I'll admit I was wondering if David Bowie would ever release a new album, and I would have been fine with him retiring from music, as long as that's what he wanted. What it comes down to is that I wouldn't want him to release a new album just to please his fans.
January 8th was his 66th birthday, and catching just about everyone in the world off guard, there was an announcement that there would be a new David Bowie album this year, titled The Next Day. Along with the announcement came a music video for a new song from the album called "Where Are We Now?"
Bowie had been working on the album for 2 years before the announcement, with producer Tony Visconti and several musicians he's worked with in the past, like Earl Slick, Gail Ann Dorsey, Sterling Campbell, Gerry Leonard, David Torn, and Zachary Alford. It's amazing to me that they managed to keep it a secret in this day and age, and I'm glad they did, because it was a fun surprise.
It may sound silly, but knowing this album is coming out this year and having to wait for it is really exciting to me. Part of being a fan of a musician is looking forward to the release of their next album, and specifically as a Bowie fan, I haven't experienced that yet. Although I liked a handful of Bowie's songs already, I don't think I really became a fan until I heard Danny Lohner's remix of "Bring Me The Disco King" on the Underworld soundtrack in early September 2003, and Bowie's last album, Reality came out only a bit later that month.
I don't know what I think of the album cover for The Next Day, which was created by Jonathan Barnbrook. I think I understand the concept, and even really like the concept. I just don't really like the execution or end product. I think the artwork for Bowie's album Heathen already explored similar themes and did a much better job of it while also looking beautiful, with images of Renaissance paintings slashed and splattered with paint, pages from books ripped and shredded, crossed-out typing, a faceless Bowie. Looking at the cover of The Next Day and the artwork for Heathen, I almost can't believe they were done by the same guy. It's not that big of a deal that I don't like it though. It's not like it would be the first Bowie album cover I'm not really a fan of. Maybe after hearing the album, the cover art will grow on me more. If not, maybe I'll use this image as the cover on my iPod. Right now I like that image a hell of a lot more than the actual cover.
It's been reported that Bowie doesn't want to tour to support the album at all, and I'm also fine with that even though I've never seen him live before. If memory serves (I mean memory of what I've read. I wasn't alive yet back then), Bowie didn't tour to support Low unless you count the tour he went on after Heroes came out, but that was over a year after Low was released. I don't think that going on tour should be expected of a musician after they release an album. Going on tour can take up a lot of time and energy, and maybe they'd rather just spend that time and energy on other things. It's also been said that Bowie would like to get back into the studio later this year to work on another album, and I think that's great news.
No comments:
Post a Comment