Earthling (David Bowie album)

Did You Know?

• The album title was chosen by fans at a performance in Roseland, New York, during the September 1996 tour.
• The Union Jack coat on the cover was co-designed by Bowie and Alexander McQueen.
• The cover photograph was taken by Frank Ockenfels in New York and sent to computer designer Dave De Angelis in England.

Background and recording

After the Outside Tour wrapped up in early 1996, David Bowie took a smaller version of that band—without George Simms, Pete Schwartz, and Carlos Alomar—to play festivals that summer. He clicked so well with this leaner group that it inspired his next record. In April 1996, Bowie recorded a new song called "Telling Lies" by himself at Mountain Studios in Montreux, Switzerland, marking his last session there. The track built on the jungle and drum and bass sounds from Outside songs like "I'm Deranged" and "We Prick You," and he debuted it during those festival shows. Around May, he also cut an untitled piece with the line "dead men don't talk," which predated the Earthling material. Bowie later said "Telling Lies" became the blueprint for the album, with the band reshaping it on the road. Recording for Earthling started in August 1996, right after the festival run, at Philip Glass's Looking Glass Studios in New York City. Engineer Mark Plati, a local with deep knowledge of the studio, joined the lineup. Bowie mostly produced the album himself—his first solo production since Diamond Dogs in 1974—because he knew exactly what he wanted and had no time to bring in a co-producer. Plati and Reeves Gabrels received co-producer credits, and Plati co-wrote several tracks.

Music and lyrics

Earthling is a much shorter album than its predecessor, Outside, featuring only nine tracks compared to that album's nineteen. Bowie himself described Earthling as "primitive" next to the complexity of the earlier work. The music is heavily influenced by electronica, drawing from the industrial and drum and bass sounds of the 1990s. While Bowie had touched on these styles before, he fully committed to them here. He explained in an interview that the goal was to expand their dance vocabulary while still keeping a rock foundation, comparing the approach to how his 1975 album Young Americans blended his European background with black soul music. Many critics label Earthling Bowie's "drum and bass album," but biographer Marc Spitz argues it is simply a veteran artist chasing a sound he loves. Buckley supports this, noting that only three or four songs actually feature a drum and bass element. Tracks like "Little Wonder," "Battle for Britain (The Letter)," "Telling Lies," and "Dead Man Walking" are built on rapid-fire bass, hailstorm percussion, distorted guitar, sampling, and sudden pauses. Other reviewers point to industrial rock, electronica, hard rock, and alternative dance in the mix. James E. Perone highlights techno and jungle influences and finds the album more accessible than Outside, thanks to strong melodic hooks. Bowie initially compared its aggressive sound to his 1980 album Scary Monsters. Lyrically, Perone sees alienation as the central theme, while Nicholas Pegg argues the lyrics revisit spiritual ideas from Station to Station, a claim Bowie himself supported.

Release and promotion

Before Earthling came out, Bowie put out two singles. The first was "Telling Lies," which arrived on November 4, 1996, with three remixes. It only reached number 76 in Britain and number 79 in Scotland, and just 3,500 copies were made. The second single, "Little Wonder," also with three remixes, dropped on January 27, 1997. This one did much better, hitting number 14 in the UK and going to number one in Japan. Floria Sigismondi directed the music video, showing Bowie at three different ages. The album itself hit shelves on February 3, 1997, on CD and vinyl. RCA Records handled it in the UK, Virgin Records in the US, and Arista Records with BMG elsewhere. The Japanese version added the 'Adam F Mix' of "Telling Lies" as a bonus track. RCA pushed the album as easy to get into; marketing director Kristina Kyriacou called it a bold, dynamic statement with lasting appeal. Sales were modest but better than Bowie's previous album, landing at number six on the UK Albums Chart and number 39 on the US Billboard 200. It also made the top five in Belgium's Wallonia region and Sweden, and cracked the top ten in France and Scotland. In 1998, it got a Grammy nomination for Best Alternative Music Performance, but lost to Radiohead's OK Computer. Bowie promoted Earthling with TV spots from February to April 1997, including on Saturday Night Live and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

Aftermath and legacy

Throughout 1997, Bowie garnered attention when he earned substantial wealth through the sale of "Bowie Bonds", a celebrity bond that was issued against Bowie's future royalties from his back catalogue over the next ten years. Bowie was the first rock musician to engage in such a deal, predating future endeavors by artists such as Elton John, and it earned him $55 million. He also earned an additional $28.5 million upon selling his back catalogue to EMI, who subsequently began a Best of... reissue campaign. In November 1997, Bowie performed on the BBC's Children in Need charity single "Perfect Day 97", which became a UK number-one single. In 1998, Bowie retreated from the spotlight; nevertheless, he continued recording and making film appearances. He also reconciled with his former collaborator Tony Visconti. In late 1998, Bowie and Gabrels spent time in Bermuda, composing tracks for his next album Hours (1999). In 2018, Gabrels considered Earthling his favourite collaboration with Bowie. Other artists have spoken positively of the record. Robert Smith later stated: "I really liked Earthling. I thought it was a really good album. The songs are great songs." Mark Guiliana cited Alford's drum work on Earthling as the primary inspiration for his drum patterns on Bowie's final album Blackstar (2016). Retrospective reviews of Earthling have been mixed. AllMusic editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine criticised the album's sound as "awkward", writing that "the record frequently sounds as if the beats were simply grafted on top of pre-existing songs". John Davidson of PopMatters wrote that Earthling was the result of Bowie trying to "play catch-up" with the drum and bass explosion of the late 1990s. The Independents Ed Power considered the album a part of the "most underrated phase" of Bowie's career and worth a reevaluation among fans.