David Bowie | Space Oddity | The Man Who Sold the World | Hunky Dory
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars | Aladdin Sane | Pin Ups | Diamond Dogs | Young Americans
Station to Station | Low | "Heroes" | Lodger | Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) | Let's Dance | Tonight | Never Let Me Down
Tin Machine | Black Tie White Noise | The Buddha of Suburbia | Outside | Earthling | 'hours...' | Heathen | Reality | 'hours...'
The Next Day | ★ | Changesonebowie
- Creator Backlash: Both Bowie and Tony Visconti were dissatisfied with the album's mixing, which was limited by extenuating circumstances in Bowie's personal life and Visconti being stuck with a more limited mixing console in New York than what was available in Switzerland. Consequently, at Bowie's suggestion, Visconti remixed the album during the sessions for ★ in 2015, with Bowie approving the results shortly before his death. The remix was released exclusively on the 2017 Boxed Set A New Career in a New Town (1977-1982).
- Dear Negative Reader: Producer Tony Visconti responded
to the negative responses many fans had toward the 2017 remix, stating that a lot of the "erroneous and egregious comments" were based on a misunderstanding of the timeline of events, in particular spreading the misconception that the remix was made after Bowie's death (in actuality, it was worked on concurrently with the ★ sessions in 2015 and got Bowie's seal of approval shortly before his passing). - No Export for You: "Boys Keep Swinging" was never released as a single in the United States, being exclusive to the UK and continental Europe; executives at RCA didn't feel American audiences would take kindly to the song's androgynous undertones, and released "Look Back in Anger" in its place. Conversely, the single release of "Look Back in Anger" never officially made it out of the states.
- Reality Subtext: The themes of traveling on the album's first side were prominently influenced by Bowie's own constant traveling throughout his life and its effects on his songwriting, a relationship he'd previously noted in a 1977 interview.
- Similarly Named Works: This album has no relation to the 2010 episode of Doctor Who.
- Throw It In!: "Move On" came about after Bowie accidentally started playing a copy of Mott the Hoople's "All the Young Dudes" (which he wrote) backwards, asking Tony Visconti to write down the resulting chord progression before composing around that.
- What Could Have Been:
- Bowie's original sketch◊ for the album cover depicted it as a collage of pseudo-urban imagery vaguely themed around the Working Title, Planned Accidents. The ultimate cover would instead depict Bowie as an accident victim splayed across a bathroom wall.
- The album's cover photo was originally shot with a professional-grade camera on Kodachrome film, producing a much higher-quality photo◊. However, Bowie preferred the gritty, lowbrow look of the alternate Polaroid photo◊ and had that used instead. The Kodachrome photo would eventually be used as the interior gatefold artwork for the 2017 not-remix of Lodger and as the interior tray artwork for Parlophone's standalone CD release of the 1979 mix in 2018.
- Much of Tony Visconti's production work on the album is actually unfinished; he was working with a tightly constrained timeframe and in a New York studio with more limited tech than what was available in Europe, and as a result, was not able to fulfill his creative intentions with the album's production. Visconti would later get the chance to finish what he started with The Not-Remix of Lodger in 2017.
- Bowie's original sketch
- Working Title: Planned Accidents and Despite Straight Lines were proposed for the album, nodding to its improvisational and experimental approach, before Bowie eventually settled on Lodger.
- Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: Like "Heroes" before it, much of Lodger was written through extensive improvisation. For instance, Adrian Belew wasn't allowed to hear the album's songs when he recorded guitar parts for it, instead being asked to noodle about as he saw fit.
