David Bowie

It's beautifully packaged, designed as a hardcover book, filled with full-color photos (many by Mick Rock, whose limited-edition book with Bowie, -Moonage Daydream: The Life and Times of Ziggy Stardust, is sold with an insert), nice liner notes, and two individual sleeves for each disc in the collection. It's beautifully remastered, sounding perhaps even better than the Virgin reissue of 2000, while all the bonus material on the second disc sounds the best it ever has been (since it has still be only available on CD as bonus tracks on the Rykodisc editions). It's beautiful music, whether it's the seminal proper album, or the assortment of demos, early versions, B-sides, and outtakes on the B-sides, nearly all as good as what was on the album. In other words, the 30th Anniversary Edition of The Rise & Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars is a lovely collectors piece, something that will surely please the legions of dedicated fans of Bowie and Ziggy who will easily pay for a lavish reissue like this. Those on a tighter budget, however, shouldn't despair, since even though this is an excellent reissue, all the essential music was already available on the initial Ryko edition of Ziggy, or other reissues they released, and if that's already part of your collection, you'll be as satisfied with that as you would be with this. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide