Heathen (David Bowie album)

Recording and production

Heathen marked the return of record producer Tony Visconti, who co-produced (with David Bowie himself) several of Bowie's classic albums. The last album Visconti had co-produced was Scary Monsters in 1980. This was the first album since Bowie's pre-Tin Machine work to not include guitarist Reeves Gabrels.

Originally, Bowie had recorded the album Toy for release in 2000 or '01. This album was meant to feature some new songs and remakes of some his lesser-known songs from the 1960s. Although Toy remains officially unreleased, a few of its tracks—including "Afraid" and "Slip Away" (then titled "Uncle Floyd")—appear on Heathen. Some other re-recorded songs were included as B-sides to the singles from Heathen.

The album features guest appearances from The Who guitarist Pete Townshend (who had played guitar on an earlier Bowie track, "Because You're Young" from Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)), Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl, Dream Theater keyboardist Jordan Rudess, pianist Kristeen Young, and prolific bassist Tony Levin of King Crimson. The song "I Took a Trip on a Gemini Spaceship" contains the lowest note Bowie has ever sung on an album (G1).

Style and themes

Although many of its songs were written for Toy, and some are cover versions, biographers, and critics of the time claimed that Heathen deals with Bowie's impressions of the 11 September attacks. The lyrics of songs such as "Slow Burn", "Afraid", "A Better Future", and "Heathen (The Rays)" focus on the degradation of mankind and the world in general, recalling his earlier album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars and the song "Five Years".

Writing about the connection between the album and 9/11, Dave Thompson says:

Although we can probably credit nothing more spiritual than saturation-level television coverage for its visceral impact, 9/11 remains the single most resonant event in recent world history for many people, igniting so many thoughts, fears and conflicts within the minds of those who witnessed it that, even today, people who have never been to America, can still bond over those 102 terrifying minutes. At the time, and through the months of uncertainty that followed, the need for that bonding was even more pronounced. Heathen sounded like it understood how people felt. People automatically felt the need, then, to understand Heathen and, of all Bowie's albums of the nineties and beyond, it remains the one that is most frequently singled out as his best, because it is certainly his most direct. Even Tony Visconti referred to it as his magnum opus: "I told him, 'That was more like a symphony.'"

Bowie denied that any of the album's songs were written after September 2001, though he admits that the songs deal with the general feeling of anxiety that he's had in America for a number of years, adding "it's not unlikely that you're going to have a sense of angst in anything that's recorded in New York or by New Yorkers." He has also said in a 2003 interview: "It was written as a deeply questioning album. Of course, it had one foot astride that awful event in September. So that was quite a traumatic album to finish. This one hints at that, but it's not really trying to resolve any trauma. [September 11] did affect me and my family very much. We live down here."

The album contains cover versions of three songs: "Cactus" by Pixies, "I've Been Waiting for You" by Neil Young (which had also been recorded by Pixies as a B-side for 1990's "Velouria" single), and "I Took a Trip on a Gemini Spaceship" by Norman Odam, aka the Legendary Stardust Cowboy, from whom Bowie lifted his "Ziggy Stardust" moniker in 1972. The latter two songs were taken from a list of songs that Bowie compiled in the 1970s for his never-recorded Pin Ups 2 album.

Music videos

Bowie, who was 55 at the time of the record's release, said, "I'm pretty much a realist. There's a certain age you get to when you're not really going to be shown [on TV] anymore. The young have to kill the old. ... That's how life works. ... It's how culture works." For this reason there are no music videos for any of the songs from this album.

However, a music video for "Slow Burn" was uploaded to the official DavidBowieVEVO YouTube channel on 23 March 2011. The video shows Bowie dressed in white performing the vocals to the song in a recording studio booth, with a young girl wandering around the darkened control room and occasionally touching the equipment and mixing desk. The video is an edited version of the song and no directing or other credits are given.

Live performances

Bowie took his album on the road for his Heathen Tour in the latter half of 2002.

Alternative versions

A remix of the song "Everyone Says 'Hi'" is featured in the PlayStation 2 rhythm game Amplitude.

In 2011, UK band Films of Colour released a cover of "Slow Burn"

The song "Sunday" was played live at the Heathen Tour and A Reality Tour concerts. A live version recorded at The Point, Dublin in November 2003 was included on the A Reality Tour DVD. A Moby remix is available on the bonus disc of the 2-CD version of Heathen, and a Tony Visconti remix was released on the European version of the single "Everyone Says 'Hi'" and the single "I've Been Waiting for You".

Heathen has also been released in SACD format in a limited number of copies with slightly longer versions of five of the songs.

Track listing

All tracks written by David Bowie, and produced by Bowie and Tony Visconti, except where noted.

Japanese 2007 re-issue

as above plus:

Personnel