Parlophone announces David Bowie ‘Waiting in the Sky’ RSD 2024 exclusive album

January 8th, 2024 | by Nick

News

Parlophone Records has announced the release of a very special David Bowie limited vinyl LP, Waiting in the Sky (Before the Starman Came to Earth) which will be released on April 20th for Record Store Day.

The album is taken from the Trident Studios quarter-inch stereo tapes dated December 15, 1971, created for the provisional tracklisting for what would become The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars album.

Waiting in the Sky (Before the Starman Came to Earth) features a different track listing than the Ziggy Stardust album and includes four songs that weren’t available on the original album.

“Round and Round” takes the place of “Starman.” The Chuck Berry cover is one of the last three recorded for the album in February 1972. The track was released on a single as the B-side to “Drive-In Saturday” in April 1973. Initially, closing the first side of the album was Bowie’s version of Jacques Brel’s “Amsterdam,” which would later appear as the B-side of “Sorrow” in October 1973.

Side two of the December 15, 1971 track listing features two long-time non-LP fan favorites, “Holy Holy” and “Velvet Goldmine.” The former is a re-recording with The Spiders of Bowie’s 1971 single. This version of the track wasn’t released until several years later when it surfaced on the b-side of “Diamond Dogs” in June 1974.

“Velvet Goldmine” is considered by many to be a lost Ziggy era classic, one Bowie often referred to as “He’s A Goldmine” or “She’s A Goldmine” in his notebooks and interviews. The track was recorded during the Ziggy sessions but was not released until September 26, 1975, alongside “Changes” backing the re-released album version of “Space Oddity,” which peaked at No. 1 in the UK singles chart in November 1975.

The cover of Waiting in the Sky (Before the Starman Came to Earth) features a photo of Bowie taken at an early Ziggy Stardust period session by Brian Ward, and the two sides of the inner bags are the fronts of the two Trident Studios tape boxes. The album’s title comes from the lyrics of “Starman,” which, along with “Rock ‘N’ Roll Suicide” and “Suffragette City,” had not yet been recorded when this variation of the album was compiled.

The LP was cut on a customized late Neumann VMS80 lathe with fully recapped electronics from 192kHz restored masters of the original Trident Studios master tapes, with no additional processing on transfer. The half-speed vinyl cut was by engineer John Webber at AIR Studios, London.

Side 1: