1. Outside (album)

1. Outside
Studio album by David Bowie
Publication (s)	September 25, 1995
admission	March 1994 - February 1995
Label (s)	Arista Records
Format (s)	CD
Genre (s)	Art-rock , experimental , ambient
Title (number)	19th
running time	74:36
production	Brian Eno , David Bowie
chronology Black Tie White Noise (1993) 1. Outside Earthling (1997)

1. Outside is David Bowie's 19th studio album , released on September 25, 1995 by Arista Records . It's a concept album , subtitled The Diary of Nathan Adler or The Art-Ritual Murder of Baby Grace Blue: A Non-linear Gothic Drama Hyper-cycle . Biographically, it marks Bowie's re-encounter with Brian Eno , with whom he worked on his Berlin trilogy in the 1970s, among other things: the albums Low (1977), “Heroes” (1977) and Lodger (1979). 1. Outside is about people in a dystopian world on the eve of the 21st century. The album brought Bowie back into the mainstream rock music scene with the songs The Hearts Filthy Lesson , Strangers When We Meet and Hallo Spaceboy (remixed by the Pet Shop Boys ).

History of origin

David Bowie and Brian Eno reunited with Iman Abdulmajid at Bowie's wedding in 1992 . They played their own pieces at the wedding party and enjoyed the up and down of the couples on the dance floor. Bowie later said, “We were both interested in nibbling on the periphery of the mainstream rather than getting in. We sent each other long manifestos about what was missing in music and what to do. We decided to really experiment and go into the studio with just a few ideas. "

Mediated by André Heller , Bowie and Eno visited the Gugging Psychiatric Clinic near Vienna in early 1994 - today a cultural center - and interviewed and photographed their patients, who were famous for their “outsider art”. Bowie and Eno brought some of these works of art to the studio when they began work on the album in March 1994, and the result was initially a three-hour piece that consisted mostly of dialogue. Then, in late 1994, Bowie was asked by Q magazine to keep a diary for ten days (which was later published there), but Bowie, fearing that his diary would be too boring (“… go to the studio, come home, go to bed Instead, wrote the diary for a fictional character named Nathan Adler from his earlier improvisation with Eno. Bowie said, "Instead of 10 days, it became 15 years in his life!" This became the basis for 1. Outside's story .

Unlike some of Bowie's previous albums, not a single song was written before the band went into the studio. Instead, Bowie wrote many songs in improvised sessions. Bowie and Eno also continued the experimental songwriting techniques they had used during the Berlin trilogy.

The "random cut-ups" from the Adler story, which are part of the lyrics and notes on the album, were written by Bowie, who entered them into his computer and then had them processed by a program called "Verbasizer". The program electronically cut up and reassembled Bowie's text, just as he had done with paper, scissors, and glue in the 1970s. He would then look at the lyrics while the band played a song and decide “whether I was going to sing, have a dialogue, or become a character.” Bowie claimed that it took three and a half hours to use this method to “virtually do all of it Genesis ”of the album 1. Outside .

At almost 75 minutes, the album is one of Bowie's longest. When it was released, he said it could become a problem: “As soon as it was released, I thought, it's way too long. It will die. There is too much to it. I should have made two CDs. "

Concept and themes

The liner notes contain a short story by Bowie entitled "The Diary of Nathan Adler or the Art-Ritual Murder of Baby Grace Blue: A Non-linear Gothic-Drama Hypercycle". The story is a gloomy view of 1999, when a fictional government set up a new office through its art commission to investigate the phenomenon of “art crime”. In this future, murders and the mutilation of bodies are becoming a crazy new trend in underground art. The main character, Nathan Adler, has to decide which of these should actually be considered art and which should not. The album is full of references to characters and their lives involved in the murder of fourteen year old Baby Grace Blue.

The idea is based on some controversial happenings by representatives of Viennese Actionism , some of which actually came into conflict with the law.

Bowie said, “The idea of ​​this post-apocalyptic situation is kind of there. You can kind of feel it. ”In interviews, he also remarked,“ The narrative and the stories are not the content - the content is the space between the linear bits. The bad, strange textures. "

In 1999, Bowie summed up his work since 1. Outside and said, “Perhaps the one continuous line between some things in Outside and the millennium to come is this new pagan worship, this whole search for a new spiritual life that is playing out. Because of the way in which we tore down the idea of ​​God with this triumvirate Nietzsche , Einstein and Freud at the beginning of the century , we really destroyed everything we believed. Time warps, God is dead, the inner self is created by many personalities. [...] I wonder if we realized that the only thing we could do as "God" was the hydrogen bomb. "

occupation

• David Bowie - vocals , saxophone , guitar , keyboard
• Brian Eno - synthesizer
• Reeves Gabrels - guitar
• Erdal Kızılçay - bass, keyboard
• Mike Garson - piano
• Sterling Campbell - Drums
• Joey Baron - drums
• Yossi Fine - bass
• Tom Frish - additional guitar at Strangers When We Meet
• Kevin Armstrong - additional guitar at Thru 'These Architects Eyes
• Bryony, Lola, Josey and Ruby Edwards - background vocals for The Hearts Filthy Lesson and I Am With Name

Track list

1. Leon Takes Us Outside - 1:25
2. Outside - 4:05
3. The Hearts Filthy Lesson - 4:57
4. A Small Plot of Land - 6:36
5. Baby Grace (A Horrid Cassette) (segue) - 1:39
6. Hello Spaceboy - 5:14
7. The Motel - 6:49
8. I Have Not Been to Oxford Town - 3:47
9. No Control - 4:33
10. Algeria Touchshriek (segue) - 2:03
11. The Voyeur of Utter Destruction (as Beauty) - 4:21
12. Ramona A. Stone / I Am with Name (segue) - 4:01
13. Wishful Beginnings - 5:08 am
14. We Prick You - 4:33
15. Nathan Adler (segue) - 1:00
16. I'm Deranged - 4:31
17. Thru 'These Architects Eyes - 4:22
18. Nathan Adler (segue) - 0:28
19. Strangers When We Meet - 5:07 am

A version called Version 2 was published by 1. Outside . This was missing the piece Wishful Beginnings ; for this a remix of the Pet Shop Boys of the piece Hallo Spaceboy was added at the end .

literature

• Konrad Heitkamp, David Bowie: 1. Outside The Nathan Adler Diaries , in: Die Zeit , October 13, 1995 (online)
• Nicholas P. Greco, David Bowie in Darkness: A Study of 1. Outside and the Late Career , Jefferson: McFarland 2015, ISBN 978-0786494101

Individual evidence

1. ^ Edna Gundersen, Cover Story: Bowie, beyond fame and fashion , in: USA Today , September 14, 1995
2. ↑ Stefan Chirazi, Portrait of the Artist: David Bowie , in: Soma Magazine , Vol. 13, No. 8 (2000) (online)

Web links

• David Bowie Outside Press Conference London 1995 (Video)