These things happened this month: 1) RCA announced that David Bowie has sold 1,056,400 albums in Britain in two years and 1,024,068 singles, while "The Laughing Gnome" has sold 200,000 copies for Deram. Which reminds me of a joke — Marc Bolan, in CREEM, July 1973:

Essentially what they tried to do with Bowie was create another Marc Bolan, but the interest . with the kids was not there... I mean, I don't consider David to be remotely near big enough to give me any competition. I don't think David has anywhere near the charisma or balls that I have. He's not gonna make it in any sort of way...