Black Tie White Noise


Black Tie White Noise is the 18th studio album by English musician David Bowie. Released in 1993, it was his first solo release in the 1990s and his first solo album in nearly six years, after spending time with his hard rock band Tin Machine, retiring his old hits on his Sound+Vision Tour, and marrying supermodel Iman. This album was an attempt to make "a new kind of melodic form of house" music and featured his old guitarist from the Ziggy Stardust era, Mick Ronson, who died of cancer 24 days after the album's release. This album was inspired by his own wedding and includes tracks such as "The Wedding" and its reprise at the end of the album as a song reflecting the occasion.
The album is commonly viewed as the start of an artistic renaissance for Bowie, whose creative enthusiasm and career had suffered in the mid-to-late 1980s after a series of poorly received projects.
The album debuted at number one in the UK Albums Chart, his last No. 1 UK album until The Next Day.

Album development

Bowie reconnected with Nile Rodgers in New York after a 1991 concert with his band Tin Machine. Bowie had worked with Rodgers previously on 1983's Let's Dance. Bowie pointed out that he and Rodgers were not looking to do a rehash of their previous success. "If Nile and I wanted to do Let's Dance II, we would have done it years ago, when, perhaps, it would have made more sense. Working together again, we avoided falling into that trap at all costs." Rodgers agreed, stating "Half the fun of working with David is that you never know what the fuck he's going to come up with." Of wanting to work together again, Bowie continued, "We both basically missed the same element, with what was happening with the new R&B, which is now hip-hop and house, and what we were missing was the strong melodic content that was apparent in the '60s. I wanted to see if we could establish a new kind of melodic form of house."
Rodgers described Bowie's attitude during the recording of this album as "a lot more relaxed this time than he was at the Let's Dance sessions, a hell of a lot more philosophical and just in a state of mind where his music was really, really making him happy." Overall Rodgers said the album took "one year, more or less" to record, a long time compared to Let's Dances three weeks.
Bowie played a lot of saxophone on the album, which Rodgers found challenging. He said:
Of recording the album, Bowie said:
On the album's title, Bowie said:

Song development

Bowie and Iman, newly married, had arrived in Los Angeles to look for a new home together on the day that the Rodney King verdict was read, which was followed by a riot in Los Angeles. This inspired Bowie to write the track "Black Tie White Noise", which he recorded with a tough, edgy quality to avoid it ending up like "an 'Ebony and Ivory' for the Nineties." Singer Al B. Sure! collaborated with Bowie on this track. Of landing in Los Angeles to the riots, Bowie said:
The track "Jump They Say" is a loosely autobiographical track about Bowie's step-brother, Terry, who committed suicide after being hospitalised for schizophrenia in the 1980s. "It's the first time I've felt capable of addressing it, and, as always, when I'm taking the first step toward a situation I address it in terms of illusionistic images", Bowie said.
Bowie and Gabrels had previously written the song "You've Been Around" together when they were with Tin Machine, but the track never came out satisfactorily, so Bowie revived it when working on this album. "What I like about it is the fact that for the first half of the song, there's no harmonic reference. It's just drums and the voice comes in out of nowhere and you're not sure if it's a melody line or a drone or whatever and there's a really ominous feel to it that I like a lot. But one of the most satisfying things about making that particular track was working with Reeves on it because I had the chance, because it was my album, not Tin Machine's, to mix Reeves way into the background, so I knew that that would doubtlessly really irritate him, which indeed it did." Bowie also appreciated the sexuality of the song, saying "It's the texture of a song, for me, that almost comes above the lyrical content. The sex is in the rhythm, and being a very sexual person, that's very important for me, that it moves me."
Bowie had reconnected with Mick Ronson partly due to Ronson's involvement in Morrissey's most recent album Your Arsenal, which Bowie was impressed with enough that he recorded a "totally camp" cover of the album's Bowie-esque "I Know It's Gonna Happen Someday". "It's me singing Morrissey singing me," Bowie said.
Bowie also recorded the song "Bring Me the Disco King", which Bowie described as "a depressing song summing up the sad late Seventies with a Philip Glass refrain running through it." This track did not end up on the album, however, and remained buried in Bowie's vault until its release on Bowie's 2003 album Reality.
Bowie had a personal reason for recording a new version of Cream's "I Feel Free", which Rolling Stone later called a "wild, funked-up cover of a well-known Sixties FM chestnut":
Bowie, who had written five pieces of music for his wedding ceremony to Iman, put two of them on the album: "Pallas Athena" and "The Wedding Song / The Wedding". Writing these songs is what triggered Bowie to make the album. He said:

