David Bowie: Reality [ISO / PARLOPHONE]

Why you'll love it

This remastered reissue comes with a six-page booklet of lyrics, credits, illustrations and photos, pressed in Germany. Reality reached No. 3 in the UK and launched A Reality Tour, Bowie's biggest ever.

This edition

• Remastered
• Booklet included
• Lyrics included
• Pressed in Germany

About the album

Fresh off the road from the Heathen Tour in late 2002, Bowie was in no mood to sit still. He called Tony Visconti back, booked Looking Glass Studios in New York, and between January and May 2003 the pair built an album with one simple aim: songs that would sound great live. Most of the playing comes from his touring band, and it shows in the punch.

"New Killer Star" opens with a rush, "Never Get Old" is a swaggering look at ageing, and "She'll Drive the Big Car" and "Days" show off his storytelling. He covers two songs he clearly loved, The Modern Lovers' "Pablo Picasso" and George Harrison's "Try Some, Buy Some," while the closing "Bring Me the Disco King" dates all the way back to 1992 and finally found its home here as a slow, smoky late-night piece. The cover turns Bowie into an anime-style character, his way of saying reality had become a rather abstract idea.

Critics praised the songwriting and his growing maturity, and it was his last album of new material for a decade, until The Next Day arrived in 2013. "Fall Dog Bombs the Moon" took him all of thirty minutes to write, which is less time than we spend deciding which Bowie section to file this under.

Also at Kops: more David Bowie on vinyl · browse Rock

Tracklist

Listen

On ISO / Parlophone (cat# DB0216-3), a reissue of the 2003 album.