David Bowie | Space Oddity | The Man Who Sold the World | Hunky Dory
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars | Aladdin Sane | Pin Ups | Diamond Dogs | Young Americans
Station to Station | Low | "Heroes" | Lodger | Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) | Let's Dance | Tonight | Never Let Me Down
Tin Machine | Black Tie White Noise | The Buddha of Suburbia | Outside | Earthling | 'hours...' | Heathen | Reality | 'hours...'
The Next Day | ★ | Changesonebowie
- Breakthrough Hit: The reissued version of the title track finally broke Bowie in America after his rise to stardom in Britain and his stateside cult following.
- Channel Hop: Having been dropped by Deram Records following the critical and commercial failure of his debut album, Bowie signed with Mercury Records for this one, with their parent company, Philips Records, distributing this record in Bowie's native UK.
- Christmas Rushed: Mercury Records insisted that "Space Oddity" be completed within a month, in order to coincide with the Apollo 11 moon landing.
- Creator Backlash: In the 2000 documentary Golden Years, Bowie described the album as "kind of iffy, in that musically it never really had a direction... I don't think that I, as the artist, had a focus about where it should go."
- Creator's Apathy: Bowie was disinterested in the Performance Video shot for the Title Track in 1972, feeling that RCA Records' decision to reissue the single was nothing more than a cash grab. This is reflected in the video, which features a tired-out Bowie flatly miming with little makeup, a far cry from the glittery flamboyance of Ziggy Stardust, his incumbent stage persona at the time.Bowie: I really hadn't much clue why we were doing this, as I had moved on in my mind from the song, but I suppose the record company were re-releasing it again or something like that. Anyway, I know I was disinterested in the proceedings and it shows in my performance. Mick's video is good, though.
- Cut Song: The track "Conversation Piece" was originally meant to be included on the album, only to be removed due to space limitations. It was instead made the B-Side to the 1970 version of "The Prettiest Star" before eventually being reincorporated on the album's 2019 remix.
- Rarely Performed Song: After decades of being a live staple, the Title Track '"Space Oddity" was largely retired following his 1990 Sound+Vision tour, only being performed three more times after the tour's conclusion.
- Referenced by...:
- In Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, Naked Snake's Mission Control, Zero, takes on the codename "Major Tom" during the Virtuous Mission and Operation: Snake Eater.
- The Bluey episode "Stories" features a horse named Major Tom, voiced by Bowie fan Lin-Manuel Miranda.
- Played for laughs in Red Dwarf when the lads are trying to steal a Blue Midgit shuttle.Ground Control: This is Ground Control to Midgit III. You don't appear to have flight clearace. Please state your name and clearance code.Cat: Ground Control, this is ahhh...Lister: Major Tom!
- The hero of Plan 7 of 9 from Outer Space is shown arguing with Ground Control, saying his name is Captain Proton, not Major Tom.
- Screwed by the Network: The album released at a time when Philips Records was undergoing major structural changes, with many executives who supported Bowie being pushed aside. This resulted in a lack of promotion for the record that hampered its commercial momentum, together with the lack of songs that resembled "Space Oddity"; the album just barely sold over 5,000 copies in its first year, and wouldn't chart until RCA Records reissued it in 1972. This and the repeat underperformance of The Man Who Sold the World would lead to manager Tony Defries breaking Bowie away from Philips and Mercury Records once his contract with them expired in June of 1971.
- What Could Have Been:
- While Bowie was referred to Mercury Records at the suggestion of Angela Barnett, who was dating the label's CEO before later becoming Bowie's first wife, manager Kenneth Pitt scouted out a number of other labels at the same time thanks to him not knowing about the Mercury talks. Of the ones Pitt sought out, Atlantic Records was the only one named in any official sources.
- Mercury Records initially considered releasing "Janine" in the US as the album's second single. However, they scrapped the idea, unsure of its commercial viability.
- Kenneth Pitt wanted George Martin (best known for his work with The Beatles) to produce the album. When Martin proved unavailable, Pitt hired Tony Visconti, who previously oversaw Bowie's recording sessions during the tail end of his tenure with Deram Records. Visconti would produce almost every song on this album except for the Title Track, which he dismissed as a novelty song; Gus Dudgeon, the engineer for Bowie's debut album, produced it instead.
- Working Title: "Letter to Hermione" and "Cygnet Committee" were originally demoed as "I'm Not Quite" and "Lover to the Dawn", respectively.
