This pressing of Aladdin Sane was cut on a customized late Neumann VMS80 lathe with fully recapped electronics from 192kHz restored masters of the original master tapes, with no additional processing on transfer. The half-speed was cut by John Webber at AIR Studios.

The title track and songs such as "Lady Grinning Soul" and "Time" marked a significant musical progression from its predecessor, adding brass, woodwind, soulful backing vocals and the distinctive piano playing of Mike Garson.

The album was preceded by two singles ‘The Jean Genie’ and ‘Drive-In Saturday’, peaking in the U.K. singles chart at numbers 2 and 3 respectively, and was the first time he topped the U.K. album charts. It also marked his debut on the U.S. charts reaching the top 20 album chart there, where an edited version of ‘Time’ was released as a single.