David Bowie to Release New Album, Tour Coming?
David Bowie fans celebrating the legendary artist’s 66th birthday yesterday got quite the surprise when he released his first new song in a decade, and also announced that a new album will follow.
The news comes after it was fairly widely assumed that Bowie had retired from music, as he hasn’t released an album since 2003, hasn’t performed live since 2006 and is rarely seen in public these days. But the new song, “Where Are We Now?” appeared as a video on Bowie’s website shortly after midnight, and was later released on iTunes. The new album, The Next Day, is set to be released on March 12, and there’s no official word yet as to whether a tour will be announced to support the album.
The Next Day was recorded secretly in New York with Bowie’s long time producer Tony Visconti, who spoke to the BBC about Bowie and the album.
“We never spent more than two or three weeks at a time recording,” Visconti said. “Usually we’d work on one or two songs in the afternoon, and whip them into shape so they’d sound like great rock tracks… That’s the way I’ve been working with [David] since ‘The Man Who Sold the World’ [and] he hasn’t really changed in his approach.”
Visconti also said he was surprised with the choice of “Where Are We Now?” as the first single, as he thought it was not particularly representative of the rest of the album.
“It’s maybe the only track on the album that goes this much inward for him,” he said. “I thought to myself: ‘Why is David coming out with this very slow, albeit beautiful ballad?… He should come out with a bang.’ But [David] is a master of his own life. I think this was a very smart move, linking the past with the future, and I think the next thing you hear from him is going to be quite different.”
Bowie had emergency surgery following a heart attack in June 2004, but Visconti says the singer is currently in good health.
“David is extremely healthy, he’s rosy-cheeked [and] he smiles a lot… He still has that power in that chest and in his voice,” Visconti continued. “When he starts singing [I] have to back off, and go into another room and just leave him in front of a microphone.”