(right) in October 1995, shortly after the release of
Outside. Without a label for the third time in three years,
Outsides release was delayed while Bowie attempted to find an American distributor, later commenting, "Nobody would take
Outside when we first recorded it." In June 1995, Bowie signed a contract with
Virgin America Records, telling
Music Connection in September that the label were "extremely supportive" regarding the
Outside concept and allowed Bowie full creative control in the studio. Additionally, Virgin acquired the rights to Bowie's work from ''
Let's Dance (1983) to Tin Machine
, reissuing them throughout the rest of the year with bonus tracks. In Britain, Bowie entered a new deal with BMG, who issued Black Tie
and Buddha'' in the country. BMG were now affiliated with
RCA Records, Bowie's label throughout the 1970s and whom he had departed in 1982. "The Hearts Filthy Lesson" was released as the
lead single on 11 September 1995. It was accompanied by a
music video directed by
Samuel Bayer that was initially banned from
MTV due to provocative imagery. Commercially, the single performed poorly, peaking at number 35 on the
UK Singles Chart and number 92 on the US
Billboard Hot 100. Pegg and Trynka state that Bowie desired to display a video of "artistic merit" rather than for chart appeal.
Outside, stylised as
1. Outside – The Nathan Adler Diaries: A Hyper-cycle, was released on 25 September 1995 by Virgin America in the US and Arista, BMG and RCA in other territories on
LP and CD formats. Commercially,
Outside peaked at number 8 on the
UK Albums Chart and number 21 on the US
Billboard 200; Bowie's profile in America had been raised through the popularity of Nirvana's
MTV Unplugged version of "
The Man Who Sold the World", as well as artists who cited Bowie's influence such as
Nine Inch Nails,
the Smashing Pumpkins and
Marilyn Manson. Due to advance orders,
Outside became Bowie's fastest-selling album since
Tonight. ed form featuring the English duo
Pet Shop Boys (pictured in 2013). Bowie promoted
Outside through various television appearances. "Strangers When We Meet" was issued as a
double A-side single with a new recording of "The Man Who Sold the World" mixed by Eno on 20 November 1995. It reached number 39 in the UK and was supported by a music video, again directed by Bayer. Bowie performed the song at the European MTV Awards the same month. "Hallo Spaceboy" was released as the third and final single on 19 February 1996 in a new
remix featuring the English duo
Pet Shop Boys. The idea originated from
Neil Tennant, who added lines referencing
Major Tom from "
Space Oddity" (1969). Pet Shop Boys subsequently appeared in the song's video, directed by longtime Bowie director
David Mallet, and performed the song with Bowie at the
Brit Awards in February and on
Top of the Pops in March. The single itself performed well commercially, peaking at number 12 in the UK. The remix later replaced "Wishful Beginnings" on the March 1996 European reissue of
Outside titled
1. Outside Version 2.
Art-Crime Comic Anticipating that the narrative of the album might be inaccessible to fans when it was released, one of the record executives in Mexico, Arturo López Gavito, commissioned a comic to clarify the story. The comic, a one-off called
Art-Crime, was created by two young illustrators, Victor "Pico" Covarrubias and Jotavé (
Jazmin Velasco-Moore). It was given away with the CD.
Context In 1995, the UK music scene was dominated by
Britpop bands such as
Suede,
Blur,
Pulp and
Oasis, all of whom were indebted to Bowie's 1970s works. In his book
The Last Party, the British journalist
John Harris states, "David Bowie was a far greater influence on Britpop than any artist of the '60s." Pegg writes that while older artists such as
Paul Weller and
Adam Ant were releasing successful Britpop records in 1995, Bowie stood in tangent with industrial rock artists like Nine Inch Nails and techno artists such as Tricky,
Goldie and
the Chemical Brothers. Buckley says that the only record that was stylistically similar to
Outside at the time was
Scott Walker's
Tilt, released four months prior. Further analysing the cultural landscape beyond music at that time, Pegg states that
Outside arrived alongside the "glamorous cruelty" of
Pulp Fiction (1994); it "inhabited the trashy
cyberpunk milieu" of films such as
Judge Dredd,
Tank Girl and
12 Monkeys (all 1995); and exhibited elements of "
extraterrestrial conspiracy theories" brought to the forefront on television by
The X-Files.
Outside was also one of the first albums in the age of the
internet and showcased the same "pre-millennial angst" as Pulp's late 1995 single "
Disco 2000". Tracks from
Outside were also used in entertainment. "The Hearts Filthy Lesson" was played over the end credits of
Seven (1995), while "A Small Plot of Land" was the theme song for the 1996 BBC miniseries
A History of British Art. Pegg concludes: "For the first time since [1980's]
Scary Monsters, Bowie had released an album that accessed the zeitgeist at all levels." ==Critical reception==