Only four songs from his RCA years entered Billboard's Top 40: 'Space Oddity' made it to No. Certainly, Bowie was the first great pop star of that decade, though his stardom never translated into easy platinum. Included in all these sets is a 72-page booklet written by Rolling Stone writer and MTV personality Kurt Loder, who makes a convincing case that David Bowie made the '70s a lot more interesting than they would have been without him. 'Sound + Vision' comes in several beautifully packaged configurations: The CD box (around $60) includes three 60-minute CDs and a bonus disc with three previously unreleased live cuts from the 1972 'Ziggy Stardust' tour and the classic video for 'Ashes to Ashes' (you need CDV or laser capability for the video, but the audio portion works on any disc player) 'Sound + Vision' is also available on three cassettes (around $50) and on six high-grade vinyl LPs (around $60). The first Bowie albums will be out in January. After spirited competition, Bowie assigned the rights to Rykodisc, a small independent label that has specialized in audiophile projects and CD technology. Bowie CDs were briefly available five years ago, but were pulled off the market after the rights reverted to him in 1985. Consumer demand has made this the most anticipated CD catalogue campaign since the Beatles Capitol/EMI project two years ago. It's a classy tease for Rykodisc, which over the next two years will release all of Bowie's RCA albums on remastered CDs - often with additional, previously unreleased material. That reality makes 'Sound + Vision' an audio Whitman's Sampler, though it's more an overview than a hits package, more representative than definitive. What Lon Chaney was to faces, Bowie has been to rock-and-roles (note just two titles: 'Changes' and 'Who Can I Be This Time?').

If Major Tom's journey is curious, it pales beside the twists and turns of Bowie's evolution. 'Space Oddity' effectively launched David Bowie's career, and this demo, which is quite charming and somewhat more emotional than the more familiar hit version - along with 'Ashes to Ashes' - reveals the forceful symmetry of Bowie's career. Eleven years and 45 cuts later, Major Tom reappears in 'Ashes to Ashes,' more accepting of love's redemptive power and of his (and the artist's) usefulness and responsibility. It's also the opening cut of 'Sound + Vision,' an engrossing boxed set that celebrates Bowie's career from 1969 to 1980, when he recorded 18 albums for RCA. The song is a spare, acoustic demo of 'Space Oddity,' the crushingly depressive saga of Major Tom, an astronaut who blasts off into the future only to turn his back on the past by cutting himself off from all love, humanity and contact with the world. Some of it has been considered 'single' material but we'll leave that up to you to sort out.' It's 1969. The voice is tentatively assured: 'We're going to do what we can with the material that we do now.

Stardust memories soundtrack