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New Release on March 2013 After 10 YearsThe Next Day is the twenty-seventh studio album by English musician David Bowie, released on 8 March 2013 on Bowie's ISO Records, under exclusive license to Columbia Records. The album was unexpectedly announced on Bowie's sixty-sixth birthday, on 8 January 2013... It is Bowie's first album of new material in ten years, since 2003's Reality, and surprised fans and media who believed he had retired. The album was met with critical acclaim. The Next Day earned Bowie his first number-one album in the UK since 1993's Black Tie White Noise, and the fastest-selling album of 2013 to date... RecordingBowie and producer Visconti worked in secret alongside long-term engineer Mario J. McNulty, recording the album over a two-year period. The recording sessions were sporadic, and Visconti estimated that only three full months were spent demoing and recording material. Visconti recalled that the album began with a one-week recording session... Sterling Campbell was on drums, I was on bass, David was on keyboards, Gerry Leonard was on guitar. By the end of five days we had demoed up a dozen songs. Just structures. No lyrics, no melodies and all working titles. This is how everything begins with him. Then he took them home and we didn't hear another thing from him for four months... Bowie would disappear with the music "to make sure he was on the right track", then bring the band back together to take the next step in recording when he was ready. Visconti described the recording sessions as "intense", but they stuck to regular hours. "The last time we did all-nighters was Young Americans"... During breaks from the studio, Visconti would walk the streets of New York listening to music from The Next Day on his earphones: "I was walking around New York with my headphones on, looking at all the people with Bowie T-shirts on—they are ubiquitous here—thinking, 'Boy, if you only knew what I'm listening to at the moment." Canadian band Metric almost uncovered the secret recording sessions when they arrived at Magic Shop recording studios unannounced in 2011, and Bowie saxophonist Steve Elson said he was tempted to reveal all...
MusicIn an interview with The Times, Visconti revealed that the album consists solely of original material and features no covers. Tony Visconti said to the NME that The Next Day "is quite a rock album". The first single was the ballad "Where Are We Now?", a track which Visconti described as "the only track on the album that goes this much inward for him". Visconti suggested that Bowie chose "Where Are We Now?" as the opening single because "people had to deal with the shock that he was back [after a 10 year absence]" and that the introspective nature of the song made it an appropriate choice... "The Stars (Are Out Tonight)", a much more upbeat song than his previous single, "Where Are We Now?", was released as the second single from the album on 26 February as a digital download. A music video in the form of a short film was premiered the previous day. The song received decent airplay on BBC Radio 1 and 106.9FM WHCR and, as of 17 March, had peaked at No. 102 in the UK singles chart... Visconti, who accepted an interviewer's suggestion that he was Bowie's "voice on earth", commented on the album to the international press and provided insights into the individual tracks. The songs cover a widespread of subjects and are largely observational: most probe the mind-sets of different individuals. "Valentine's Day" is about a high school shooter. "I'd Rather Be High" related the story of a Second World War soldier. Visconti described the material as "extremely strong and beautiful". He added "if people are looking for classic Bowie they'll find it on this album, if they're looking for innovative Bowie, new directions, they're going to find that on this album too." Visconti commented that 29 tracks were recorded for the album and suggested that some of the material left out of The Next Day could appear on a subsequent record. Visconti speculated that Bowie may return to the studio to produce a new album later in 2013... ArtworkThe cover art for the album is an adapted version of Bowie's 1977 album, "Heroes". Designed by Jonathan Barnbrook, who also designed packaging for Heathen and Reality, the obscuring of the photograph connotes "forgetting or obliterating the past". The original cover image was shot by Masayoshi Sukita. Barnbrook explained the cover, saying: "If you are going to subvert an album by David Bowie there are many to choose from but this is one of his most revered, it had to be an image that would really jar if it were subverted in some way and we thought "Heroes" worked best on all counts." A viral marketing campaign was launched to promote the album on 15 February 2013. The campaign grew out of the concept behind the album cover, taking seemingly ordinary images and subverting them through the addition of a white square... Album Tracklisting(Standard Version)01. The Next Day 3:51 Total (Approximately) 53:14 Deluxe Version includes also the Bonus tracks15. So She 2:31 Total (Approximately): 61: 03 source :wikipedia |
