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David Bowie’s song ★ (‘Blackstar’) was released as a digital download on 19 November 2015, the same day that the video was released on David Bowie’s YouTube and Vevo channels.

Blackstar single artwork

The song had originally been more than 11 minutes long, but was edited to 9:57 after Bowie and Tony Visconti learned that iTunes would not allow tracks for individual sale that lasted longer than 10 minutes.

It’s total bullshit, but David was adamant it be the single, and he didn’t want both an album version and a single version, since that gets confusing.
Tony Visconti
Rolling Stone, 23 November 2015

The song was a top ten hit in Japan and Portugal, and top 40 in Belgium, Hungary, Italy, and Switzerland. In the UK it peaked at 61 on the official singles chart, and on the US Billboard Hot 100 climbed no higher than 78.

The video was published on the same day that the song was released. It was directed by Johan Renck, whom Bowie had already worked with on the theme for the Sky Atlantic series The Last Panthers.

At the very beginning, he sent me drawings which were great and he kind of left it at that. I took a lot of those drawings and I went with them. Sometimes it’s interesting to work from a completely white paper, but many times if the artist is interested and he has ideas and they’re good, I love working with that because it’s a great starting point.

We had a drawing of [Button Eyes], which was pretty amazing. He had a drawing of a woman kneeling by a man in a spacesuit and he had a few other drawings so they’re clearly represented in the video.

Johan Renck
CBC Music, 23 November 2015

The video was screened on 19 November at the Nitehawk Cinema in Brooklyn, with Renck and Tony Visconti in attendance. After the screening Renck took part in an audience Q&A.

When we spoke about when this video is gonna come out and I told him that there’s gonna be interviews and shit like that, I told him, ‘Be aware I’m not doing any of this to get any of your fucking glory or sheen on me, I don’t care about that. I’m doing it to support your music.’ And he said ‘I know you wont do that. The one thing I think is important is to not go into any second guessing or analyzing what these images mean, because they’re between you and me. People are going to go head over heels to try to break it down and figure it down across the spectrum, and there’s no point in even engaging that.’ And I said I totally agree. I’ve never been one to talk analytically about a music video or whatever I do. Because this is what I made, it comes from somewhere. You make of it whatever the fuck you want, I’m not going to push any of my ideas onto you.
Johan Renck
Vice, 19 November 2015

Bowie plays three different roles in the video: the tormented and bandaged Button Eyes; a priest figure holding a tattered book bearing the ‘Blackstar’ logo; and a charismatic trickster – “the great I am” – who plays the central Blackstar role.

The character there, we named him Button Eyes, I was there when that character was born. It’s not like, ‘Hmm, what can we do that’s cool and different, that people will be interested in?’ He sent me drawings. He just said, ‘I want a mask with buttons for eyes.’

What I didn’t do is ask ‘what is he?’ Because I’m not interested in that. I’m interested in what comes out of him, and interested in Button Eyes. So in the video there are clearly two characters—there’s Button Eyes, who’s introverted, a sort of tormented blind guy. And then we have this other guy who’s a flamboyant trickster in the middle of it, selling us the message in the other part of the song.

Johan Renck
Vice, 19 November 2015

The video was choreographed by Kira Alker and Elke Luyten of Zus Performance, both of whom also cast the dancers. The company’s website states: “The choreography for ‘Blackstar’ was born out of their previous work called Death Drive, taking physical compulsion as an impetus for dance.”

Luyten appeared in the ‘Blackstar’ video as one of the jittering dancers, and again as the girl under the bed in the ‘Lazarus’ video. The other performers were Elisa Lasowski (who played the woman with the tail), Evvie Allison, Anna Azrieli, Ezra Azrieli Holzman, Rachel Berman, David Bowie, Kay Ottinger, Lydia Chrisman, Sebastian Ghita, Sara Gibbons, Stephanie Gibson, Elisa Lasowski, Mickey Mahar, Lindsay Dietz Marchant, Bogdan Olaru, Emi Oshima, Angeli Sion, Cameran Surles, David Thompson, and Diana Vladu.

