How do I tell a first-issue UK Bowie LP?

I pulled out my Ryko standard editions of Ziggy Stardust and Scary Monster CDs hoping that having stuck them in a closet for three years, they'd sound better now. Nope.

So, I've decided to search out everything by Bowie up to Scary Monsters in original UK pressings. But I've no clue which label indicates an original pressing.

What should I look for?

 

labels? I'd suspect you'd need to be paying more attention to matrix numbers than labels. didn't RCA pretty much use the exact same orange label, regardless of pressing, from 'Hunky Dory' right through 'Lodger'?

from about 80 to 82 they used the black labels, then those awful green 'RCA International' ones. avoid those like the plague (that goes for the three Iggy Pop RCA LPs, too) and only go for the black one for 'Scary Monsters.'

also, keep in mind that the first pressing of 'Stage' was on piss-ugly yellow vinyl. but I suspect that it didn't sell well enough for the black vinyl edition to be pressed from a different stamper.

say, you didn't leave the light on in that closet, didja? 'cause those Rykos only sound better if they're kept in a DARK closet. maybe that was your mistake. I left mine in a super-duper EXTRA dark closet and they turned gold!

okay. that didn't actually happen to me. but I know this guy who knows a guy. and it happend to someone he knew.

true story.

 

It was walk-in closet. That's gotta be it. Maybe if I put a blacklight in there?

Actually, Stage is not on my list. Never been a big fan of that one.

 

Matrix numbers; labels only tell some of the story.

David Bowie - Blue Philips (good luck!) or yellow RCA
Man who Sold the World is best on (very expensive) US Mercury original. Tons of fakes of this. UK/US yellow label is fine.
Ziggy/Hunky/ - yellow. I find there aren't any UK originals.. RCA had a lot of trouble at their UK pressing plant, and the disks (and sometimes the covers too) were imported from USA or Canada. Some are Dynaflex, some are not. Labels all say Dynaflex, though.
Young Americans/Low/Heroes/Lodger - black label (IIRC..) First masterings are way better. Some are the same masterings, US and UK.
Scary Monsters - black, and you want the UK one for sure. The US is nice enough, and well done by Sterling Sound, but it's not *great* and the UK is.

Like others have said, avoid reissues like the 'RCA International' series. Way poorer sound on these. Have a nice trip. This is a worthwhile collecting endeavor.. Bowie's canon is always different from disk to disk, and always good (well, always in the range you're looking at anyways..) and ('stunning' copies excepted) reasonably priced. Plenty to go round!

 

i have an original RCA japanese pressing of scary monsters on lp - anyone know how this stacks up against other pressings?

 

I disagree. I found the US Sterling pressing to sound better than the UK. The record sounded more crisp to me.

I agree. I have a "Lodger" on RCA International. The current CD remaster sounds better.

 

There is a Ziggy UK pressed original here it is

 

OOh. So there is.. what's it's matrices?

PS there's your first issue label for the yellow RCA guys.

 

There's a Hunky Dory with a very similar label, too. I have it and love it. The cover looks cheap, though - they just airbrushed the US information on whatever they used for a source for the cover, and overprinted the UK information.

Diamond Dogs sounds great in its UK orange iteration as well.

 

I have all Bowie albums from Hunky Dory to Lodger (except for Stage) on the UK "Orange" label (they are not dynaflex). All sound excellent. My Scary Monsters album is also a UK copy, but is on a "Black" RCA label (there is no orange label version of this album).

 

I've just finished a shoot-out....

Scary Monsters UK (Townhouse) vs. Scary Monsters USA (Sterling)

Here's what I found....

1. the UK RCA uses better quality vinyl
2. the USA RCA sounds more natural... the bass has a fantastic quality to it (missing from the UK pressing). There are other minor differences, but when all is said and done....I prefer the US RCA STERLING version.

On the other hand....I've also just finished a shoot out between UK vs US Changes 2 Bowie.....the UK wins hands down...no contest.

