Would it be an idea to open a section similar to Missing singles for all known vinyl pressings of Bowie's albums? This is one thing sorely missing both in print and on the web. For the CDs we are lucky to have beckenham!

Absolutely ; I am happy to contribute with scans and other info. Lars

Sounds good to me!

A single forum could produce an extremely long and jumbled list of posts though, and I'm going to suggest we also have sub-forums for each album and restrict thread titles to the country of manufacture and type of pressing, commercial, promo, etc. We can't expect users to get it right every time of course, but the mods can tidy-up posts, as and when necessary.

Good idea to have a sub-forum for each album.

Info that would be nice to include is (when available):
- title
- type of pressing (comm., promo, etc)
- record company
- cat.nr.
- country
- release year (and date or month if available)
- label details: color of lettering and color of background
- label scan
- sleeve type (single or gatefold or other)
- inserts etc (lyrics, lyrics in inner bag, etc.)
- sleeve details (stickers, surface properties (eg textured), etc)
- sleeve scan

Scans (if available) should at least be included in cases when the artwork differs from the "standard" (UK?) issue. I'm looking forward to contribute

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Lars

In addition to this excellent idea ( given the absence anywhere else), I'd like to suggest, identifying "original release", focussing not on the release date, but on which is the album from which others are derived. ( 'Bit like an orignal artwork, or book, and a reprnt / reproduction, foreign edition)

The recent posts on Hunky Dory illustrate this clearly - it has been sad a number of times has the UK pressing has obscured text from the US edition, meaning the UK edition has been derived for the US edition.

If that is considered a good idea, I'd start with the following.

The RCA studio and live albums mostly derive from the original US editions, and in most cases are a straight scan of the US covers, with some info removed (usually), and additional country specific info added.

From the top - the originals (RCA)

Hunky Dory US - Sepia toned rear, clear sticker with White writing on shrink wrap, textured cover. Later US stickers emulated the front cover colours, and have the number LSP 4623 -2 ( or later) on the sticker.

Ziggy US - From my far away foreign shores, it seems to me that what I believe to be very first UK pressing has a slight fuzzy print, and the Catalogue number in Front Top Right Hand corner , on close inspection, clearly shoes an overlay and rejigging of the (US)cover. The next UK pressing uses original Artwork, is not copied from the US edition and is superior in image defintion. Both these UK covers have only GEM.

Space Oddity & Man Who Sold the World (US) these resissues contained copyright info next to the songs ( on rear cover), which is removed on UK issues. The UK Space Oddity ( front cover lower), has a rejigging of the area where it says it was previously released as David Bowie

Aladdin Sane This is more difficult to tell, as the rear cover font is different on the UK and the US, as well as who Duffy worked for. The US lyric sheet contains the missing first line to Cracked Actor. The colour blue is different on the covers - the US being more a cyan, and UK more a royal blue. The choice of text font in the personnel and recording details suggests that it is the UK which is the original. Perhaps some else has more definitive information.

Pin Ups - Both UK and US covers use original artwork for covers, albeit arranged differently. Apart for the obvious difference in the size of the front cover titles, on close inspection, the rear covers images are aligned differently, compared to the text, and are therefore not copies of one another.

Diamond Dogs US - On the UK cover one can read the US price on the spine

David Live US - dated 14 and 15th JUly. Both US and UK covers changed to 12 and 13th July in later pressings. (US has the RE (revised) code on the cover)

Young Americans US - textured cover, lyric sheet without "RE" in corner.

Station To Station US with Golden Years round sticker on shrinkwrap

Low US - on the UK the catalogue number in top corner is slightly obscured, this is clear on US.

The remainder of the RCA lp's are all US derived, and comparing the UK and US side by side and looking where the made in US info has been removed can confirm this.

Hope that helps.

Ruud, if a sub forum is organised for each LP - perhaps the relevant bits can be pasted in.

Good to be back - great holiday

Colin M

My suggestion is to create a topic for each album and store all relevant information there. Lars has given an excellent kick-off with the Philips album. If an album does not yet have an entry, feel free to create one. The admins can always tidy up things if it gets a little messy.

I just wish I had recorded the details of the Mozambique pressing of Pin Ups I saw on the latest record fair I visited...

it will get messy. my suggestion is that nobody post unless they can back up their info with scans. also, each album should have the front and rear covers included in the first post (sorry lars!) and only notable variants to those be shown in subsequent scans (e.g. the Hunky Dory title variations). personally i wouldn't consider a different catalogue number or a difference in logo size to warrant a scan, but these things should be listed in a post as identifiers. label scans definitely worthy of inclusion.

also, let's keep the TMWSTW counterfeits out of this thread to avoid confusion. a link to that topic will suffice.

Excellent idea, folks!!
I don't think I can contribute with very much in this, since I've just started to collect vinyl-editions of Bowie's catalogue. A few months ago, I was looking for info to identify and edition of STS (thanks for helping me with that, Maarten!), and it was not easy to find good sites about this on the net. I think there really is an interest among the fans that there is such a sub-forum.
Thanks alot, and keep up the good job, folks!!

Might be a good idea to have a locked sticky thread that includes a template of how future entries should be presented.
That way people could just copy and paste the template into a new post, in the relevant thread just adding the required information as they go. Then every post would be the same, with a list people can adhere to of information required.

i agree, but all people need to do is cut and paste one of lars' entries. that's what i did to format recent additions to the ziggy thread. i can tidy up any errors as we go along, but it really shouldn't be that hard to stick to the format, it's pretty basic.

Great idea this, as the vinyl album discography has been very underrepresented in all sources.
I have some nice items to add (including albums from USSR, India, China, Yugoslavia, Israel, Argentine etc).

wow ! this is going to be fantastic just what i so wanted and i thought i was the only person with any real intrest in different lp covers and issues. If i can get my son to help (as im useless with this stuff) and if we can get whole of the lps to fit in the scanner ? i would love to help if i can!

Can I ask - where would something like the Simply Vinyl/EMI edition of TMWSTW fit in?

For most studio and live albums, we have created subfora for RCA and EMI/Ryko. The latter would be the place to store any recent vinyl reissues.

Meanwhile I have created entries for all albums as far as I can see, so there really is no excuse anymore not to start posting! Some albums can be stored in multiple sections (e.g. The Motion Picture -- live or soundtracks?, Love You Till Tuesday -- Deram compilations or soundtracks?) and I haven't found a way yet to create 'shadow fora'. So if you have an 'ambiguous' album, please check either category. If an album is missing, please send a PM and I will add it.

Thanks. The only reason I ask is that the Ryko/EMI releases featured bonus tracks, whereas the Simply Vinyl edition is just the original track listing.