Stephen Holland - Multimedia Journalist

The Bowie Project #26 - Hours (1999) The David Bowie of 1999 is an interesting one, after an incredibly experimental and while uneven never uninteresting 1990s he seems to finally becomes at peace with his own legacy and place in the pop and rock musical landscape. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Not only was this a decade of intense musical experimentation, it was also a time that focused on endeavours outside of the music industry with a particular interest in the power of the rapidly expanding Word Wide Web. In 1998 Bowie became the first (maybe only?) rockstar internet service provider with the founding of BowieNet. This service not only offered fans high-speed internet access but also unparalleled access into the world of David Bowie including live chats, live video feeds, chat rooms and bulletin boards for just £19.95 per month. The forward-thinking Bowie always saw the potential of technology and the far-reaching impact it could have, this has been a theme in his music sin...

The Bowie Project #25 - Earthling (1997) David Bowie’s 21st studio album Earthling (stylised as EART HL ING ) was released on 3 February 1997. The follow up to the 1995 concept album Outside the original plans were for this record to be a conceptual continuation of what came before. Instead, Bowie scrapped that idea and this album was just merely influenced by some of styles and sounds of Outside in particular electronica as well as drum and bass/jungle culture that had been developing throughout the 1990s. This album is an interesting one in that it sounds like Bowie has never been further away from the glam rock style that made him famous. This is straight up drum and bass and on first listen it can be hard to know what to make of it. Is Bowie once again reinventing himself and making a bold new statement on artistic integrity and the drive to delve even deeper into the culture's musical landscape? Or is chasing a sound that had already past its height of cultural relevance, desp...

    The Bowie Project #24 – 1.Outside (1995) In 1995, David Bowie reunited with his old collaborator Brian Eno for the experimental art rock album Outside . The two hadn’t worked together officially since the late 70s when Eno contributed to the critically acclaimed series of albums now called the Berlin trilogy. The story goes that at Bowie’s wedding in 1992 he gave Eno a tape showcasing the styles he would explore on his then upcoming album Black Tie White Noise and they discussed the idea of collaborating once again. However, it was only after the release of Bowie’s following album The Buddha of Suburbia that Eno fully committed to coming on board for a new project. Over the next couple of years the two would exchange ideas, writing mini-manifestos to each other about what was missing in music and what they thought they should be doing. Outside was the final result, or to give its proper title, 1. Outside (The Nathan Adler Diaries or the Art Ritual Murder of Baby Grace Blue...

    The Bowie Project #23 – The Buddha of Suburbia (1993) In 1993, the same year as the release of David Bowie’s post-Tin Machine solo comeback album Black Tie White Noise , the Thin White Duke also saw himself working on a lesser known but potentially much more interesting project. The Buddha of Suburbia is a soundtrack album that was not used as a soundtrack. Following an interview between Bowie and British novelist Hanif Kureishi he agreed to compose the soundtrack for an upcoming TV adaptation of Kureishi’s 1990 novel the Buddha of the Suburbia. This autobiographical novel tells the story of Karim, a mixed-race British/Indian teenager who is desperate to escape his suburban life in South London and experience the new cultural experiences in the big city during the 1970s. The book is essentially a series of episodic adventures culminating in Karim’s Indian father being hailed as a mystic along with Karim’s introduction into the world of theatre, punk rock, and free love. A...