POLL: Best David Bowie Parlophone Reissue

Young Americans vinyl is perfect.

 

The man who sold the world is my obvious first choice: the album sounds fantastic in this reissue, and we've got the original UK cover with the original textured feel. What's not to like?

Than I pick Pinups: I've never really liked it before hearing the wondeful remaster ! It makes the album suddenly come alive !

And then, I choosed Let's dance, because I cannot stop listening to the 2018 version since friday. It sounds so good and it breathes, at last, after a long series of bad sounding cd masters.

(I've got the Lp box sets, and my comments are vbased on them)

 

The gold Ziggy reissue I picked up sounds awesome, as @Ben Adams says, it’s a repress of the earlier AAA reissue, and the gold wax is dead quiet.

What prevents me from recommending a lot of these reissues is that Bowie’s stuff isn’t really that uncommon or pricey. To those discussing it, I would note that unlike “Low” and “Heroes” a clean OG UK press of “Lodger” is like a $15 record in Europe, so even with international shipping it’s still beneath the price of the reissue. If anyone digs in Euro shops it turns up all the time, compared to the others in the Berlin era. Very solid sound to that one.

Most of my Bowie vinyl is US Sterling, first pressings or early reissues which are also usually under $20 and sounds great. The most impressive Bowie I have in my collection is an early UK repress of Hunky Dory I got for $10 in VG condition. Now I’m looking to upgrade because this thing is dynamic with some crazy slam and treble. Much better than the reissue needledrops I’ve heard, even semi-beat up, I still turn to it before a digital copy.

 

Not a myth. I've thought Lodger sounded lousy - soft and lacking power - since I bought it when I was 14 in 1980.

 

Sounding "perfectly fine" is a good description of the basic fidelity but the original mix itself is thin and lacking in power. The drums don't push at all

 

^^^ This.

 

You folks want it to sound different. I think it sounds good as it is. That's ok by me. We've heard the remix. You might think it's an improvement, I think it's lousy. If you're talking about a lack of power the new mix certainly does a good job of removing the power from boys keep swinging and red sails. The power doesn't all come from the drums.

 

Man Who Sold The World for the original artwork but mine has pretty bad rumble. Have to agree with a previous poster, the original Lodger vinyl sounds fantastic.

 

I must have gotten lucky with my Bowie reissues, because mine all sound fine. Actually like the low end on Low (it always sounded kind of thin to me, though) and Heroes sounds aces. I did buy the revised stand-alone master, so maybe that has something to do with it?

 

Same here, and I went through two box sets, and then a stand alone purchase to try and get a rumble free pressing. Even ignoring that I wash’t impressed by the somewhat muddy sound of the mix.

Ditto on the original Lodger pressing too - superb!

 

My votes for best sounding reissues in the series so far:
The Man Who Sold The World
Pin Ups
Diamond Dogs

 

I've been slowly adding all these to the collection and they are phenomenal. Just got Station to Station and it blew my mind.
Pinups and Diamond Dogs are en route

 

His three best albums!

 

Never heard any of them sadly.

 

Perhaps you know this by now (your post was 18 months ago); most of the UK RCA albums covers are derived from the original US albums - Aladdin Sane & Pinups being the exceptions. Most suffered to some degree in their reproduction. The UK Young Americans suffered more than most - the textured sleeve and lyric inner of the original design were not reproduced.

Young Americans is the first of the RCA albums that the Parlophone reissue covers resembles the US packaging - although even then, it is the UK labels that are mimicked.

Sound wise - I have not played a Parlophone copy, though the original US LP (APL1-0998) is excellent and may be a good alternative as it's not seen as desirable as it (perhaps) should be.

 

Was surprised by my original choice of Ziggy. Changed it over past year for Space Oddity due to Conversation Piece edition. Been happy Moonlight came out.

 

That doesn't make sense, since the FY box set version is considered inferior to the CP rereleased 2009 version.

 

I went with Hunky Dory, Stage, and Never Let Me Down. The first because the remaster is, to me, the closest that the remasters have come to replicating the original LP and RCA CD from a sonic standpoint. The second because I think the sound is much better on the remaster (it's not a remix, at least as far as I can tell; David Live was a remix) and we have some additional tracks added to the original double LP. The third because I found the remix very interesting and, in many cases, an improvement over the original version of the album - unfortunately, one song from the original album was omitted, which is really almost unforgivable but was apparently what Bowie wanted. Of the other remixes, the only one that I think is worthwhile is the remix of the David Bowie aka "Space Oddity" album. However, that remix didn't force me to reconsider the merits of the songs the way that the Never Let Me Down remix did.

 

Parlophone "David Live" didn't give me a headache, but their "Stage" did.

 

One of the most important music icons in the history of music. Why on Earth don’t they bite the bullet and do AAA vinyl releases with appropriate quality cover art?
Especially of the 70’s output up to and including Scary Monsters. The demand is there I’m sure.

 

Ziggy.

 

for me too.
Ziggy (& Stardust)

 

question:

how many labels has david bowie been on?

 

RCA and EMI for the longest stretches of time. Before RCA there was Mercury, Philips, Decca and Pye for his solo stuff. But there's more recently I think. Arista, Virgin, Columbia. I guess some are subsidiary labels of larger global companies. So, probably 10 or more

 

so odd, he must have had a very bad lawyer/agent in the beginning of his career.