Yesterday I did a shoot-out between a US and UK RCA Lodger...both STERLING ...pretty close...but the UK wins by a hair because IMO the UK used better quality vinyl.

 

That label image has a phono-rights date as ℗1972 & wrong label matrix ref BGBS 0864. Not "Original"
The '1st UK press', as in major retail, has APRS 5947 label matrix for side 1 & ℗1971 as phono-rights.
A 'Bobil' (Bob Hill) & 'Rasputin' engineer cred on the 2 runouts, respectively.
No GEM imprint (or Mainman imprint) on sleeve back.
The NY art print credit is stippled out, with the UK RCA address & ©cred then dropped out white over it
+ the Robert Stace printer cred black o/p on right.

There were presses of the work (in UK) prior to this - one done I believe by the 'Mainmain' duo of Bowie & Defries.
I think there was also a gatefold with a green label...?

 

I love the UK orange label of Diamond Dogs, seems to be very high quality vinyl.

 

Can't give you a general answer it's different for each album. But... look out for orange RCA labels. Another tell tale sign for the early stuff are "Main Man" logos. It was set up at the end of 1972 so... first pressings of the albums up to "Ziggy" can't have them. No label code (LC number) should be present since they started in 1976 eg a first press of "Station" won't have it.

 

These are the easy-to-remember rules:

The early 70s RCA orange label is shiny. Some time around 1975 it changed to a matte label.

Early copies of Hunky and Ziggy have no mention of Mainman, since that company was only set up in 1972. (september 1972 acccording to this: http://www.5years.com/encym.htm)

If you can check matrices, you are mostly looking for ones that end in -1E but for Hunky, Aladdin, Pin-Ups there are matrices ending in T rather than E and I think these are original. (Mainly -3T but also -1T and -4T. I wish I knew what the E and T matrices signified.)

Hunky - you are looking for 'Bobil' on one side and 'Rasputin' on the other. Diamond Dogs, you want 'oly' on both sides. Avoid the DD signed by someone called Kip.

 

Questions, my understanding is the UK branch of RCA was Decca pressed when RCA, Ltd. was set up and incorporated some time in 1968. RCA, Ltd. eventually set up and built their own pressing plant and there were issues with that plant, so there were some UK titles which were pressed in the USA and imported until they sorted out whatever issues they had. I would be interested if anyone here can expand on that topic. I remember some RCA titles from the UK had issues with pressing quality for a year or maybe two.

 

I'm talking from memory here, but I think RCA's problems in the UK were with dynaflex albums being warped. I remember returning my first Ziggy Stardust album as unplayable and the shop assistant playing and rejecting four other copies before finding one that was badly warped but playable. He had a whole stack of albums to be returned to RCA. I seem to remember dynaflex was nicknamed dynawarp. Anyway it gained such a bad reputation (and RCA were having to import so many US copies) that RCA abandoned its use in the UK and started to use high quality virgin vinyl, which has been mentioned a couple of times in this thread. When they switched, I replaced my 1972 dynaflex copies of Hunky Dory and Ziggy Stardust, probably both now collectable.

 

The reason RCA imported US discs around '73 was a strike at their pressing plant. I've never heard of any issues with pressing quality around that time.

The other common non-UK pressing for a UK Bowie release is Heroes, many copies of which were pressed in Italy. I think this may have been to do with a technical fault at the pressing plant, but that's based on a vague recollection of something I read somewhere.

 

He's talking about Ziggy, you're referring to Hunky Dory.

 

Correction: I should have said KEV, not Kip.

 

Most of the bolded is just wrong.

Anway first Ziggys are 1E/1E and there are early Hunky Dorys with laminated covers - not sure about the first pressing matrix though. I have multiple orange UK RCA's up to SM, I've never owned one either made of Dynaflex or with Dynaflex on the label to be honest. Seen the odd one and I don't doubt some were sold in the UK, but I find them as common as green RCA Internationals.

 

Have mid seventies UKs of Hunky and Ziggy- they sound great. My Station to Station US sounds better than my UK though

 

Ooops. My bad