Then, at the start of 2013, rumours began to circulate. Some suggested that Bowie was preparing to release new music – a claim so implausible it was largely dismissed. How could an artist of such global stature record an album in secret, untouched by leaks or scrutiny, in the era of smartphones and instant communication?
As Alexander Larman recounts in Lazarus: The Second Coming of David Bowie, what followed was an act of cultural originality as bold as anything Bowie had pulled off before. Rejecting the machinery of modern promotion, he chose instead to let the work speak for itself. On his birthday, 8 January 2013, a new song appeared without warning, placed into the world like a gift or a provocation.
The response was immediate and overwhelming. Joy, disbelief, and relief rippled through fans and critics alike as Where Are We Now? unfolded in all its fragile, reflective beauty. Bowie had returned, once more reminding the world of his unmatched ability for reinvention. His comeback was not a nostalgic return to past glories, but a reassertion of artistic purpose.
Lazarus: The Second Coming of David Bowie has been reviewed glowing across mainstream media and the music press alike, with The Times calling it ‘Sensitive, witty and very often affecting. (A) bold and enlightening exploration of Bowie’s later career’ and Classic Pop raving that it is ‘a genuine must-buy’ – a remarkable accolade in a overcrowded field.
Here, we present an exclusive excerpt detailing exactly how the triumphant rise began one day in 2013.
The Next Day
Late in the evening of 7 January 2013, a strange rumour began to circulate on social media. A few high-profile music journalists and known David Bowie fans, such as Caitlin Moran and Alexis Petridis, had been sent a terse email suggesting that they should wake up – or, for the more nocturnal, check in – at 5am the following morning and look at their emails, where news was promised. That the message was coming from Bowie’s publicists at Outside suggested that it concerned the long-absent musician, but no further details were forthcoming. Where there is a lack of information, gossip immediately takes hold.
The first suggestion was that there was a Bowie box set or high-profile reissue announced to coincide with his 66th birthday. It was news, undoubtedly – anything connected with Bowie was of interest, especially since his withdrawal from the public eye nearly a decade ago after an on-stage heart attack in 2004 – but it wasn’t seismic news. The next idea was a grimmer one. Stories about Bowie’s ill health had been circulating through the industry for several years now, and Outside and his management had refused to dignify them with any further information, not even a rebuttal. But perhaps things had reached the stage where something had to be announced, if only to dispel the tittle-tattle. If Bowie’s condition was serious, then he may have wished to issue a similar pre-emptive statement. Had this been the case, then it would have made for a uniquely morbid birthday present.
The third rumour was the least likely of all. A couple of the better- informed music critics surmised that Bowie was about to release a new single, his first recording for a decade. Yet this seemed wildly unlikely. Bowie was, after all, one of the most famous men in the world, someone who was scrutinised and had his movements (such as they were) logged and reported and carefully dissected by his admirers. How on earth would he have managed not only to record a single – let alone an album – with- out anyone noticing? It was an outlandish suggestion. The possibility that, in the era of smartphones and mass communication – one that he had foretold in his famous Newsnight interview in 1999 – someone as iconic as Bowie could simply have returned to an industry that virtually everyone assumed that he had long since left behind seemed both fanciful and impossible.
Many sensible figures, the self-appointed custodians of the Bowie legacy, were quick to dismiss the murmurings. And although a few curious figures set their alarms for 5am the following morning, preparing to be disappointed – perhaps a new expanded Tin Machine box set would be announced, or a five-disc Earthling drum ’n’ bass release would be visited upon us all – most decided that this was just another excitable story, put about by the terminally optimistic, who seemed incapable of accepting that Bowie’s career was over.
A few hours later, things were rather different.
Once Bowie’s comeback album The Next Day was completed in late October 2012, after a secretive recording process that had begun in 2010, the question arose about what was going to be done with it. It would have been easy enough to start up the promotional machine again, to coordinate a global release with interviews, an expensive campaign and whatever live performances Bowie could be persuaded to participate in, but this would have run the risk of making the album’s arrival in the world seem almost mundane. Undoubtedly, the return of Bowie after a near-decade of silence would be an event, but there was a difference between excited pleasure and something truly epochal, an initiative that would attract attention on a hitherto unparalleled scale.
Its producer Tony Visconti described the promotional decision that was taken with considerable, indeed almost misleading, precision. ‘[Rob Stringer, Sony Music president] came to the studio. He was thrilled. He said “What about the PR campaign?” And David said, “There is no PR campaign. We’re just going to drop it on 8 January. That’s it.” It’s such a simple idea, but Bowie came up with it. In fact, what happened – according to Alan Edwards – was that Bowie, who his ever-loyal publicist described as looking ‘quite frail’, greeted him in New York by saying, ‘I’ve recorded a new album and I want to release the first single from it.’ When asked when this would take place, he said ‘Tuesday. It’s my birthday and I want to release a track as my birthday gift to the world.’
Edwards suggested that the album’s release should not be regarded merely as a piece of music news, but as a major news story that would play well with the Today programme and thereby establish Bowie as not just a cultural heavyweight but an internationally important figure. It was a daring, even provocative strategy, but his client’s long absence from the spotlight meant that there was – in his estimation, at least – a hunger to hear from Bowie once again, even if there was to be no direct comment from him. Edwards was not regarded as one of the industry’s most successful PR men for no reason and he put together a list of important people who could break the news most effectively, led by the Sky News presenter Kay Burley.
Such was Bowie’s concern that matters be kept secret until first thing in the morning of 8 January 2013 that Edwards found himself in the unusual, and potentially compromising, position of having to tell Britain’s leading news and music journalists alike that there was a major story on the verge of breaking, but that he was unable to give more details until just before it did.
The explosion of excitement and delight that greeted the announcement of Bowie’s return was without parallel in my lifetime. I still vividly remember waking up early on 8 January to endless messages from friends, all wanting to discuss the happy news, and then reaching bleary-eyed for my phone to watch the Tony Oursler-directed video for ‘Where Are We Now?’ Like every other Bowie fan, I had heard that his retirement had been occasioned by severe ill health and I feared that any developments concerning him would be bad. Yet as the first Bowie music video to have been released in nearly a decade unfolded, and the song that accompanied it built in majesty and power, hopes I didn’t even know I had were fulfilled.
David Bowie was back, and how. It was little wonder that Edwards triumphantly wrote in his autobiography that ‘this was one of the greatest PR campaigns of my career. In its simplicity and clarity, it distilled everything I’ve learned since 1975.’ Just over three years later, we would all wake up once again, and the news would be rather worse.