David Bowie – Space Oddity: 50th Anniversary [Vinyl 2 x 7″ Box Set] PARLOPHONE

As part of the ongoing celebrations marking 50 years since David Bowie’s first hit, and following the recent Spying Through A Keyhole, Clareville Grove Demos, and The Mercury Demos’ collections, Parlophone is releasing a very special double 7 single of Space Oddity featuring brand new mixes by Tony Visconti. The Space Oddity 50th anniversary double 7 set will come in a boxed set including a double-sided poster featuring an original Space Oddity print advertisement and a Ray Stevenson shot of Bowie taken on stage at the Save Rave ‘69 concert at the London Palladium on November 30, 1969, the backdrop featuring a N.A.S.A. astronaut. The set also includes an information card and a print featuring an alternative shot by Jojanneke Claassen from the Space Oddity promo single cover session. The cover of the original mono single is the rare U.K. promotional picture sleeve which, along with the label, features the original Philips trademark specifically cleared for this 50th anniversary release. The single itself has been cut from the original analog single master tape. The jacket housing the 2019 mixes by Tony Visconti is a new design featuring an alternative Ray Stevenson shot from the Save Rave ‘69 concert to that on the poster.

First released as a 7-inch single on July 11, 1969, Space Oddity was also the opening track of David Bowie’s self-titled second studio album. Initially inspired by Stanley Kubrick’s film 2001: A Space Odyssey, the song gained a huge popularity when it was adopted as the unofficial theme of the Apollo 11 moon landing mission that launched five days after the single’s release. Over the past 50 years, Space Oddity has been on a journey as endless as that of its main character Major Tom. Originally written and demoed in November 1968, the song has gone through many guises from appearing in the television film special Love You Til Tuesday in an earlier recorded incarnation with John Hutch Hutchinson, to being recorded in Italian (Ragazzo solo, Ragazza sola), winning an Ivor Novello Special Award for Originality in May 1970. The song was Bowie’s first hit on both sides of the Atlantic: No. 5 in the U.K. in 1969, No. 1 in the U.K. in 1975, and No. 15 in the U.S. in 1973. In 2013, it became the first music video shot in space when it was performed by Canadian astronaut Commander Chris Hadfield, while aboard the International Space Station. Major Tom continued to be a motif for Bowie throughout his career, revisiting the character in the songs Ashes to Ashes, Hallo Spaceboy, and in the music video for Blackstar.

Features:
• 2 x 7 box set
• Cut from the original analog single master tape
• Featuring brand new mixes by Tony Visconti
• Double-sided poster featuring an original Space Oddity print advertisement and a Ray Stevenson shot of Bowie taken on stage at the Save Rave ‘69 concert at the London Palladium on November 30, 1969
• Information card
• Print featuring an alternative shot by Jojanneke Claassen from the Space Oddity promo single cover session

Single 1
1. Space Oddity (Original Mono Single Edit)
2. Wild Eyed Boy From Freecloud (Original Mono Single Version)

Single 2
1. Space Oddity (2019 Mix – Single Edit) [2019 mix by Tony Visconti, March 2019]
2. Wild Eyed Boy From Freecloud (2019 Mix – Single Version) [2019 mix by Tony Visconti, March 2019]