Release and reception

In interviews given prior to the album's release, Bowie was especially coy, refusing to divulge either the name of the album or the tracks he was recording. Bowie was feeling good about the record, saying "I'm so proud of this record. At the risk of blowing my own horn, I don't think I've hit this peak before as a performer and a writer."
Contemporary reviews of the album were generally positive, with one reviewer called this album "arguably his best since Scary Monsters". Rolling Stone magazine called the album "one of the smartest records of a very smart career" and called the album's resulting positive critical acclaim and public adulation "one of the great Houdini-like tricks in the history of Rock & Roll." A 2011 review of the album by the BBC credited the production quality and Bowie's "immense confidence" for an album that rose above its immediate predecessors.
Entertainment Weekly found the album mostly "listless" and "tired" with two exceptions: the "dreamy" "Miracle Goodnight" and the "witty" "I Know It's Gonna Happen Someday". Robert Christgau, writing in The Village Voice, said that the music was Bowie's "most arresting" because of its dance beats and electronic textures, but reacted negatively towards Bowie's lyrics, e.g. about race relations in the title track.
The album reached the number one spot on the UK Albums Chart, supported by the singles "Jump They Say" and "Miracle Goodnight". However, until re-releases later in the 1990s, the album was extraordinarily rare after the fledgling Savage Records on which it had been released suddenly went bankrupt.
Bowie intentionally did not tour in support of the album, saying "Heavens, no. I'd like to , but it takes up so much time.... I think I lost such a lot of my life through doing that." Bowie would tour again in 1995 with his Outside Tour.

Artwork

Nick Knight, the photographer for the album cover, originally had a different plan for the cover: He intended to use a simple portrait of Bowie's face, but mirrored down the middle, with the two right hand sides as the front cover, and the two left hand sides as the back cover. The result would be "a slightly strange, disturbing vision that left the viewer feeling that something was not quite right." This concept was abandoned, and a different shot from the same photo session was used instead.

Legacy

After the poor reception of the albums Tonight and Never Let Me Down, and the Glass Spider Tour, Bowie's critical stature was at a career low. This album, combined with the Sound+Vision Tour and participation in Tin Machine, marked the beginning of his commercial revival and improved critical standing, with the BBC later calling the album a "perfect" way to begin the "next stage" of Bowie's career.
It has been suggested by critics that it was Bowie's name rather than the music which prevented a bigger commercial success; to prove a point, in 1993, anonymous club remixes of the album track "Pallas Athena" were released to American dance floors and became big hits.
After finishing the album, Bowie said he planned to take some time off to spend with his wife, as well as go back into the studio with Tin Machine for a third album in 1993. The Tin Machine project failed to come together, however, and Bowie's next effort was to be his solo soundtrack, The Buddha of Suburbia.

Track listing

Notes
is a 1993 film created to accompany the Black Tie White Noise album. The film is hybrid of documentary, music video film, and music video compilation, intended to promote the album instead of a tour.

Jump (The David Bowie interactive CD-ROM)

To coincide with the album's release, Bowie commissioned an "interactive CD-ROM" be produced based on the album. Released in 1994, the Jump CD-ROM gave users a chance to remake Bowie's "Jump They Say" video, remix "Black Tie White Noise," and explore a virtual world based on the album It also included four complete music videos and excerpts from interviews with David Bowie about the creation of the video and album.
The CD-ROM was not well received. Initially Bowie was excited with the project, expecting it to be "fully interactive, and have a nonlinear storyline" and allowing listeners to play it over and over and "never go through the same experience." The release did not live up to his expectations, however, and Bowie was quoted in 1995 saying "I hated it. I absolutely loathed it.... There were aspects of it I thought had potential, but then again, there was so much information on the disc itself that made the idea of anybody using it interactively a joke. Interactive, as far as I'm concerned, is when the person who's operating the computer has as much to say as what's on the screen. That is interactive. And at the moment, it's just the ABC options. Even the most sophisticated CD-ROMs are just 'Here's the hard information. Now, you can take one of these three steps.'"

Personnel

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications