New footage has been found of David Bowie in his glam rock pomp from the 1972/73 Ziggy tour that was taken by late photographer and Bowie collaborator Mick Rock.
It’s a four-minute clip that uses the album version of Starman as its soundtrack, essentially supplying a new video for the classic song.
It arrives at the same time as a new version of Bowie’s breakthrough album, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars is set to be released in September. Yes, Ziggy has been reissued many, many times before. But not quite in this format.
The album will make its debut in Dolby Atmos spatial audio as part of a Blu Ray package. Its one of four versions of the album – others include the 2024 Stereo Mix (96 khz / 24-bit pcm), Original 1972 Stereo Mix – 2012 remaster (192 khz / 24-bit pcm) and Original 1972 Stereo Mix – 2012 remaster (48 khz / 24-bit pcm).
So what does this Dolby Atmos version have that all the other various upgrades and reissues lack? Well, according to Ken Scott (who should know since he produced the original album): “You’re in there with the act, with David. He was so theatrical I think being able to put him into an immersive place makes this a really good choice for an Atmos mix.
"My whole philosophy with this has been to make it more like a live experience. And I’ve even got him moving about the stage a little towards the end, the way he would have in real life. Hopefully it just feels as if you’re in the theatre with this amazing show going on.”
Ziggy was the album that changed everything for David Bowie and in many ways for music as a whole. Along with Roxy Music’s first album, it marks the point at which pop goes postmodern and was a landmark in that it was the first time an artist had constructed a separate persona to front a project. Its influence on generations of artists is immeasurable.
In other Bowie news. His widow Iman last week shared images of a previous unseen painting that her husband created in 2014. It’s an abstract work in yellow and blue and is signed by the man himself who died in January 2016.
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By all accounts Bowie was a keen painter. Indeed between 1995 and 1997 he worked on a number of portraits. Back in 2021 one of this series that had originally been bought by its owner for just £3 was sold on at auction for a whopping £30,000.
