50th anniversary reissue of David Bowie’s ‘The Man Who Sold the World’ album due in November

m_davidbowiethemetrobolist630_090420
m_davidbowiethemetrobolist630_090420

Parlophone

A 50th anniversary reissue of David Bowie‘s 1970 studio album The Man Who Sold the World will be released on November 6 under the title The Metrobolist, which was the initial name Bowie had chosen for the record.

The reissue will feature an original cartoon cover design that artist Mike Weller created for The Metrobolist, a slightly altered version of which was used for the cover of The Man Who Sold the World when it was first released in the U.S. in November 1970. The cover depicts a cowboy holding a rifle and standing in front of London’s Cane Hill psychiatric hospital.

The 50th anniversary reissue was newly remixed by the album’s original producer, Tony Visconti, except for the track, “After All,” a 2015 Visconti remix of which appears on the new reissue.

The Metrobolist will be available on CD, digitally, as a 180-gram black-vinyl LP, and as a limited-edition colored-vinyl disc. The colored-vinyl version will be pressed either on gold vinyl or on white vinyl.

The Man Who Sold the World enjoyed little commercial success in the U.S., although it reached #21 on the U.K. chart. Its best-known song is is title track, which Nirvana famously covered during their classic MTV Unplugged performance.

The Man Who Sold the World got its U.K. release in April 1971, featuring a different cover — a photo of Bowie wearing a “man dress” — which David’s U.S. label, Mercury Records, rejected.

When the album was first reissued in the U.S. in 1972, another cover featuring a black-and-white photo of Bowie onstage replaced the cartoon. Later reissues have used the “man dress” photo.

Here’s the full track list of The Metrobolist/The Man Who Sold the World:

“The Width of a Circle”
“All the Madmen”
“Black Country Rock”
“After All”
“Running Gun Blues”
“Saviour Machine”
“She Shook Me Cold”
“The Man Who Sold the World”
“The Supermen”

By Matt Friedlander
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