In 2003 David Bowie released his last studio album Reality. Not one of his best but not the worst of his 24 studio albums. It was released at a time of considerable creative activity hot on the heels of the excellent Heathen album and followed by the Reality world tour. It was during this tour in Germany 2004 that a blocked artery caused him to collapse after coming off stage and so began the start of his retirement. Now this retirement has been going on for 8 years because he has never actually said he’s calling it a day despite continued rumours of ill health and although he no longer speaks to the press and only makes sporadic public appearances, he continues to mine his not inconsiderable back catalogue for re-issues, re-mixes and outtakes which in a way compensate for the lack of new material.
So what does he do these days? He is father to a young teenage daughter and his public life involves attending various charitable events in New York (where he lives) with his wife Iman. Every year a new rumour about his ‘come back’ surfaces, a recent one appeared on Twitter from one of his many fake accounts stating that Lou Reed had inspired him to return to the studio for a collaboration on Transformer 2 or something. His official website confirmed that this was nonsense as he does not even use Twitter. It would be unusual for him to do so bearing in mind he is generally shunning public contact as far as his career goes. His official website sometimes goes days without an update and when it does it’s rarely to inform us of anything really interesting. However it has announced that for Record Store Day there will be a special 7" vinyl picture disc release of Starman and there will be a collector’s edition of a recent album ‘Hours’ being released next month. I thought it was a strange choice of album to rerelease as a collectors edition, not that it’s a bad album, it’s just not synchronous to the order of earlier albums that have gone through a repackaging to make them collectable. The last one prior to this was the lavish Station to Station boxset containing heavy vinyl, CD’s, posters, badges, tour and fan club memorabilia from the 1976 release (my wife very kindly carried my copy home from its delivery point on the South Bank to our flat in East London in the pissing rain trying to protect the precious cargo with a small umbrella, still pissed off with me I think).
So is there a plan for the ‘Berlin Trilogy’? I would guess so as these three (bar Scary Monsters) are the last truly great releases of David’s career and the end of his frankly breathtaking 70’s output. Although the 80’s is largely forgettable and the 90’s considerably better I would love to see Low, Heroes and Lodger getting some of the collectable treatment, it would be almost as good as a new release, better in fact if the new release turned out to be no good! There is a story flying around that the demo of Loving the Alien which is one of the few good tracks on the indifferent 80’s album Tonight is far superior to the version that appears on the album, maybe that will see the light of day if Tonight is reissued. The downside is that it would share album space with his cover of God Only Knows often regarded as his worst and most pointless recording.
I like to think that if he’s not going to release any new material and future touring is out of the question maybe he is working on his long anticipated autobiography, something he started working on back in the 70’s and then abandoned. Lots has happened since the 70’s and although I’ve read several biographies all with a different point of view on his career, to get his own take on what happened would be the holy grail for most fans.
Maybe he will do nothing. His legacy is intact and he certainly has nothing to prove anymore or maybe he has? Whatever Bowie does, it will be no doubt as it has always been, exactly what no one expects.
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