"It was definitely murder - but was it art?" So begins one of my all-time favorite albums, David Bowie's "Outside". I was just dusting out my CD collection and guess what crawled out of the closet.



This was originally intended to be the first album in a series, hence the "1" on the album cover, but the continuation of this saga never came to pass.

As you might have guessed by now, I just love this album... the booklet, the artwork, the db logo. Everything is perfect, and years from the original release, it still keeps its original intensity (for me, this is even better than the Berlin records "Low", "Heroes" and "Lodger"... well, maybe not "Heroes" ^_^)

Perhaps better remembered from movies like "Se7en" or "Lost Highway", the record tells the tale of detective Nathan Adler investigating the "art-ritual murder" of Baby Grace Blue. On the booklet we can read "the diary of Nathan Adler or a non-linear gothic drama Hyper-cycle." Pretentious? Well, perhaps... But in my head, this album became synonymous with the 90's, and with all the hits and misses that connotes.

The music is a startling mixture of electronics and pop/rock, featuring lots of experimentalism (yes, Brian Eno gave a hand on production). As for the lyrics, we get the usual "magik" stuff so typical of Bowie:

...It's happening now
The crazed in the hot-zone
The mental and diva's hands
The fisting of life
To the music outside...

...Toll the bell
Pay the private eye
All's well
20th century dies...

...All the majesty of a city landscape
All the soaring days in our lives
All the concrete dreams in my mind's eye
All the joy I see thru these architect's eyes...

Guess this CD is now gonna stay on my stereo for a few more days! And now, here's a live video of "Outside" from a German TV show.