Long Years in Space

Despite being renowned in certain parts of the world (especially in Italy and their hometown of Paris), the space-age outfit Rockets remains largely obscure – even though they arrived on the scene at almost he same exact time as Kraftwerk and prefaced Devo by several years. The multi-membered outfit originally formed in 1972, under the name Crystal, performing on-stage in their regular street clothes. But by 1974, Crystal had evolved into Rocket Men, issuing a debut self-titled single, while its members began to assume the identities of aliens; complete with silver makeup covering their skin, grey contact lenses, space suits, and bald heads.

Despite being renowned in certain parts of the world (especially in Italy and their hometown of Paris), the space-age outfit Rockets remains largely obscure – even though they arrived on the scene at almost he same exact time as Kraftwerk and prefaced Devo by several years. The multi-membered outfit originally formed in 1972, under the name Crystal, performing on-stage in their regular street clothes. But by 1974, Crystal had evolved into Rocket Men, issuing a debut self-titled single, while its members began to assume the identities of aliens; complete with silver makeup covering their skin, grey contact lenses, space suits, and bald heads.

Fifty-Two Years: The Complete Singles “ includes both sides of every single – all in their original mixes/edits – that Bowie released in his five decade long career. As the music industry moved away from 7? 45s in the ’90s and ’00s and toward CD EPs, 12? dance mixes and downloads, every effort was made to keep with the original singles concept so some of these other formats are included, if there were unique versions, and it appeared that The Thin White Duke had intended it to be a stand alone release or to promote a new album. Each of his forays into different genres/personas are fully documented here.