In the early 2000s, David Bowie successfully shed his latest incarnation after displaying some largely unsuccessful “industrial” leanings. Hours arrived in 1999 as something dark and introspective, but stilted. Then Bowie put out his best work in two decades with 2002’s Heathen, so hopes were high that the follow-up would continue in this vein.
Reality, quite unbelievably, did just that. Released in September 2003, just over a year after Heathen hit shelves, this successor LP found Bowie returning with another dose of his recently – once again – re-invented self. We actually got a few albums in a row from this persona!
As with his last album, David Bowie tossed in a couple of covers – this time, in the form of Modern Lovers’ “Pablo Picasso” and George Harrison’s “Try Some, Buy Some.” But he upset fans a little bit with the news that the Matrix, a production and writing team with ties to Avril Lavigne and Liz Phair, had a hand in the new album.
Fortunately, they were only behind the mixing console and not writing.
“New Killer Star” couldn’t match the U.K. Top 20 finish of “Everyone Says Hi” from Heathen, but Reality still became another Top 5 U.K. album – and it cracked the Top 20 in America. The result was another great album that – as I once read on the Bowie newsgroup – fans ran out to buy the minute the stores opened, listened to three times, then put on the shelf so they could continue obsessing about early-’70s David Bowie.
Turns out, that’s reality.
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