Legendary music producer Tony Visconti breaks down Bowie's iconic "Space Oddity"

In this video, basically an ad for the upcoming Sony 360 Reality Audio, brilliant record producer and criminally underappreciated bassist, Tony Visconti, listens to the original 1969 mono demo, the ’69 studio mix, and his 2019 remastering of David Bowie’s breakout track, “Space Oddity.” At the end, he listens to the remixed Sony 360 Reality Audio version and talks about how it especially serves the idea behind the song (traveling through space) and that David would’ve loved this new audio technology.

Tony talks about how incredibly modern and ahead of its time “Space Oddity” was, and how in his 2019 remastering, he remixed it to be fuller, wider, and so that you could hear elements you may not have heard in the original recording. Bringing the kick drum up in the mix, for instance, you realize what a funky track it was, Tony comments. The most interesting moment in the video is when he talks about David, many years later, explaining to him what the song was really about:

David said it was actually a song about isolation and he used the astronaut in space as the metaphor…The song was written in that spirit, being isolated in this little capsule, but seeing the Universe from your window. This is what I’m trying to get across in the mix. You are going to be traveling through this mix. Things will go by you, around you, behind you, in front, come towards you.

Here is the result of Tony’s efforts, the 2019 remastering of “Space Oddity” (not the 360 RA mix).

And, as a bonus, here are the fine folks at AIR Studios walking through the process of of cutting a vinyl of “Space Oddity” from the original 1969 mono master using the analog equipment of the day.

You can learn more about Sony 360 RA here.