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There have been a multitude of David Bowie collections released since his breakthrough in the early '70s. Arguably, however, not one does a better job than this of illustrating just how powerful that breakthrough was (and the follow-through as well), and how absolutely the odd-eyed boy from Brixton changed the face of British pop. Beginning in the summer of 1972, when "Starman" revived the fortunes of the former one-hit ("Space Oddity") wonder, Bowie released one of the most commanding sequences of 45s in British chart history, a run that reached at least into the early '80s, and not only included some of the finest new records in his repertoire ("John, I'm Only Dancing", "The Jean Genie", "Drive-In Saturday", "Rebel Rebel", "Fame"), but also reached back into his pre-fame catalog for the occasional space-filler - "Life on Mars?" was already two years old when it made the U.K. Top Three in 1973. All are here, with the sequence filled out with a pair of genuinely significant B-sides: both "Ziggy Stardust" and "Suffragette City" would both have made great A-sides in their own right. On through the 1970s the collection goes, finally running out of single-disc space in early 1977, with the electroshock of "Sound and Vision", a record regarded as so uncommercial that his record label at the time, RCA, all but begged Bowie to cancel its release. Instead, it became one of his greatest hits ever, and rounds out Vol. 1 on one more unimpeachable high.

The Singles Collection CD 1 review by allmusic.com