David Bowie is offering a free download of a live version of ‘ZIGGY STARDUST’ to fans who bought his recent ‘BOWIE AT THE BEEB’ album.
Bowie had originally intended to include two different versions of the track on the collection, but a production error led to one version being featured twice. Up 250,000 copies were shipped before the mistake was noticed.
Now Bowie, known for his love of new technologies, has again embraced science (MusicMatch’s Jukebox software) to allow fans to download the track for free and complete their album, without having to search for a website.
When placed in a CD-ROM, the disc will be automatically identified by Gracenote‘s brand new recognition software system and the track will download.
Bowie has expressed delight at being to able to fix the problem and also at inadvertently creating a collector’s item.
“MusicMatch and Gracenote were able to step into the breach and quickly provided a solution to the ‘double minting’ of the CD,” he said in a statement. “Five years ago, this would never have been possible and it’s a great bonus to those who already own the album, as it extends the value of the CD overall.”
The double album focuses on sessions taped for the BBC between 1968 and 1972, and features favourites such as ‘Starman’, ‘Space Oddity’ and ‘Changes’. An additional bonus disc of material recorded at BBC’s Radio Theatre following Bowie’s headline closing slot at Glastonbury this year was also included on an initial limited umber of releases.