With a variety of ’40th anniversary’ releases that have been released this year (some may say plague…), it’s been something of a surprise that David Bowie’s celebrated 1980 tour de force ‘Scary Monsters… and Super Creeps’ has not been amongst them. No album re-issue, no 7″ picture discs for any of the singles (a series that seems to have abruptly halted) – not that there haven’t been other Bowie re-issues, mind, including those ridiculous random colour vinyl lottery releases…) – quite the opposite.
August 1980 and the ‘Ashes To Ashes’ single was my first Bowie purchase and it was an exciting run of singles from there. Many years later and this release is one of many David Bowie 7″ singles from across the world in my collection – I’ve always a soft spot for a unique picture sleeve design, unique version or edit or choice of album track not released elsewhere. Which is where this release comes in. There were no shortage of singles peeled off of ‘Scary Monsters…’ – in the UK we got four different ones. As if that wasn’t enough for me, this Japanese only choice of the opening album track, ‘It’s No Game’ (Part 1) was too tempting, especially in its adaption of the album cover in miniature, unlike any of the UK singles.
The versions of the tracks to be found here are both as per those found on the album release. So, ‘Fashion’ on the flip side is not the single edit as was used in other territories. An adventurous choice for the A side, though understandable given the Japanese vocal battery courtesy of actress Michi Hirota – it retains those odd noises at the intro, which you would imagine might have been sliced off courtesy of the editing scissors at some point. But no.
i remember buying this release from the sadly departed One Up shop of Aberdeen for the princely sum of 50p in 1981/82. After the release of Crystal Japan it wasn’t a surprise that Japan would release something like this as a single which wouldn’t have a snowball’s chance in bothering the UK charts