A new picture disc version of David Bowie's Hunky Dory will be released to mark both the album's 50th anniversary and what would have been the late singer's 75th birthday.
Available Jan. 7 - one day before that birthday - the picture disc will feature the album as remastered in 2015 and a poster of Bowie's original version of the annotated back cover.
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The album, Bowie's fourth, was only modestly received at the time; after the release of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders from Mars the following year, however, the album got its due. It would peak at No. 3 on the U.K. albums charts and spun off what are now among Bowie's most recognizable songs like "Changes," "Life on Mars?" and "Oh! You Pretty Things." Years later, one critic wrote Hunky Dory "sounds like the album where Bowie starts to become Bowie." (This is likely due in part to the album featuring the future Spiders from Mars lineup: Mick Ronson on guitar, Trevor Bolder on bass, and Woody Woodmansey on drums. Yes keyboardist Rick Wakeman also plays piano throughout.)
Additionally, a streaming-only new mix of "Changes" by original producer/mixer Ken Scott is now available. (A new lyric video to the original mix also features outtakes from the iconic Hunky Dory cover photo shoot.) "When listening to the original multi-track I discovered a few things that I had eliminated from the original mix and also a completely different sax solo at the end," Scott said in a statement. "It was those things that led me to try a new mix, trying for a slightly harder, more contemporary edge to it.”
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