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Music / 'hours...' (David Bowie Album)
aka: Hours

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"Lived all our best times, left with the worst."

'hours...' is the twenty-second studio album by David Bowie, released in 1999 through Virgin Records. It is notable for being not only his last album with both Virgin and their parent company, EMI, as a whole (with all following albums being released through Columbia Records), but also the first complete album by a major artist available to download over the Internet, preceding its physical release by two weeks (it wasn't the first music of any kind distributed in this manner, though; that would be Bowie's earlier single "Telling Lies"). Given the comparatively slow state of the dial-up form of internet that was common in the 1990s, Bowie launched his own ISP, BowieNet, the year prior to this album's release partly as a means of giving fans a way to more readily download the album in its entirety.

'hours...' was a major departure from the preceding two albums, being a mix of art rock and pop rock with heavy electronic leanings and a much more Lighter and Softer style both musically and lyrically (save for the Hard Rock-influenced "What's Really Happening" and "The Pretty Things Are Going to Hell"). Its singer-songwriterly feel immediately drew comparisons to Hunky Dory, which was mirrored by Bowie outgrowing his hair in a similiar fashion to how he did back in 1971. All but three songs on the album (the exceptions being "If I'm Dreaming My Life", "What's Really Happening", and "Brilliant Adventure") were both used in and originally recorded for the video game Omikron: The Nomad Soul, essentially making this Bowie's sole foray into VGM. In addition, the song "What's Really Happening?" was also recorded live using lyrics that were submitted as part of a "Cyber Song" fan competition on Bowie's official website, later advertised on the tray art for the album's CD release.

Like its predecessor Earthling, 'hours...' was commercially successful, peaking at No. 5 on the UK albums chart and being certified silver in the UK and gold in France. In the US, it was Bowie's first album since The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars to miss the Billboard Top 40, peaking at No. 47. The critical reception, however, was a lot more mixed; whilst some appreciated the more mellow direction Bowie took, others cited its' slick, overtly sterile production as the album's main drawback. Due to Creative Differences, it was Bowie's final album with Reeves Gabrels as chief collaborator, and would reunite with Tony Visconti for the remainder of his career.

The singles released from this album were "Thursday's Child", "The Pretty Things Are Going to Hell". "Survive", and "Seven"


Tracklist:

  1. "Thursday's Child" (5:24)
  2. "Something in the Air" (5:46)
  3. "Survive" (4:11)
  4. "If I'm Dreaming My Life" (7:04)
  5. "Seven" (4:04)
  6. "What's Really Happening?" (4:10)
  7. "The Pretty Things Are Going to Hell" (4:40)
  8. "New Angels of Promise" (4:35)
  9. "Brilliant Adventure" (1:54)
  10. "The Dreamers" (5:14)

Japanese-exclusive bonus track

  1. "We All Go Through" (4:10)


You're still troping, but you don't know why

  • Alternate Album Cover:
    • Initial pressings of the CD release feature a lenticular cover, meant to evoke a 3D effect with both the two Bowies and the hallway they're lying in. Later releases simply used a regular print of the image.
    • For reasons unknown, the spinal portion of the tray art featured different backgrounds between the initial UK/European and US CD releases. The UK/European version featured a series of orange stripes similar to the ones throughout the rest of the album art, with the "davidbowie.com" text in white and in the same font as his logotype on the front cover. The US version, meanwhile, features a white background for the spinal portion of the tray art, with the "davidbowie.com" text being in a mock barcode. Some releases across regions completely omit this portion altogether, leaving a solid white background on the upper spine. As of Parlophone Records' 2016 repressing of the album, the UK/Europe variant of the spine art is considered the standard one.
    • Some versions of the album totally omit the text, stripes, and mock barcodes from the front cover, leaving just the main image against a white background.
  • Auto-Tune: Used mainly for distorting his vocals. This is most prominent in "Something in the Air" and "The Pretty Things Are Going to Hell"
  • Epic Rocking: "If I'm Dreaming My Life" at 7 minutes long.
  • Instrumental: "Brilliant Adventure"
  • Leet Lingo: Appears in the form of the alphanumeric sequences spelling "David Bowie Hours" beneath the album cover's fake barcodes, with some of the numbers reoriented to better match certain letters. With the numbers properly oriented, the code reads "D6V1DB0W1340URS".
  • Letters 2 Numbers: The section for "Seven" in the liner notes features "7EVEN" written across the lefthand page in large type; may be a possible Shout-Out to the film 7 (which included Bowie's 1995 song "The Hearts Filthy Lesson" in the credits).
  • Lighter and Softer: To Earthling in both respects, as reflected in the cover photo
  • Miniscule Rocking: "Brilliant Adventure" is just under two minutes long.
  • New Sound Album: Neoclassical, ethereal-sounding art rock with some pop leanings.
  • One-Word Title: The album, "Seven" and "Survive".
  • Other Common Music Video Concepts — Band from Mundania:
    • Both the official 'hours...' videos put Bowie in domestic settings and then ease in fantasy elements. In "Thursday's Child", he and his current lover are getting ready for bed when in the bathroom mirror he sees a reflection of his younger self and an old lover. In "Survive", he broods alone in a cluttered kitchen over a romantic breakup— and then gravity goes askew. The unreleased video for "The Pretty Things Are Going to Hell" would kept the trend as well (see What Could Have Been in the Trivia section).
  • Pietà Plagiarism: The album cover has an older long-haired Bowie cradling a (slightly!) younger short-haired version of himself, representing his shift to a Lighter and Softer sound following the much-heavier 1. Outside and Earthling.
  • Rearrange the Song: Both "Seven" and "Survive" saw releases as remixes by Marius DeVries.
  • Religious Russian Roulette: "Seven"
    The Gods forgot they made me
    So I forgot them too
  • Self-Backing Vocalist: The exception being "Thursday's Child" where Holly Palmer is featured quite prominently (see Soprano and Gravel)
  • Snakes Are Sinister: A Black Mamba can be seen laying at the feet of the three Bowies on the back cover, hinting at the album's occasional darker undercurrents.
  • Soprano and Gravel: "Thursday's Child", though Bowie's voice isn't exactly gravelly.
  • Three-Dimensional Episode: Early releases of 'hours...' feature a lenticular cover, which can be tilted to shift the perspective in the cover photo, providing a pseudo-3D effect.
  • Time Title: "Thursday's Child" derives its name from both a line in the nursery rhyme "Monday's Child" and a line in The Velvet Underground's "All Tomorrow's Parties" (itself a reference to the nursery rhyme), tying in with the lyrics looking back on Bowie's life up to 1999.
  • Title Track: One of Bowie's five albumsnote  that doesn't feature one (depending on whether or not you count Space Oddity, which was originally a Self-Titled Album, and Tin Machine II, which depends on whether or not you treat Tin Machine as a true Bowie project or an independent entity, the number goes up to either six or seven).

Alternative Title(s): Hours

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