The ‘Blackstar’ video won the award for Best Art Direction at the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards.

Archive » Release

David Bowie’s single ‘Sue (Or In A Season Of Crime)’ was released as a digital download on 17 November 2014.

It was issued as a 10″ vinyl single on the same day in the United Kingdom, and on the compilation Nothing Has Changed.

The song had been premiered on Guy Garvey’s BBC Radio 6 Music show on 12 October.

In the USA, a 10″ single with different artwork was issued on 28 November, for the Black Friday version of Record Store Day.

The album features Bowie’s first new music since he stunned the world with the critically lauded ‘THE NEXT DAY’. The new single ‘SUE (or IN A SEASON OF CRIME)’ was especially recorded for NOTHING HAS CHANGED with long time collaborator Tony Visconti and will be released as a digital download the same day as the album and as a Record Store Day exclusive 10″ single on November 28th.
Press release for Nothing Has Changed

The single contained the full 7:24 recording with the Maria Schneider Orchestra. On the b-side was a 4:01 radio edit, and Bowie’s demo recording of ‘’Tis A Pity She Was A Whore’, on which he played every instrument. The radio edit cut the song from eight verses to six, omitted the final two.

The video

A black-and-white video for ‘Sue’ was released on 15 November 2014, two days ahead of the single release.

It was directed by Tom Hingston, who had previously assembled a promo for The Next Day’s ‘I’d Rather Be High’, and later directed the ‘No Plan’ video.

The ‘Sue’ video contained new scenes shot by Hingston, in addition to footage by Jimmy King of Bowie performing with the Maria Schneider Orchestra in July 2014.

Archive » Release

Reality, David Bowie’s 25th solo studio album, was released in Europe on 15 September 2003, and the following day in America. It was recorded and released in the wake of Bowie’s Heathen album and tour, and was his last album before his 10-year hiatus from recording.

The initial release saw two editions of the album: a single CD, and a double-disc set containing the studio outtakes ‘Fly’, ‘Queen Of All The Tarts (Overture)’, and a 2002 re-recording of ‘Rebel Rebel’.

The Japanese edition was a single disc set with one bonus song, a cover version of the Kinks’ ‘Waterloo Sunset’.

There was very little struggle to find what would be right for the album. In all, I think we only left off two or three songs.
David Bowie
Sound On Sound, October 2003

There was also a limited ‘European’ edition with a bonus disc. This collated the four bonus tracks from the other editions, as well as a cover of Sigue Sigue Sputnik’s ‘Love Missile F1-11’, and three versions of the ‘Rebel Never Gets Old’ mashup of ‘Rebel Rebel’ and ‘Never Get Old’: a radio mix, 7th Heaven edit, and 7th Heaven mix.

Reality album cover

A ‘Tour’ edition of Reality was also issued to coincide with A Reality Tour’s visits to various countries. This contained the bonus cover of ‘Waterloo Sunset’, as well as DVD performance of the entire album, recorded at the Riverside Studios in London on 8 September 2003. In Canada the DVD was truncated to just five songs: ‘New Killer Star’, ‘Never Get Old’, ‘Days’, ‘Reality’, and ‘Bring Me The Disco King’.

Later in 2003, Reality was released on the SACD format, which contained all 11 album tracks in both stereo and 5.1 surround sound.

Upon the release of Reality, Bowie was optimistic about recording new music.

We’re already half-talking about the next album. And I’ve got to get this tour done. We leave an album always thinking, ‘This is a good piece of work,’ and we judge it very much on the last day of when we’re listening to our final mixes. And at that point, it’s critical for us to look at each other and say, ‘This is a real success.’ Frankly, it doesn’t really matter what happens after that, because, you know, things like Low and “Heroes” and all those things, they weren’t huge sellers. I mean [laughs], they were just not huge sellers, but we knew how important and good they were when we were listening to the final mixes, and we still judge things in that way. As long as we can say ‘That was a first-class piece of work,’ everything after that is frankly a bonus.
David Bowie, August 2003
Steinway.com

Instead, Bowie went into semi-retirement for several years, before returning to the studio in November 2010 to begin recording The Next Day.

