The Man Who Sold the World is the third studio album by the English musician David Bowie, originally released through Mercury Records in the United States on 4 November 1970 and in the United Kingdom on 8 April 1971. Produced by Tony Visconti and recorded in London from April to May 1970, the album features the first appearances on a Bowie record of future Spiders from Mars members Mick Ronson and Mick Woodmansey. Following the largely acoustic and folk rock sound of David Bowie, The Man Who Sold the World marked a shift toward hard rock, with elements of blues rock. The lyrics are darker than his previous releases, exploring themes of insanity, religion, technology and war. None of its songs were released as singles; some tracks appeared as B-sides between 1970 and 1973. Originally titled Metrobolist, a play on the film Metropolis, the title was changed at the last minute by Mercury without Bowie's consultation. The album was released with different cover artwork in the US and the UK. For the US release, the artwork was a cartoon-like drawing by Michael J. Weller of a cowboy in front of an asylum. From Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man...) under Creative Commons Attribution CC-BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...)