David Bowie - Release

The first rule is: never trust the label or the cover of a record. That is... do not always trust it... sometimes it might actually be helpful.
The label and/or cover of a record often bears a "Printed" date, indicated by a capital "P" in a circle. The "Printed" year does not necessarily indicate the year the record was actually released - very often it is the year in which the record or its songs were originally released. In other words, re-issues usually (but not always) have the same "Printed" year as the original. Furthermore, many records have a "Copyright" date on the label or cover (indicated by the symbol ©). In the case of compilations, this is often the year in which the album was released, but then again, re-issues of compilations sometimes have the same year. Finally, some records have further information concerning the year (and sometimes month) on the label/cover: there may be a "Depósito Legal" date (as on Spanish records), fineprint by the company that printed the covers, etc. And in some cases, there may even be conflicting information on the cover and on the label. However, I have never heard of any record that was released before the date on the cover/label. This wouldn't make any sense: why should a record be antedated?

As a general rule, then, any date given on the record is the earliest possible date the record might have been released, but it might also have been released later.

So the information given on the records themselves may be helpful sometimes, but to actually determine the release date of a record, you have to confer further sources. Jarman, for example, studied the music magazines (etc.) of the time to determine the month of release. Not surprisingly, I didn't do that, but mainly relied on second-hand data (and occasionally on my own memory). My main sources were Jarman and Jarman & Stöcklin (for 7" singles up to 1981), Pegg, Thompson, Carr & Murray (for early US LPs), and the various books by Frifelt (for bootlegs). Online sources I have used include Bassman's David Bowie Page, the Illustrated db Discography, the David Bowie 7" Singles website, and even the various Amazon websites. See the "Books and Links" section for a more complete list.
If there was conflicting information, I have chosen the date that (for whatever reason) appeared to be most plausible to me. Very often this is pointed out in the "Collector's notes". If I couldn't find any information at all, I have just listed the record at the place where... it seemed plausible.
The result is not perfect, of course. But even Jarman, who probably did the most impeccable research into release dates, had to file some "exotic" releases under the release dates of the issues from "major" countries...

On Countries of Release and Pressing

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Until the late 1980s, there was hardly any problem concerning the origin of a record: usually, records were pressed in the country in which they were intended to be sold. And in most cases, the country in which a record was pressed could be found on the label and/or the cover. Occasionally, copies were exported to other states, but the bulk of them remained within the borders of the country of manufacture. The only exception were real export pressings, that is, records that were pressed without any intention to sell them in the country in which the pressing plant was located. Such records can be identified by an unusual catalogue number (such as the Diamond Dogs US single) or an unusual label design (like the US export issue of the Sorrow single. Usually, I have filed such records under the country of manufacture, and pointed out any relevant further information known to me.
A special case are releases that combine a disc and a cover from different countries. On the one hand, it wasn't unusual for smaller European countries to import records from Britain and house them in their own covers (see, for example, the Danish Laughing Gnome single). On the other hand, Austrian copies of The Best of Bowie were sold in imported UK covers. But by and large, such cases were exceptions.
From the mid-1980s onwards, it became more difficult to determine the exact origin of a record: due to the continuing internationalisation of the record industry, expecially European releases were more often distributed all over the continent. Frequently, labels did no longer give any information concerning the country of manufacture, but simply bore an imprint like "Made in EC" or "Made in EEC". However, in most cases the exact country can be identified by more detailed information on the cover, or by the copyright association on the label. I have usually filed such records under the most likely country of intended release. Otherwise, I have simply filed such records under "EU".
Things have become even more complicated from the 2000s onwards. Very often records are produced in only one country, but intended for worldwide distribution. In such cases my rule is the following: if a record was made in country X, and also regularly (!) distributed in country X, then it's a record from country X. This is the reason why I list numerous records that Discogs classifies as "Europe" or "Worldwide" as, for example, German or Czech releases (two countries in which many Bowie records are currently pressed). I might not always be entirely consistent, but in problematic cases, I have usually pointed out the problems in the respective entry.
Bootlegs and counterfeits are a special case. Since the producers of such releases do not normally want to be identified, they often try to conceil the country of manufacture or even give wrong information. Sometimes the origin of a bootleg or counterfeit is known, but sometimes I had to fall back on dubious information such as the label design or information found on the record. So be warned: my statements on the origin of bootlegs and counterfeits are not very reliable, but have to be regarded as "work in progress".

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