UK 1e/1e first pressing
Here is The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars as it was heard by the more adventurous young people of Great Britain when the album was first released during the summer of 1972. This is the absolute first UK pressing, with the earliest 1e/1e matrix numbers and Gem/Titanic credits. There is no reference to Mainman anywhere to be seen as this copy of the album pre-dates the launch of that organisation by several months.
Besides having a slightly different sleeve than most UK copies were housed in (more on that below) and getting Brownie Points for being a first pressing, you might ask what this version of Ziggy brings to the table in terms of sound. After all, a later vintage UK mastering (found on copies with 6e/4e matrix numbers) is preferred by many and is said to have more bass, while the contemporary US Dynaflex release has an extended top end and more recent reissues boast greater detail.
My highly subjective argument is as follows: Bowie himself would likely have auditioned and signed off on test presssings of the initial UK vinyl version of Ziggy Stardust (as found with minor variations on the 1e/1e, 1e/2e and 2e/2e matrix sets). The sound signature found therein - with it's very slightly rolled-off top end - invokes a certain atmosphere that I've come to regard as integral to the piece. By no stretch of the imagination could this album be described as an audiophile recording and I don't find that attempts to master it as though it were increase my appreciation of it. Hyper-resolution is certainly not what I need in order to enter the dystopian magic realist version of 1972 conjured by those strange, hand-coloured twilight images on the cover and the even more curious songs contained within. This is an album with futuristic and fantasy themes: a visiting messianic space man, the rise and fall of an imaginary rock god and the imminent end of the World. For me it works best rendered in broad brush strokes, rather than etched by a laser. Your mileage may of course vary.
Even the sleeve of this copy gives away just how early it is. Bowie was signed to RCA in the US, rather than its UK subsidiary, which meant that the Americans held the master copies of the artwork despite the album having been recorded in Britain. There may have been some urgency surrounding the very first print run because the printers at Robert Stace & Co. Ltd. were seemingly given the US album art to work from. It would've come complete with the album's Stateside catalogue number on the front of the sleeve in the middle of the "RCA Victor" wording in the top right hand corner. The US catalogue number had to be airbrushed out and the UK one inserted in its place. The hack is just about detectable if you look closely (the catalogue number breaks lines in the frame of the glazed panel in the image behind it). Soon afterwards a dedicated UK sleeve was made, however it's evidently a generation down from the US art work (remember, these were pre-digital times). This UK sleeve was in use by the time of the 1e/2e pressing (autumn 1972 or thereabouts). It's noticably less sharp than its predecessor and its colours lack their original vibrancy. One other small, but oddly pleasing, distinguishing feature is that the spine of the 1e/1e sleeve is made with pinched ends. Not so the later one.
I managed to resolve a slight audio glitch at the end of Rock 'n' Roll Suicide and have re-done some of the artwork for this rip. I've also added these notes and am updating this post from 2017 accordingly.
Besides having a slightly different sleeve than most UK copies were housed in (more on that below) and getting Brownie Points for being a first pressing, you might ask what this version of Ziggy brings to the table in terms of sound. After all, a later vintage UK mastering (found on copies with 6e/4e matrix numbers) is preferred by many and is said to have more bass, while the contemporary US Dynaflex release has an extended top end and more recent reissues boast greater detail.
My highly subjective argument is as follows: Bowie himself would likely have auditioned and signed off on test presssings of the initial UK vinyl version of Ziggy Stardust (as found with minor variations on the 1e/1e, 1e/2e and 2e/2e matrix sets). The sound signature found therein - with it's very slightly rolled-off top end - invokes a certain atmosphere that I've come to regard as integral to the piece. By no stretch of the imagination could this album be described as an audiophile recording and I don't find that attempts to master it as though it were increase my appreciation of it. Hyper-resolution is certainly not what I need in order to enter the dystopian magic realist version of 1972 conjured by those strange, hand-coloured twilight images on the cover and the even more curious songs contained within. This is an album with futuristic and fantasy themes: a visiting messianic space man, the rise and fall of an imaginary rock god and the imminent end of the World. For me it works best rendered in broad brush strokes, rather than etched by a laser. Your mileage may of course vary.
Even the sleeve of this copy gives away just how early it is. Bowie was signed to RCA in the US, rather than its UK subsidiary, which meant that the Americans held the master copies of the artwork despite the album having been recorded in Britain. There may have been some urgency surrounding the very first print run because the printers at Robert Stace & Co. Ltd. were seemingly given the US album art to work from. It would've come complete with the album's Stateside catalogue number on the front of the sleeve in the middle of the "RCA Victor" wording in the top right hand corner. The US catalogue number had to be airbrushed out and the UK one inserted in its place. The hack is just about detectable if you look closely (the catalogue number breaks lines in the frame of the glazed panel in the image behind it). Soon afterwards a dedicated UK sleeve was made, however it's evidently a generation down from the US art work (remember, these were pre-digital times). This UK sleeve was in use by the time of the 1e/2e pressing (autumn 1972 or thereabouts). It's noticably less sharp than its predecessor and its colours lack their original vibrancy. One other small, but oddly pleasing, distinguishing feature is that the spine of the 1e/1e sleeve is made with pinched ends. Not so the later one.
I managed to resolve a slight audio glitch at the end of Rock 'n' Roll Suicide and have re-done some of the artwork for this rip. I've also added these notes and am updating this post from 2017 accordingly.
Thanks a zillion oreston!
ReplyDelete