Archive » Release

David Bowie’s ‘Little Wonder’ was released as a single on 27 January 1997, ahead of the Earthling album on 3 February.

It was Bowie’s follow-up to ‘Telling Lies’, which had been issued in November 1996.

‘Little Wonder’ became Earthling’s most successful single, reaching number 14 in the UK. It peaked at number 10 in Finland, and 19 in Belgium, but was not otherwise a major international hit.

The single was issued in an array of formats. In the UK there were two CD singles. The first contained the edit of ‘Little Wonder’, the Ambient Junior Mix, Club Dub Junior Mix, 4/4 Junior Mix, and Juniors Club Instrumental. These remixes were by Junior Vasquez.

The second UK CD single was billed as a limited edition, and contained the song edit, ‘Telling Lies’ (Adam F Mix), ‘Jump They Say’ (Leftfield 12″ Vocal Mix), and ‘Little Wonder’ (Danny Saber Mix).

A 12″ single was also released in the UK, which contained the Junior Club and Danny Saber mixes of ‘Little Wonder’, and the Adam F mix of ‘Telling Lies’.

In mainland Europe there were three CD editions and one 12″ single. The first CD single contained five versions of ‘Little Wonder’: the album version, Ambient Junior Mix, Danny Saber Mix, Club Dub Junior Mix, and 4/4 Junior Mix.

The second CD single contained the edit and Junior Club Mix of ‘Little Wonder’, and ‘Telling Lies’ (Adam F Mix). The third CD omitted the Junior Club Mix, but was otherwise identical.

The European 12″ vinyl single contained the Junior Club and Danny Saber mixes.

In the US, the sole CD single contained four versions of ‘Little Wonder’: the album version, Ambient Junior Mix, Club Dub Junior Mix, and Danny Saber Dance Mix.

Japanese fans could buy yet another variant, containing the single edit, Junior Club Mix, Danny Saber Mix, Club Dub Junior Mix, and 4/4 Junior Mix.

Archive » Release

David Bowie’s ‘Hallo Spaceboy’ single was issued on 19 February 1996.

The song had first been released on 25 September 1995, as the sixth track on the 1.Outside album.

It became the third single from the album, following ‘The Hearts Filthy Lesson’ and ‘Strangers When We Meet’.

The single topped the charts in Latvia, and reached number 8 in Finland. In the UK it peaked at number 12, his highest chart placing before 2013’s ‘Where Are We Now?’

The UK 7″ single featured the Pet Shop Boys remix, with a radio edit of ‘The Hearts Filthy Lesson’ on the b-side. A CD single added live versions of ‘Under Pressure’ and ‘Moonage Daydream’ from the Outside Tour.

There was also a UK 12″ single featuring Ball and Vauk’s Double Click, Instrumental, and Lost In Space remixes of ‘Hallo Spaceboy’.

In other European countries, a two-track CD single included the PSB remix of ‘Hallo Spaceboy’, and the live version of ‘Under Pressure’. There was also a four-track edition which added ‘Moonage Daydream’ and the Bowie Mix of ‘The Hearts Filthy Lesson’.

A 12″ single released in the US included the PSB 12″ mix, their shorter single version, and the Double Click and Lost In Space remixes.

There was also a CD single released in Japan which featured the PSB remix, the live versions of ‘Under Pressure’ and ‘Moonage Daydream’, and the Rubber Mix of ‘The Hearts Filthy Lesson’.

The Pet Shop Boys remix was included on the Bowie compilations Nothing Has Changed and Legacy. The 12″ remix was also included on the band’s Disco 4 collection in October 2007.

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