David Bowie's new album The Next Day

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.

Good Old-Fashioned Family Christmas

I haven't had internet access since Christmas eve, so this is a late Christmas post. I hope you all had happy holidays and also downloaded the new Gorillaz album that was released on Christmas.

I'd like to tell you about some new music-making gadgets I got...

Behringer Reverb Machine RV600

I've wanted this guitar pedal ever since I used the one my cousin Patrick has. I love the "Space" setting.

Now meet my new pocket-sized synthesizers, which I have named Flynn and Floyd.

Korg Monotron - "User Flynn"

Flynn was obviously named after Jeff Bridges' character in the movie Tron. I love the filter on the Monotron, and it's ridiculously fun to play with. Speaking of that new Gorillaz album I mentioned at the beginning of this blog post, I noticed on the site that the Korg Monotron is one of the instruments they listed as being used on the album.

Stylophone - "Uncle Floyd"

The Stylophone, which is played with a stylus, is probably best known for being used by David Bowie for his hit song "Space Oddity". I thought about naming my Stylophone Major Tom after that song, but I thought more about it and decided I actually don't love the Stylophone playing in the song. I do, however, love the Stylophone part at the end of his song "Slip Away", and so I named it after Uncle Floyd, one of the subjects of the song. I also like the alliteration in Flynn and Floyd. To show you just how much better this Stylophone part is, here's a video of a beautiful live performance of "Slip Away" where Bowie plays the Stylophone at the end of the song:



I wonder if the Stylophone will be one of the objects in David Bowie's new book. Anyway, I know I'll be getting a lot of use out of my new music-making gadgets.

Bing Crosby & David Bowie

I've been a fan of this video for years, but I totally copied Austin by putting it on my blog.

Shortly after finishing work on his album "Heroes", David Bowie was invited to be a guest on Bing Crosby's Merrie Olde Christmas, because Crosby's children were fans of Bowie. It was Crosby's last television appearance, as he died just a month after it was filmed, coincidentally on the very same day that "Heroes" was released. The special aired several weeks later on Christmas Eve 1977.

There's a rather interesting Washington Post article from a few years ago about how Bowie didn't even want to sing the song until the "Peace On Earth" bit was added.

I apologize. I didn't mean to be a downer with all that death stuff and "Bowie didn't even want to sing the song" stuff. I just wanted to give the video some context.

Bowie: Object

Pretty much anyone who knows me knows I'm a big fan of David Bowie. I love reading about his music-making process on my favorite albums of his, and two of my favorite books I own are The Complete David Bowie and Bowie In Berlin: A New Career In A New Town. While the authors of those books did an amazing job scouring resources for information (including from the mouth of Bowie himself in interviews) and presenting it in an organized, unbiased way, for a long time I've thought it would be interesting if David Bowie wrote a book about his music and his creative process. The 2008 compilation iSelect was accompanied by liner notes, written by Bowie, about the songs included. It was incredibly interesting, and I found myself wanting notes written by him like that about all of his other songs. I don't know if that will ever happen so I'll have to stick to using the books I linked to above.

While Bowie hasn't released any new music since his 2003 album Reality, and doesn't seem to be returning to music anytime in the near future, he's apparently been keeping himself very busy with painting, sculpture, writing, and of course spending time with his family.

A few months ago there was news of a book he's been working on called Bowie: Object. Even though it's not a book specifically about his songs, it should be at least as interesting. It seems to be a picture book containing photographs of a collection of objects (100 of them) that give insight into his life and creative process. According to a news post on Bowie's website, the photographs in the book are "annotated with insightful, witty and personal text written by Bowie himself." The book is the first in a series written by Bowie, according to his literary agent Andrew Wylie. Bowie is due to deliver the finished book to Wylie in December, but as far as I know, there is not yet a publication date.

That news post appeared after Publishers Weekly leaked the books existence. As soon as the confirmation hit the official Bowie website, the news spread fast. One article by a seemingly very judgmental Tim Adler condescendingly said, "That, apparently, qualifies as a book these days." I guess book journalists can be even bigger snobs than music journalists. Does it have to be a novel to qualify as a book? I, for one, think it sounds fascinating, and am looking forward to acquiring a copy.

I wonder if a deck of Oblique Strategies cards will be one of the objects or if that's too obvious.

David Bowie likes cool music.

I was just watching a David Bowie interview I've never seen before where he's mostly talking about my favorite album of his, Heathen. At one point he's talking about how it's important to listen to old music as well as new music. He was saying it's okay to listen to The Beatles, but that it's also important to listen to The Streets, which he practically pulled out of the air as an example of an important modern band. I love The Streets, and it's pretty cool knowing David Bowie thinks so highly of The Streets too. It made me smile.

Here's a really good song by The Streets that was around back when the Bowie interview took place: