David Bowie Biography

"Outside", a collaboration with Brian Eno that received mixed reviews and disappointing sales, was followed by a tour with Russell Crowe's band 'Nine Inch Nails' in order to pull a younger alternative audience, but taking on that failed and fans left before the performance even started and 'Outside' disappeared. Fans were clearly not accepting Bowie's wish to push forward and challenge. On the industrial noise-rock and dance music-inspired "Earthling", the cracks were beginning to show - with his record, Bowie ceased to be an innovator; instead he merely became in imitator. If the dance beats were stripped away to reveal the real David Bowie, it would have been a more satisfying album. In 1998, Bowie, ever looking towards the future, launched the first artist-created Internet service provider, bowienet. In 1999, he worked and recorded with Placebo and returned to a more conventional style of song writing on "Hours..." This album had strong links with the Hunky Dory's construction of song and similar vocal inflections, especially with tracks such as "Seven", that was his most satisfying and successful recording for sometime, but was his final studio album for Virgin.

In December 2001, the artist announced the launch of his own independent label, 'ISO'. 2002 sold many albums his first release on the imprint, "Heathen", and saw Bowie working with Tony Visconti for the first time in over two decades. The duo teamed up again for "Reality", which was released to mixed reviews and into a 'World Tour' in 2003!

The following June, Bowie was forced to undergo emergency heart surgery in Germany, to treat an acutely blocked artery and made a full recovery to continue his world tour!

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