal style with surprising accuracy and Visconti, Bolan’s then producer, tweaking it to make it even more precise. However, within all the heavy metal, it’s the two gentlest songs that endure. After All is delivered in a whisper but its doom-laden waltz and oh-by-jingo refrain chills to the bone. The mystery of The Man Who Sold The World remains unresolved, its gorgeous melody and Ronson’s simple guitar figure point to endless possibilities.

These working practices did produce nine radically different songs and performances that hang together as an album extraordinarily well. Mercury released it in America first with a cartoon cover by Michael Weller. A John Wayne figure is depicted in front of Cane Hill Hospital where Bowie’s brother Terry Burns spent a lot of time. The label changed the title from Metrobolist, a tribute Fritz Lang, and removed the text “Roll up your sleeves take a look at your arms” from the speech bubble. This 2020 remix restores the original packaging as it was intended, even though Bowie was sufficiently unhappy to reshoot the cover, wearing his infamous blue and cream dress, for the UK edition.

Visconti’s remix is lovingly crafted. He is clearly very fond of this album, probably regarding it as the one he contributed to most in his career. He’s been playing it live with a revived Hype for a number of years. He cleans everything up beautifully and rearranges the sound stage, creating a much better balance and more space for the instruments to be heard. He leaves After All as it was because he doesn’t think he can improve it. He resists the temptation to beef up his own bass and instead focusses on the details. It’s the acoustic guitars, the keyboards and the peculiar vocal sounds that benefit most. Mick Ronson absolutely shines here. The 2020 remix sometimes feels more of a homage to the guitarist than the vocalist. The original strangeness and musical exaggeration are actually enhanced but there is a clearer logic to thinking behind it.

Bowie and Ronson would soon move on to bigger and better things. Visconti was frozen out of Bowie world until Young Americans. Visconti blames his expressed dislike of Defries or Bowie’s habit of leaving his vocals until the very last minute. Ken Scott, Bowie’s next producer, cattily claimed that Visconti was too controlling in the studio and Bowie needed to be allowed to be himself. In the meantime, the album flopped, though it did pick up radio airplay and critical praise in the USA. One wonders why Mercury failed to spot the potential of the title track as a single.

What does it all *mean*?

Metrobolist lands perfectly in a world run by madmen where computer algorithms destroy young lives and a climate crisis threatens to burn us all to a crisp if we manage to survive a pandemic. The album’s eccentricities, wild extremities, anger and disgust fit snugly in 2020. If only we were all having as much sex as Bowie did fifty years ago.

Goes well with…

A dial that goes up to eleven.

Release Date:

Out now

Might suit people who like…

Outrageous, exciting, intriguing, intelligent Rock Music.

6

Comments

  2. Informative as always. Metrobolist originally had a different track order which they should have reproduced on this album, otherwise why bother changing the title? I guess so that somehow it sells more than “The Man Who Sold The World – remix”.

    We are not forced to buy this but I am getting tired of all these posthumous releases and particularly Visconti’s endless revisionism. I am not convinced that Bowie would be on board with all this stuff.

      • This was an early proposed sequencing:

        Side 1:
        The Supermen
        Saviour Machine
        Running Gun Blues
        She Shook Me Cold
        The Man Who Sold The World

        Side 2:
        Black Country Rock
        The Width Of A Circle
        All The Madmen
        After All

        You can re sequence if you like, however, the tapes delivered to Mercury were sequenced as released. Mr Bowie must have changed his mind.

        Give it a listen. I’m sure you’ll both enjoy it.

        • I may do. I only have this on vinyl on picture disc (yet another posthumous offering). Ryko CD sounds reasonable to me though. Really annoys me that they are releasing it in random multiple vinyl colours with some rarer than others with the aim, no doubt, of getting people to buy multiple copies. You don’t know what you get until you open it.

          Again, not forced to do it, but it is fairly crass money making. As is the live series coming out now, where they are selling empty boxes to put the CDs or vinyl in.

        • I’ve given this track sequence a try. It changes the character of the album, starting with a performance that is so over the top you think the whole thing must be a joke! Good fun, though.

          • OK, will try some time on Spotify. Should probably say that I am not a massive fan of the album to begin with. Next one is where he really gets going.

            • The title track is absolutely gorgeous. In my view, it’s one of his best ever songs. Simple but exquisite. How no-one, at the time, spotted its potential as a single is beyond me.

