GERMANY/FILE: David Bowie's years in Berlin are part of musical history, as his new album "The Next Day" takes him back to these roots

Record ID: 528889

  • Title: GERMANY/FILE: David Bowie's years in Berlin are part of musical history, as his new album "The Next Day" takes him back to these roots
  • Date: 7th March 2013
  • Summary: STILLS OF DAVID BOWIE
  • Embargoed: 22nd March 2013 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Germany
  • Country: Germany
  • Topics: Entertainment,People
  • Reuters ID: LVAACMEPE2V2C4UGCJMXRQ4KD7D1
  • Story Text: "The Next Day", music icon David Bowie's first new album in nearly a decade, will be released in Germany on Friday (March 8), and it revives a love affair with Berlin Bowie began in the seventies when he moved to West Berlin. In 1976, Bowie was living in Switzerland, where he owned a chalet. A drug addiction and interest in the German electronic music scene prompted the star to move to the then divided city, where at first he shared an apartment with Iggy Pop in Berlin Schoeneberg. Both of them wanted to clean up and get creative, and both did so at Berlin's famous Hansa Studios, where Bowie recorded much of his so-called Berlin Trilogy, co-produced by Tony Visconti.
    In January this year, Bowie released the album's first single in a surprise launch coinciding with his 66th birthday. "Where Are We Now?", also produced by long-term collaborator Visconti, is a melancholic look back to the time Bowie spent in Berlin with an accompanying video featuring black-and-white footage of the city when it was still divided.
    "He (David Bowie) repeatedly said that what he produced here was in his genes, in his DNA, it was no blabber or empty words," said Thilo Schmied, who is the owner of Fritz Musictours Berlin, offering guided tours of Bowie's Berlin hang outs and other tours involving Berlin's music scene. "Had he not been majorly influenced by this time he would not have come back now with this Berlin-song (new single 'Where Are We Now'). He usually never looked back but always ahead, so this is the first time after all these years that he is kind of taking a step back with his comeback. He almost sounds a little wistful, in that respect it is an affirmation of how important this time was."
    'Where Are We Now', available on iTunes and free to view on his re-launched website, was recorded in New York and will be followed by Bowie's first studio album since 2003, "The Next Day", due out in Germany on March 8 and in the United Kingdom and the United States on March 12.
    The artwork for the album appears to be based on that used on "Heroes", Bowie's acclaimed 1977 record that was the second album in his "Berlin Trilogy". According to Schmied Bowie particularly appreciated the fact that he could move around the German capital in a fairly unchallenged way.
    "Despite the super star status he had at that time already it was nice for him that he could lead a relatively normal life here. Of course, he still had a driver and didn't have to drive himself. But if he felt like it, he rode a bike or went by tube. But it was not an aloof or detached life in a palace. It was Schoeneberg (a West Berlin district), and especially the Hauptstrasse (the street Bowie lived on) is right in the middle and not exactly posh," said Schmied.
    Today, Bowie's former apartment at Hauptstrasse 55 is home to a Lebanese family, many of the clubs Bowie and Iggy Pop frequented are no longer existent. Potsdamer Platz however, a place that like no other symbolised the divided city back then, is now a bustling centre for business and pleasure.
    Eduard "Edu" Meyer, now in his seventies, worked with Bowie as a sound engineer during his years at the Hansa Studios. He fondly remembers some of the singer's escapades.
    "There was this one time when work was finished and there were three girls hanging out by the door, whom he (Bowie) had apparently asked to come. Everybody was watching expectantly. Bowie noticed them and said to Iggy Pop: you can pick one, I'll take the other two," Meyer recalled smilingly.
    In his souvenir collection Meyer not only has rare stills of Bowie sporting a moustache but also a guestbook entry from Bowie and Pop that they left after a surprise visit to Meyer's home. Meyer remembers how much of an impression Berlin left on Bowie, an impression that never failed to return even many years later, when Bowie, Eurythmics and Genesis gave a now legendary concert in front of the Berlin Reichstag.
    "In 1987 which was the 750 year Berlin anniversary there was a concert, the famous concert at the Reichstag. The was a large audience on the western side, but also behind the wall, on the eastern side the was a large number of fans who had gathered. The applause came from both sides. And David mentioned later on how much that had impressed him right in the middle of the divided city," he said.
    The typically understated associations with the singer's past in 'Where Are We Now' have prompted the music press to speculate that he may be returning to the German cycle.
    As yet there is no word on whether Bowie will tour to support the album.
    Bowie's label Columbia Records (belonging to Sony Music) said the new song was a "treasure" that appeared "as if out of nowhere", underlining the element of surprise.
    "Throwing shadows and avoiding the industry treadmill is very David Bowie despite his extraordinary track record that includes album sales in excess of 130 million not to mention his massive contributions in the area of art, fashion, style, sexual exploration and social commentary," the label said.
    The album will consist of 14 songs, and a deluxe edition will feature three bonus tracks.
    The glam-rock star, born David Jones in south London in 1947, shot to fame with "Space Oddity" in 1969, and later with his alter ego Ziggy Stardust, before establishing himself as a chart-topping force in the early 1980s.
    His long absence from the music scene led to speculation that he had retired, with British newspapers reporting as recently as October that he had disappeared from the limelight for good.
    Bowie's last album of new material was "Reality", released a decade ago, and he underwent emergency heart surgery while on tour in 2004. His last stage performance was as a guest at a charity concert in New York in 2006.
    Known for his constant desire to re-invent himself and experiment with different musical and fashion styles, Bowie is considered one of the most influential stars of the pop era.
    London's Victoria and Albert Museum is staging a major exhibition dedicated to Bowie, which opens on March 23.
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