Out Tomorrow: David Bowie, Earthling

It’s time for another David Bowie reissue, and it’s one that blew a lot of people’s minds upon its initial release.

EARTHLING, which originally arrived in record stores in 1997, found Bowie moving in an electronica-influenced direction, taking bits and pieces of the drum and bass scene of the day and transforming them into his own take on industrial music. If you think it was a case of an artist riding the coattails of a current trend, then you clearly don’t know the Thin White Duke very well: this was just a case of Bowie being Bowie, to the point where he actually produced it himself, the first time he’d done so for an album in over two decades. (The last instance had been 1974’s DIAMOND DOGS.)

You might have heard some of the singles from EARTHLING – they included “Telling Lies,” “Little Wonder,” “Dead Man Walking,” and “I’m Afraid of Americans” – but you probably didn’t hear them as much as you should have. This was an absolutely remarkable piece of work, and it’s one that should be held up as one of the best examples of what a musical chameleon Bowie could be. If you’ve never heard it, now’s the time to remedy that.