              I’ve often wondered what Marc Bolan thought of Black Country Rock. Even Ronson imitates his guitar style.

  3. Fabulous review. This has always been one of my favourite Bowie works, and you’ve heightened my appreciation sufficiently to send me in search of the artefact once again, hoping for more sonic discoveries within the nine songs. Thanks for that!

  4. Sent me straight back to the album. Still a corker. This as the first album I knew by him, and Bowie, early Roxy, and Alice Cooper were all i knew until prog-oriented girls enticed me away in a cloud of patchouli and henna. A fab review, as ever.

  6. Excellent review Mr T. I’ve always had a soft spot for this album and especially love how the LP bridges Space Oddity to Hunky Dory via a very dark detour. It’s his prog metal album, wasn’t it. It also makes me appreciate Visconti all the more, the rich, hefty sound here wouldn’t be equalled til Young Americans.

    I’m in two minds about these ongoing remixes. I didn’t think Lodger or Space Oddity were improved by their remixing. That said, TV often claims Lodger was sanctioned by Bowie during the Blackstar sessions so whaddayado.

    • I get the impression he staggered from one album to another. By Hunky Dory, he was on yet another label, this time RCA.

      I agree with what you say about Visconti’s production here and on Young Americans. He has a reputation for compressing everything that probably started with Low. But, as you say, he’s quite capable of a rich, wide-ranging soundscape.

      Personally, I enjoy remixes. They give me a different angle to look at the music, like changing the lighting on a stage. The actors may be sticking to the script but the whole feels different. They freshen my listening experience and I can always go back to the original if I prefer. Visconti’s remixed Lodger brings renewed life to that record and I think his Space Oddity will be the one I turn to in the future, which is pretty good for an album I always found hard to love. The Ghouster, however, is painful. His T.Rex remixes don’t really add much. The most successful Bowie mix is Harry Maslin’s of Stationtostation, just gorgeous. It pumps lush, warm blood through a cocaine frozen heart.

      Bring on the remixes I say. I’ll buy them.

    • @slotbadger, have you asked Visconti’s agent if he’d do an Albumtoalbum on this one? He might, you know, keen to underline how much of a co-creator he was. Worth a punt? He must have some free time. He’s not a key worker.

      If he says yes, I’d love it if you just discuss this album and ask nothing about any other….”It’s ok, somebody else has done Young Americans, Low, “Heroes”, Lodger, Scary Monsters, Outside, ..hours, Heathen, Blackstar. I might be in touch about The Next Day. I’ll call you…”

      • I did approach TV through a mutual friend, who works pretty closely with him and have had no response, as yet. I am in two minds whether to pursue it tbh – on the one hand, of course, I would love to talk to him – it’s Tony Bloody Visconti! and ask him all sorts of stuff especially about this album, where he plays such a strong role on both sides of the mixing desk. But – then, again most of us who are interested in such things will have heard him talking before, or read his book or various interviews? I’m not an especially great interviewer – I tend to simper, waffle and giggle too much as you can hear in my podcasts – and I don’t know what I would get from him which hasn’t been covered before. But I am definitely open to it, should he have a moment or two!

  7. Not my favourite Bowie album by a long chalk but this remix is rather superb. I used to be rather annoyed by Visconti’s show-offy bass but maybe I’ve got used to it. The second side was always a bit of a disappointment to these ears (apart from the title track) and neither time nor remix has shifted that opinion. But it’s still a nice thing to have.

      • It’s not so much the sequencing for me, more that the melodic nature of the songs on the ‘original’ side one were always stronger. The one big standout moment on the ‘original’ second side was the awesome title track and I agree with you that it’s amazing no one saw the single potential there. Lulu did.

          • Indeed, I enjoy the playing. Nascent Ronson and some nice drumming from Woody. As previously mentioned, Visconti’s baroque bass was an annoyance when I first heard this album as a teenager… but it’s growing on me. (He had the speed and technique of a Bruce or Entwistle but perhaps nowhere near as much inherent musicality in his approach to the instrument). But forget the playing for a second. Bowie for me was always about the songs and it would be difficult to shift me from my contention that the majority of the ones on the ‘original’ Side Two suffered by comparison with the four that had gone before. And still do. But hey. It was early days. He went on to make even better Side Ones. (And some pretty damn good Side Twos too…)

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