Celebrating what would have been he Starman’s 77th birthday, Parlophone announced a special vinyl LP called Waiting in the Sky (Before The Starman Came to Earth) which is set for release on this years Record Store Day taking place on 20th April, 2024. This vinyl was also cut from digital and is a half-speed vinyl pressing.

This record features the provisional tracklisting for what would become Bowie’s 1972 album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. This early version is taken from the Trident Studio quarter-inch tapes dated 15 December 1971.

There were four songs on Waiting in the Sky that didn’t make the final album.  Bowie’s version of Jacques Brel’s ‘Amsterdam’ has made the release as well as ‘Holy Holy‘ and ‘Velvet Goldmine‘ (which was unreleased for nearly four years, but became the B-side to the 1975 reissue of ‘Space Oddity’.) As well as ‘Starman’, ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide’ and ‘Suffragette City’ which had not been recorded and are also missing from this early version of the album. Alongside those familiar tracks, the upcoming record also includes four new songs – including an unheard cover of Chuck Berry’s ‘Round And Round’.

Tracklist:

Side 1

  1. Five Years
  2. Soul Love
  3. Moonage Daydream
  4. Round And Round
  5. Amsterdam

Side 2

  1. Hang On To Yourself
  2. Ziggy Stardust
  3. Velvet Goldmine
  4. Holy Holy
  5. Star
  6. Lady Stardust